Marie Louise Ekman, Explain Everything – Now, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm
I rarely love nonsense and absurdity in art, but in Marie Louise Ekman’s exhibition something shifted. I loved most of it, especially a painting of ’broken appearances,’ ’hands that search,’ ’mouth without sound,’ ’knife that wants to cut,’ and other things floating above a bleeding (dead?) woman. I know what it all meant, but I can’t explain it right now. To place old black-and-white photos of Ekman as a young woman – often naked – on the floor struck a perfect balance of the irreverent and self-assured. I was there on the last day and was moved when I saw the artist signing posters for wide-eyed art students. The exhibition as a victory parade.
Crystal Bennes, Klara and the Bomb, Galleri Format, Malmö
Crystal Bennes’s show was the most well-composed I saw this year, unsurpassed in the art of producing meaning by placing things side by side. Taking as its starting point the programmer Klara von Neumann (1911–1963), it explored the emergence of the computer and the development of nuclear weapons. The complex story of the forgotten female mathematician came to light through a combination of photographs from Bennes’s fieldwork and archival material. Striking discoveries – such as a text on how early computers were often referred to as “girls” – were displayed alongside documentary images. I’ve never experienced the thrill of archival work – the artist’s aha moments – shine through so strongly in an exhibition.
Vivian Suter, I am Godzilla, Moderna Museet Malmö
I visited Vivian Suter’s exhibition several times. Sometimes it was a room – a lush, enchanted environment. The 350 paintings were installed on the walls, the floor, and hanging from the high ceiling of the former turbine hall. My gaze didn’t need to choose, didn’t need to land on anything in particular. Other times, I saw it as a series of paintings: squiggles and lines in bright colours: purple, pink, yellow, and green. Traces and imprints. On some, there were paw prints, or leaves and mud from the Guatemalan jungle where Suter lives. One day I thought of Henri Matisse; one day I thought of the forest; and one day I thought of the life of an artist.
– Christine Antaya is an art critic and translator. She contributes regularly to Kunstkritikk, Svenska Dagbladet, and Sydsvenska Dagbladet.
For this year’s contributions to the Advent Calendar, see here
