Torbjørn Rødland - Bones in the Canal and Other Photographs

David Kordansky Gallery is pleased to present Bones in the Canal and Other Photographs, an exhibition of new photographs by Torbjørn Rødland. Rødland's first solo gallery exhibition in New York in nearly a decade, the show features two distinct bodies of work, including a group of smaller-format photographs that constitute some of the most significant changes he has made to his working methods since the beginning of his career 30 years ago. Bones in the Canal and Other Photographs is on view in New York at 520 W. 20th St. from March 12 through April 25, 2026. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, March 12 from 6 to 8 PM. Rødland has long been interested in the ways in which photography's seeming exhaustion as a medium provides new opportunities for experimentation and storytelling. Here, he takes a special interest in the formal history of twentieth-century art photography, which presents limitations—and possibilities—for reinvention and expression. While the art world has increasingly relegated art photography of this kind to its own narrow interpretive corner, Rødland's use of ultra-compact 35mm viewfinder cameras, and his decision to challenge himself to adapt to their focus- and framing-based parameters, allows him to return to some of the concerns that drove his earliest work while adding new complexity and range to the context in which his entire project continues to be seen. This broader context is made evident in the larger-format photographs on view, which are unified by their focus on close contact between human subjects and charged, often asymmetrical and unresolved power dynamics. Underscoring both the newness and the continuities of these bodies of work, Bones in the Canal and Other Photographs is divided into two discrete sections. The front of the gallery is dedicated to the 35mm photographs, which depict a wide range of subjects in both color and black and white. With the wider lenses of the smaller cameras, Rødland positions his human subjects in the middle distance, making their surroundings equally integral parts of the compositions.