ANJA NIEMI
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 10, 4-6pm
Exhibition Dates: September 10 - November 23, 2022
Galerie XII Los Angeles is pleased to host the new exhibition of Norwegian artist Anja Niemi. The exhibition will present both of Niemi’s most recent bodies of work, "The Blow" and "The Rider." Over the past decade, Niemi’s work has emerged as a distinctive force within the venerable tradition of conceptual self-portraiture, garnering wide international acclaim. With her purposeful and elaborate staging, Niemi is a photographer, director, and lead, inserting herself into the lives of her fictional characters and their stories. Her images offer a multilayered, cinematic exploration of identity, gender roles, and, crucially, our relationship with ourselves.
THE BLOW
At first glance, The Blow shows an unaccompanied woman, dressed in black and with a face that is always turned, driving to a solitary house in the desert. Here she trades her clothes for that of a boxer. The boxing paraphernalia builds upon the idea that each photograph and setting is a site of mental training and introspective battle. As with all of Niemi’s work, the narratives she constructs and then performs in as both author and character simultaneously, act as allegorical amplifiers to the conversations that lie beneath.
THE RIDER
The Rider Vol. 1 is an ideological progression from Anja Niemi's The Blow, in which the female boxer had the lead role. The Blow was an allegory for struggle, and the countless number of conflicts we as humans wrestle with. This time Niemi recreates her character's struggle in the form of a rider and her horse. Trust and the will to understand each other are essential to their mutual bond. Together they are on an open-ended journey that requires perseverance and the suspension of fear.
About the Artist
Anja Niemi (b. 1976, Norway) always works alone; placing herself within her own meticulous tableaux, she constructs fictional stories where she is both the author and the character. In her work, Niemi appeals to ideas that are innate to the human condition, rather than being confined to a personal mediation. And whilst her poetic narratives are wholly imagined, they act as an intimate space to catalyze real conversations about identity, conformity and the relationship we have with ourselves.