On the occasion of the inaugural exhibition for the International Library of Fashion Research in collaboration with the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (in Oslo, Norway), Printed Matter’s Chelsea location is hosting an in-store film screening featuring the work of Lengua. The artist, whose work parallels fashion and art and deconstructs perspectives of gender via fashion, was commissioned to create an interactive fashion film that genuinely involves and reflects the international underground queer scene.

Through the lense of a flickering sun, the short film titled «Bliss, Abyss» narrates three characters on an apocalyptic or disastrous quest towards another world; bodies (with grotesque costumes and sun-burnt skin) in relationship with other bodies. An extension of Lengua’s personal work within fashion and photography, this film is a highly candid, poetic and visually compelling artistic interpretation of the project’s themes-at-large; such as queer identities, alternative gender expression and Queer Futurism.

The film (which will also be shown throughout the summer months in Oslo) is corresponding with Norway’s “Queer Culture Year 2022”, a series of events marking 50 years since homosexuality was decriminalized.

More about the Oslo screening:

As a symbolic marriage to a heavy public institution such as the National Museum of Norway, we’ll project the film publicly, on the back wall of International Library of Fashion Research, entering into the palazzo square of the new National Museum main entrance. This solidifies the queer outsider’s position in double entendre; with the placement of the film display outside the institution and even outside the academic discourse on queer theory –– or even outside the market’s “pinkwashing” strategies… This ‘outsiderness’ is the exhibition’s conceptual point of departure. The exhibition opens in Oslo in August and runs until October.

At Printed Matter (the first satellite exhibition of the film); the display will also feature a series of books and reference materials further expanding on the themes of the project. Additionally an extended catalog will be published, giving context to the themes, the commission and the project, with contributors selected by the artist themselves in dialogue with the curators. The catalogue expands and explores themes behind the commission such as the anthropocene, queer historiography, synergies between the respective local and international underground scenes and alternative gender expression.

Special thanks to The Norwegian Consulate General in New York for generously supporting this project.

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