Jonas Bendiksen's Norwegian Black Metal Goes on Display

More than 40 photographs from Jonas Bendiksen’s project will be exhibited for the first time at the Leica Gallery in Mayfair, London.

Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Øyvind Rasmussen from Skrømt
Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Øyvind Rasmussen from Skrømt
Bendiksen says: “All around the world, I’ve had problems explaining my home country of Norway to people. Even if they imagine they know where this small nation is on the map – somewhere near the North Pole, many say – it is often difficult to find well-known Norwegian exports people can relate to.
“Nobel Peace prizes, fjords, oil exports, and even chess player Magnus Carlsen often yield a blank stare and a shake of the head.
Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Kaahrl Ødemark from The 3rd Attempt.
Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Kaahrl Ødemark from The 3rd Attempt.
“Not so with Norwegian metal.
“In fact, Norwegian extreme metal music has become one of the country’s biggest cultural exports. People all over the world know the lyrics, life stories and albums of bands like Gorgoroth, Burzum and Darkthrone, as well as newer and more obscure bands.
Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Sigurd Dybing from Grand Alchemist.
Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Sigurd Dybing from Grand Alchemist.
“I’ve met people in tiny villages from Bangladesh to Venezuela who almost self-ignite with excitement the moment I mention Norway.
“In the early 1990s, Norwegian Black Metal made its shocking entry on to the world stage with church burnings, homicides, stagecraft, with an intensity few had seen before. The growling vocals and intense riffs of metal music made in Norway somehow hit a primal dissonant note all over the planet.
Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Jimmy "Ofu Khan" Ivan Bergsten from Red Harvest and Waklevören
Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Jimmy “Ofu Khan” Ivan Bergsten from Red Harvest and Waklevören
“I wanted to photograph the music with the same directness and intensity. I took a flash and photographed Norwegian singers singing, head on.”
Jonas’ closely-cropped portraits, shot in dim light with red eye and an unsparing focus on the subject’s hair, beard and sweat bring the viewer remarkably close to the singers.
Each image is accompanied by a sound file of the singers, so that the photographs are not only to be looked at, but also experienced.
Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Stein Roger Sund from Evig natt.
Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Stein Roger Sund from Evig natt.
Bendiksen was born in Norway in 1977. He began his career at the age of 19 as an intern at Magnum’s London office, before leaving for Russia to pursue his own work as a photojournalist.
Throughout the years he spent there, Bendiksen photographed stories from the fringes of the former Soviet Union, a project that was published as the book Satellites (2006).
Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Jonas Nordli from Imaginator.
Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Jonas Nordli from Imaginator.
In 2005, with a grant from the Alicia Patterson Foundation, he started working on The Places We Live, a project on the growth of urban slums across the world, which combines still photography, projections and voice recordings to create three-dimensional installations.
Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Erik Unsgaard from Sarkom.
Norway. 2016. Norwegian singers. Erik Unsgaard from Sarkom.
Bendiksen’s awards include the 2003 Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography, New York, second place in the Daily Life Stories for World Press Photo, and first prize in the Pictures of the Year International Awards.
His documentary of life in a Nairobi slum, Kibera, published in the Paris Review, won a National Magazine Award in 2007.
Jonas Bendiksen’s project was commissioned by Leica UK and shot on the Leica M rangefinder system over the past year.
Singing Norwegian Singers is on show at the Leica Gallery Mayfair from 11 – 27 October 2016.

Tom Seymour

Tom Seymour is an Associate Editor at The Art Newspaper and an Associate Lecturer at London College of Communication. His words have been published in The Guardian, The Observer, The New York Times, Financial Times, Wallpaper* and The Telegraph. He has won Writer of the Year and Specialist Writer of the year on three separate occassions at the PPA Awards for his work with The Royal Photographic Society.