Mixed media installation and performance shown at “Trapped in Amber: Angst for A Reenacted Decade” at UKS Young Artists Society, Oslo, 21 Feb – 22 Mar 2009
Curated by Bassam El Baroni and Helga-Marie Nordby
“In an autobiographical manner he (Monfeldt) dives into our common history connecting historical and cultural facts, moments and situations with memories and experiences he considers a part of himself. His works are personal and intimate, however engaging on a more general level. He includes the viewer and reflects upon questions we all need to be asking.”
Installation views from UKS Young Artists Society, Oslo, 2009
“For Trapped in Amber Monfeldt has produced a work consisting of a performance featuring puppeteer Jim Barnard and a video installation titled ‘Soldier Red’. The project is based upon the experience of seeing the shocking Western Movie Soldier Blue for the first time. The movie was released 1970 and was itself a dramatization of a true story; the barbaric Sand Creek massacre of an entire Indian village by the US cavalry. Soldier Blue was also regarded as a critical comment on the ongoing Vietnam War, yet it’s selling point was its graphic violence. ‘As far as I remember it, my mother had a group of friends over at our house to watch the highly controversial film. I was too young and too impressionable to see it with them, but resourceful enough to sneak a peak through the keyhole of the closed living room door. What I saw has stayed with me until this day.’”
(Excerpt from catalog text)
Four stills from “Soldier Blue Dances with A Little Big Man Called Horse” (2009), DVD 8.52 min
“Soldier Red”, performance featuring Jim Barnard
“And that’s when I crossed the line from being a dreamer and a dreadful recording artist to becoming a real Indian. The icy wind lifted me high above the town. Far down there I could see the landfills and the ice hockey rinks. I saw my street and my mother’s bright red toy car. I peeped through the keyhole of her living room door and I saw my past, I saw the massacre at Sand Creek playing on her television. This new frontier clearly had nothing to offer me, a little Indian with his head among the clouds.”
(excerpt from text spoken by puppeteer Jim Barnard)
“A Bird’s Eye View”, drawing 110×80 cm
“Little Indian”, photo, magic marker, frame and feather 24×32 cm