Lap-See Lam, Phantom Banquet, Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm
Lap-See Lam’s exhibition at Nordenhake based on virtual reality-technology was simply extraordinary. I left the gallery feeling nauseous and dizzy, with anxiety levels on the rise. The conceit of depicting representation by making the physical construction of the image itself – and, by extension, the construction of reality – visible was ingenious. Flat vision became three-dimensional, and it was as if several parallel worlds opened up in different in-between spaces. The feeling of loneliness was also enhanced by the setting, with a hidden room at the back, and not knowing what you were stepping into.
Fatima Moallim, Självstudier (Self-studies), Zinkensdamm metro station, Stockholm
One of my favourite exhibitions this year was Fatima Moallim’s presentation in the Zinkensdamm metro station. Enlargements of documentation from her performative drawings on whiteboards in an abandoned junior high school were displayed alongside both train platforms, as part of the project Konstväxlingar (Art Shifts). Moallim’s architectural installation managed to hijack the whole station and, ultimately, appropriate the entire metro system. Such layers of temporality – drawings that will disappear when the school is renovated preserved on a train platform where you only spend a short while waiting – make my brain skip. These quadruple images were hard to look away from, and I longed to return to the works and the place.
Jaakko Pallasvuo, Avocado Ibuprofen, Instagram
Although I consider Instagram to be the work of the devil, it would be a lie not to turn there when considering what I’ve experienced this year. Art on Instagram is rarely more than pictures of art, but Avocado Ibuprofen by the Finnish artist Jaakko Pallasvuo is something new, with its distinctive combination form of cartoons, art history, and philosophy. This feels like someone who has fully understood the medium’s artistic potential creating content that feels satisfying in a liberating way; little stories that are both entertaining, instructive, and sad.
– Iris Smeds is a Stockholm-based artist who works in performance, video, and stage-like installations. Smeds is also in the one-woman punk band Vaska fimpen. She is currently one of the artists in the 2020 Luleå Biennial.
For this year’s contributions to Kunstkritikk’s Advent Calendar, see here.
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