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http://www.tba21.org/program/current/189/artworks2?category=current

Karl Norin
19.1.13 – 19.1.13

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.”

6.12.12 – 13.01.13 – Opening 6.12 at 18-20

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