Aslan Goisum, Prism, Lunds Konsthall
Since the sharp-edged architecture of Lund’s Konsthall can feel quite controlling, I have often longed for something messy or ugly to shake things up in there. Instead, the opposite happened: a show that was even more jarring than the architecture. Young Chechen-born Aslan Goisum’s deconstructed stars and graveyard fences spoke to my fondness for art where warm skin and life are hinted at behind minimalist surfaces. This blossomed in the monumental video sculpture Prism (2024), where an unclothed young man runs his hands over his body. The literal sharpness has stayed with me: acute angles and heavy metal, and how they spoke to visual and physical perceptions being stored in the body.
Markus Öhrn & Azdora, Requiem for Eva-Britt, Bonnier’s Konsthall, Stockholm
Marcus Öhrn’s project was about engaging a group of azdoras, older Italian women, to live out his late grandmother’s wish to have been allowed to do something destructive in her life. This was summarised very powerfully in the opening video that reverberated throughout his exhibition. The women have travelled to the artist’s grandmother’s grave in Tornedalen, in the very north of Sweden. It is a grey, drizzly day. The camera is placed by the gravestone. The women approach one by one, lay a flower and say a few words; several of them speak at length about how she and her grandson have changed their lives. Who knows what the grandmother would have made of it all, but such specific testimonies about the impact of art are rare.
Pär Darell, Anti, Malmö
The Malmö release of the monograph on the late artist and poet Pär Darell (1979–2011) (Hov: Press, 2024) included a screening of his film Jag intervjuar en kille som tränar på samma gym som jag (I interview a guy who trains at the same gym as I, 2010). The interview is transcribed in the book, which also includes the certificates issued to strangers Darell met on the street and persuaded to participate in various performances (like going to buy a hamburger) when he was a student at Valand art academy in Gothenburg. During the release, Darell’s poems were read by six “quite ordinary” guys, one of whom was bleeding after dropping a spirit level on his head. He finished reading and walked over to the emergency room. Typical Malmö – and in the spirit of Pär Darell, according to those who knew him.
Christine Antaya is an art critic and translator. She is a regular contributor to Kunstkritikk, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, and Svenska Dagbladet.
