Thursday, May 14, 2009

Emerging Swedish contemporary art at Bonniers Konsthall



The 1980s is back. Bonniers Konsthall introduces the decade's return in emerging Swedish contemporary art in the Rummaging exhibition. The group exhibition presents 11 young Swedish artists and their connection to the Swedish artworld of the early 1980s.

Bonniers Konsthall continues to check out the Swedish contemporary art scene and just what characterises our time. Every year Bonniers Konsthall presents a group exhibition, which provides an insight into what preoccupies today's young artists. In 2007, Bonniers Konsthall scanned the Swedish art academies and discovered the return of romanticism. Last year, Bonniers Konsthall invited its friends to present their favourites on the young Swedish art scene as a way of exploring contemporary networking.

The result of this year's investigation is now being presented in the exhibition 
Rummaging, revealing a connection between emerging contemporary artists and the Swedish artworld of the early 1980s. Works by 11 artists, all at the beginning of their careers, is exhibited in the Rummaging exhibition that brings together both the '80s and the '00s, and form and relationships. The participating artists and their predecessors share an interest in the formal aspects of objects, spatialities, the visual and material. Like in the '80s, today's artists explore art's closeness to choreography, music and new media as well as art as a possible meeting place. The Rummaging exhibition combines monumental installation, ambiguous sculpture, real-time video and shadow play. As viewers we are invited to step into the physically tangible works in the exhibition.

Camilla Larsson, the exhibition curator:
"I see the exhibition as a creative re-reading that is not just a way of formulating a strong tendency among today's young artists. It is also a way of retroactively directing attention towards what makes the particularity of the Swedish 1980s into a historic turning point today. For me, its radicality lies in the way that the artists affirmed the unnecessary, the absurd and the tentative. They rejected things that had been formulated in advance."

The re-reading of our contemporary history is given topical relevance in 
Rummaging in two ways. Partly through being the connecting thread linking the choice of artists, partly through the programme of accompanying events that spans three Wednesday evenings. Here the '80s meets the '00s in a series of discussions, performances and concerts. Those taking part include the exhibition artists and leading figures from the 1980s Swedish art scene, such as Cecilia Edefalk, Margaretha Åsberg and Max Book.

Participating artists:
Suzanna Asp, Fredrik Auster/Viggo Mörck, Ebba Bohlin, Gabo Camnitzer, Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, Åsa Norberg/Jennie Sundén, Kerstin Persson, Christin Wahlström and Anna Wignell.
Curator: Camilla Larsson

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