Knut Åsdam


Knut Åsdam (1968) is an artist, filmmaker, writer and professor of moving image. Åsdam studied at Whitney Museum Independent Study Program (NYC 94-95), Jan van Eyck Akademie (Maastricht, 92-94), Goldsmiths College (London, 89-92), and more.

In cinema, video and installation, the main interest of Åsdam’s work is contemporary society and its psychological and material effects, and the toll of every-day life; e.g. how individuals adjusts their identity and desires in reaction to the rules and organizations of contemporary society.

The idiosyncrasy of Åsdam’s films is created by bringing an attention to space, history and place into film, combining this with an acute sense of subjectivity and language, and his mix of documentary and fictional narrative elements.

Åsdam´s work has been shown widely at e.g. MOMA; Tate Modern; Bergen Kunsthall; Tate Britain; Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam; Venice Biennial; Kunsthalle Bern; Istanbul Biennial; FRAC Bourgogne; MACRO, Rome; Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo; Manifesta7; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; NYC: and Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, International Film Festival Rotterdam; and several cinemas internationally.

Upcoming exhibitions and projects include two feature film projects on contemporary Europe. Knut Åsdam’s articles, on cinema and the politics of space and gender have been published widely.

Helene Hoklanden, NO