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23/11/2004

Ann-Sofi Siden

Moderna Museet, Stockholm

A series of seminars/workshops aimed at an in-depht study of the intentions and ideas on which the museum's exhibitions are focused. 'A propos' will also be a forum for discussion/debates on subjects that arise over the year relating to art.
Ann-Sofi Sidén 24 November, 6.30 pm
Regarding the exhibition Ann-Sofi Sidén. In the Auditorium.

Exhibition Curated by Cecilia Widenheim

With questions about vulnerability, control, violence and surveillance, Ann-Sofi Sidén (b. 1962) seeks to unravel some of the threads in the history of the human psyche. Her method is a suggestive mixture of journalism, cinema and scientific research that takes form in sculptural installations or spatial videos. In her Who Told the Chambermaid? (1988), the hotel cleaner has taken over visual control of the hotel with the help of 17 surveillance cameras. The silent, rhythmically pulsing and changing images draw the viewer into the hotel rooms from cellar to attic. In her kaleidoscopic works Ann-Sofi Sidén mirrors a place or a condition through different characters - discovered, borrowed, real or invented - that she herself, and to a degree the viewer too, can portray.

In 1994 Ann-Sofi Sidén took part in an artistic project in a building on 53 West 9th Street in New York. This was where the American psychiatrist Alice E. Fabian had lived alone for many years. Her encounter with reminders of Alice Fabian's life left its mark on several of Ann-Sofi Sidén's works, not least It's by Confining One's Neighbor that One is Convinced of One's Own Sanity (1995). Both the inner and the purely physical conditions of the psychiatrist's isolated world appear in this work.

Advertisements for psychoactive drugs from Alice E. Fabian's collection of American psychiatric periodicals form the basis for the installation Would a Course of Deprol Have Saved van Gogh's Ear? (1996). In this work Ann-Sofi Sidén makes use of repetition, using it to illustrate how the pharmaceutical industry sells its wares by conjuring up an image of a system in a state of crisis. Focus is on the boundary zones between science, society and people's inner lives.

With her Queen of Mud, also known as QM, since 1988 Ann-Sofi Sidén created a series of narratives in which the principal character is a mute, female being who is coated in mud. Just as in fairy tales, QM turns up in possible and impossible places in time and space, an abhorrent and wild mud queen who reveals society's subconscious. "She has the ability to float into people's dreams" a scientist remarks in a factual tone of voice in one of the "documentaries" that make up QM Museum - a gigantic digital archive that has been created for Moderna Museet. In the film QM, I Think I Call her QM, which now forms part of QM Museum, the Queen of Mud meets a psychiatrist who wakes up one morning to find QM under his bed.

Ann-Sofi Sidén maps social behaviour and phenomena like exoticism and the mechanisms of exclusion which are such an important aspect of the history of Western civilization. One of her most recent works - 3 MPH (three miles per hour) from 2003 - was filmed during a 25-day ride on horseback that the artist undertook in Texas and that is now being shown in the museum's collections. The ride started in San Antonio and ended at Ground Control, NASA's space-research centre in Houston. The 35-minute film in panorama format is concerned with visible and invisible boundaries and it cuts through a stream of social and cultural layers in present-day Texas.

The exhibition comprises five large installations by Ann-Sofi Sidén. These are key works from 1990 up to the present. Two of them, 3 MPH and QM Museum, are being shown in Sweden for the first time.

A richly illustrated catalogue is being produced in collaboration with Steidl verlag (Göttingen). The catalogue contains essays by Kathryn Kanjo (ArtPace, San Antonio) and Cecilia Widenheim as well as the record of a conversation between Ann-Sofi Sidén and Robert Fleck. 235 SEK

In the Museum
Fashination Spotlighting the mutual fascination between art and fashion, this exhibition includes works by designers and artists such as Vanessa Beecroft, Martin Margiela, Alexander McQueen, Steven Meisel, Yinka Shonibare and Viktor & Rolf. Fashination closes on 23 January
The exhibition series The 1st at Moderna is featuring Candice Breitz (until 12 december), Jörgen Svenssons Pressroom (until 23 January) and Paulo Climachauska (opening 1 December).

Moderna Museet
Island of Skeppsholmen Stockholm
Hours:
Tuesday-Wednesday 10 am - 8pm
Thursday-Sunday 10 am - 6 pm
The museum is closed on Mondays

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