No Good Refusniks presented a dialogue between ISP artist resident Thomas Bayrle and his former student Matias Faldbakken. The discussion was be accompanied by a projected compilation of Bayrle's work spanning from the mid 1960s through today.
Thomas Bayrle is an artist who, trained as a weaver, works through drawings, collage, film and computer graphics. The artist focuses on ideas around masses, cells, religion and politics, extending into ideas around generating superstructures through geometric patterns of images with a variety of techniques and materials. In doing so, his work reveals contradictions within the forms of organization upon which society rests. Bayrle characterizes his work as 'a view of society as flat – horizontal – (electric) field/fabric/network. The vertical elements are plucked from the surface, like hay grass in the meadow.' Thomas Bayrle taught at the Academy of Fine Arts, Städelschule, in Frankfurt from 1975 to 2002. He has received several awards and prizes including the Prix Arts Electronica, Linz (1995), and the Cologne Art Prize (2002). Bayrle's work has been shown in over thirty solo exhibitions internationally including in Documenta III and VI and the 2009 Venice Biennial
Matias Faldbakken (b.1973, Hobro, Denmark, lives and works in Oslo, Norway) is a graduate of The Academy of Fine Art, Bergen, Norway, and Staatliche Hochshule für Bildende Künste, Städelshcule, Frankfurt am Main. In 2009 he held a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, titled 'Shocked into Abstraction'. Other recent exhibitions include 'Matias Faldbakken', Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, NY, 'The way of the Bummer', Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK (2008), 'Empty Glass', Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin (2008).