Gösta Adrian-Nilsson
Bigert & Bergström
John Duncan
Leif Elggren
Öyvind Fahlström
Paul Fägerskiöld
Allen Grubesic
Philip Grönberg
Sten Hansson
Carl Michael von Hausswolff
Magnus Wallin
Weegee

- A History of (Mostly) Violence

Curated by Erik Nordenhake

Opening 25/5 at 13-17
Exhibition period 25/5-24/6, then by appointment.

In the entrance we are greeted by what looks like a large sword – it is, however, a bronze coin from the Lokele people of Congo. The fact that their coinage is crafted to look like weapons becomes a rather overt symbol of the link between economics and crime, and furthermore, a coin of this size would suffice to buy a wife…

Gösta Adrian-Nilsson was the great pioneer of Swedish modernism, his “Livsfarligt” (At Peril of Death/Fatal) from 1922 was made in a time where he lived in Paris and had contacts to Fernand Legér.

Weegee was the pseudonym of news-photographer Arthur Fellig, who became known for his uncensored presentation of life and death in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1930′s and 1940′s. The exhibited photograph, entitled ”Murder” is from 1945.

In Sten Hanssons “1968 Athens Tourist Map” we are reminded of just how easily our patterns of consumption can support criminals, in this case the military Junta that rose to power shortly beforehand, and actively promoted Greece’s tourist industry.

Öyvind Fahlström’s 1974 “Column 4 – IB-affair” details the political scandal that unearthed from among others, journalist Jan Guillous findings about a secret intelligence organ known as IB that collaborated with CIA and Mossad, and reported directly to prime minister Olof Palme and his minister of defence Sven Andersson. The four journalists were sentenced to a year each in prison for espionage. Only decades later was it revealed that Jan Guillou had himself been working for the KGB.

After having been stabbed while working as a bus driver in L.A. in 1976, John Duncan set out on a two night performance to capture, or rather to pass on to friends the experience of believing that one’s life is about to end the very next moment. Masked, disguised and with a gun firing blanks, he went to different friends’ houses late at night, knocked on the door, and when they opened, shot them in the face…

In a 1977 performance, Leif Elggren laid claim to the international symbol of danger; diagonal black and yellow stripes.

Carl Michael von Hausswolff’s “Red” series are pictures taken of locations where crime or violations have taken place; the location is lit up by strong red light, as to suggest a looming presence of the previous trauma. The pictures on display were taken in 2003 at an evacuated terrace housing project in Chicago where after extensive drug dealing and crime the city authorities stepped in and shut the area down.

Magnus Wallin works with a highly art-historical approach to questions of norm and crip-theory. “Horizon”, 2005, consists of two unflinching eyes. Nothing more.

Bigert & Bergström’s interest lies in the human condition and its environment. “Jag hör röster” (I hear voices) from 2006 is a mash-up of pictures from a car rampage through Stockholms Old Town, reminding us of how psychopathology allways will be a variable in crime statistics.

Allen Grubesic’s “I Was Young” from 2007 is an apology for a past of typical juvenile delinquencies – prostitution and/or drug dealing – excusing it in part by pointing out the everlasting link between youth and crime.

Philip Grönberg’s work is a pattern with pictures of the perhaps most aesthetically-minded of all gangs, the transnational Mara Salvatrucha, best known for their intricate full-body tattoos.

L.A. gang culture also sets the backdrop to Paul Fägerskiöld’s hieroglyphic painting of Bloods and Crips tags, from his 2011 series “Stolen Messages”.

Weegee
Murder
1945
gelatinsilver print
22 x 17 cm

Öyvind Fahlström
Liaisons Dangereuse
1960
Tempera and ink on canvas
38 x 55 cm

Sändningstider
SVT2 Fredag 29 mar 2013 kl 20.00
SVT2 Lördag 30 mar 2013 kl 16.05
SVT2 Onsdag 3 apr 2013 kl 00.00

I höstas presenterade Bigert & Bergström en uppmärksammad installation på Centralstationen i Stockholm, med vilken man kunde avläsa dagens väder. Vädret har fascinerat konstnärsduon under en tid och är centralt även i långfredagens film Väderkriget, som handlar om den moderna människans önskan att kontrollera vädret när klimatkrisen hotar att förgöra oss. Väderkriget är den tredje filmen i en trilogi som innehåller de tidigare filmerna Sista måltiden och Evigt liv. Båda har visats i K special.

I Bangladesh byggs skyddsmurar mot kommande översvämningar. I Kina skickas raketer mot hotande regnoväder. Och i Italien avfyras kanoner mot hagel för att skydda årets vinskörd. Hur ska vi bete oss för att möta klimatförändringarna? Genom anpassning eller genom krig mot en tilltagande aggressiv väderlek?

Konstnärsduon Bigert & Bergström beger sig till USA för att bekämpa en tornado med sin trattformade maskin och skulptur, The Tornado Diverter. På resan undersöker de hur meteorologin utvecklats i symbios med krigsindustrin och hur dessa kunskaper utvecklats till dagens geo-engineering. Men vem äger egentligen rätten till ett modifierat väder?

Filmen avslutar den trilogi som Bigert & Bergström arbetat med sen 2002 och som behandlar människans besatthet av kontroll. Den inledande filmen Sista måltiden från 2005 kretsar kring den sista måltid som bjuds dödsdömda fångar före dödsstraffets verkställande. 2008 följde Evigt liv, som belyser den samtida drömmen om livsförlängning och evigt liv.

http://www.svtplay.se/theweatherwar.com
http://www.bigertbergstrom.com
http://www.bigertbergstrom.com/node/theweatherwar

http://www.modernamuseet.se/bigert%bergström

Seeing with Eyes Close

Max Planck Science Gallery
Markgrafenstraße 37, Berlin

March 12 — June 11 2013
Monday / Friday: 10am – 6pm
Saturday: noon – 6pm

Opening of the exhibitions » Zukunft Gehirn « and » Seeing with Eyes Closed « by artist Ivana Franke
Presentations by: Professor Dr. Nils Brose (Max-Planck-Institut für Experimentelle Medizin) and Dr. Moritz Helmstädter (Max-Planck-Institut für Neurobiologie)
March 11 2013 | 7.15pm

The renowned Swedish performance artist, writer, and musician Leif Elggren offers a rare stateside sound performance at ICA.

http://www.icaphila.org/events/index.php?id=627

In her third solo show at Gallery Niklas Belenius she is using space as a notebook.

The sculpture ”NO” is composed by equal parts of control and desire, with a faded and torn garment exposed on a stand coated with copper. This precious metal is playing a central role in the global market, with the hedge funds and speculators at its centre and the thieves in its margins, searching for copper plumbing, wiring, cables and sculptures

Juxtaposing copper is an anonymous green colour, frequently used in public spaces. As copper prices skyrocket, the value of the commonly owned is declining. While copper is being protected, public green is being painted over with corporate colours.

Doubt, trial and error is expressed through the art works. The thoughts are not finished, but they are embodied in works such as the Frankenstein-like “Europe” and in “Words” in which the copper and public green meet joined by a halfway fastened screw.

The high density and complexity of meaning in the works do not aim for completion. Johanna Gustafsson Fürst is aspiring to make the unfinished permanent. The thoughts in her three-dimensional notebook are drafts, to be developed in collaboration with the visitors.

Master Degree Show
Royal Academy of Fine Art, Stockholm

Opening: January 19, 12 – 8 pm
Exhibition period ends: January 27
Opening hours: Mon – Sun 12 – 6 pm

”Oh, my sweet summer child,” Old Nan said quietly, “what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the dire wolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods”

― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

Johan Strandahl
KÖK

19/1-17/2
opening 19/1 at 13-17

The artist Johan Strandahl is a devoted explorer in a world where everything already is discovered. His field ofinterest is the familiarity of everyday objects and standardized products.

Strandahl is indifferent to prestigious brands and high-end products. He focuses on low-budget consumer goods, the category of products that we hardly ever notice, since there are so many of them. Things like cheap power drills and coffee makers that we think we know everything about, things we are actually completely oblivious to. We don’t know where they come form, which components or materials they are made of, or how they are constructed.

It doesn’t bother us, since we are perfectly happy to know how to make a cup of coffee or drill a hole in the wall. But it sure bothers Johan Strandahl, who has spent the last 1,5 years of trying to comprehend an ordinary kitchen.

The result of his exploration is now exhibited at gallery Niklas Belenius: a handmade and fully functional reproduction of a complete kitchen from Ikea. All the components and parts are manufactured by Strandahl himself, including the oven and refrigerator as well as the ceramic tiles, chipboards, screws and hinges …

In comparison with the Ikea kitchen, which is also shown at the gallery, Strandahl’s replica lacks the perfection of the original, but also the passive anonymity. Strandahl’s kitchen is active and impossible to ignore, it stares back at the spectator, demanding something in return.

Strandahl’s work is not only an act of re-producing, but also of re-understanding. In the process of making he returns the lost pieces of meaning to the object, thereby pointing out the possibility of a different kind of understanding, where, in Immanuel Kant’s words “the hand is the window on to the mind.”

Gallery Niklas Belenius is pleased to announce the opening of Stina Stigell’s third solo show at the gallery.

This time Stina Stigell invites the visitor to a polyphonic Dadaist fairy tale, a stream of consciousness, written not with words, but with found objects and various materials, such as fibreboard, paper, macaroni, corrugated cardboard, chalk and straws.

The scene of the story is a hybrid between gym hall, garden and classroom. The hierarchies of materials are torn and the natural proportions are out of order. Here you’ll find a pair of jeans in size XXXXL, crossword paintings, oversized seed bags, hand herbicide sprayers, and a gymnastic box horse also serving as a place for dwelling. On the wall is a circular vehicle in corrugated cardboard and the letter “s” is functioning as one of its wheels.

The works of Stina Stigell strongly opposes definition. They are ambiguous in essence. In a jovial manner and without any papers of identity, they cross the borders between painting and sculpture, sign and signified object, private and political, fiction and reality.

A quilted jacket is hanging on a post. Maybe it was forgotten on the playground and later picked up by someone who made sure it would be easier found. But it could also be a flag, raised as a declaration of independence and absolute freedom of imagination