Death Mask 5 is a specially compiled mix of Ed Atkins' works from the past decade. Sequenced and edited like a particularly adventurous provincial multiplex programme, Atkins’ assemblage features unseen tests, trailers and teasers interspersing sections of significant works from his catalogue.

With all his video works, Atkins has insisted on their being installed rather than screened, emphasising a different kind of encounter, where a viewer is seldom afforded the succour of a seat, the dark, dramatic redemption. Atkins’ videos might better be thought of as travesties of cinema. Since installation is a precondition of most of his videos’ presentation, a new configuration of his oeuvre was necessary for Kunstnernes Hus’ cinema. Consequently, Atkins has put together a reel that, like the works he has excerpted, follows conventions of form and genre in order to expose them, to get close to them – the better to pervert them to his queasy, intimate ends.

Read more about the film here.

Ed Atkins (b. 1982, Oxford, UK) lives and works in Copenhagen. Recent solo exhibitions include Kunsthaus Bregenz and K21 Düsseldorf (both 2019); Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; MMK Frankfurt; DHC/ART, Montréal (all 2017); Castello di Rivoli and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; The Kitchen, New York (all 2016); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2015), The Serpentine Gallery, London (2014); and MoMA PS1 (2012). Ed was included in the the 56th and 58th Venice Biennales, the 13th Lyon Biennial, and Performa 13.

Kunstnernes Hus Kino is closed until further notice. But we intend to continue supporting both Norwegian and international filmmakers through making their films available to our public. We're therefore thrilled to launch Kunstnernes Hus Home Cinema.

This is how it works: a new film will be available for viewing on our website each Wednesday at 6pm. The films chosen are either movies shown at our cinema or a work by a filmmaker that will come to visit us later in the year, to familiarise the audience with his or her practice. Each film will be available for a week. In addition, short interviews will be published, where filmmakers talk more about their film as well as their experience of this peculiar time.

Kunstnernes Hus Home Cinema is free for everybody. Should you want to support us, our team, the filmmaker or the artist, feel free to become a member of Kunstnernes Hus or vipps us any amount that you like (Vipps: 563558).

Thank you and happy watching.