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10/2/2009

Gunilla Klingberg

Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm

Bonniers Konsthall starts off the spring season with a solo exhibition with the Swedish artist Gunilla Klingberg, this year's guest artist at Bonniers Konsthall. The exhibition is the largest presentation of her work so far. For her exhibition Klingberg has both created new works and re-developed older pieces in response to the space at the Konsthall – everything from sculptures and installations to wall paintings and projections.

Klingberg's art uses the logos of various low-price store chains and mass-produced goods. The modest and mundane logotypes of Sparlivs and Lidl are transformed into seductively beautiful oriental patterns that cover 700 square metres of the Bonniers Konsthall's glass façade. The new star-shaped sculpture Supernova is covered in various materials – rugs, flooring, cupboards – from the furnishing giant Ikea. Thus, mass-produced, globalised lifestyle meets extraterrestrial force and mythology. The main gallery hosts Klingberg's monumental installation Cosmic Matter. Composed of high scaffolding and tape, the work's starting-point is the moon. Set against dreamcatchers and the words "Global Exploration Strategy" polished into high-gloss steel, the work creates an image of the way in which our notions of the moon are composed of ancient mysteries, as much as they are of a science driven by dreams of territorial expansion into space.

Gunilla Klingberg is interested in contemporary consumer culture. Employing topical visual expressions, she juxtaposes consumerism with spirituality, low-budget design with Eastern imagery. By combining disparate features, she creates new meanings and new meetings between cultures, forms of expression and traditions.

Sara Arrhenius, curator and Director of Bonniers Konsthall:
"Gunilla Klingberg's art is marked by recycling. It is part of a culture of "sampling", in which, rather than imagining something absolutely new, we combine and recast existing forms and expressions. In her fascination with oriental cultural traditions, in which repetition and reproduction have played an important role, we can see a departure from – and perhaps even a criticism of – western modernity's demands for innovation and continual progress."

Gunilla Klingberg was born in 1966 in Stockholm, where she works. She was educated at Konstfack, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, and Berghs School of Communication. Klingberg is a well-known figure on the international art scene and has recently shown at the Istanbul Biennial, Kiasma, Helsinki, and P.S.1/MoMA, New York.

Image: Cosmic Matter, 2007. Foto: Bonniers Konsthall

Publication
A publication with texts by Jennifer Allen (critic) and Sara Arrhenius (Director of Bonniers Konsthall) will be published in conjunction with the exhibition.

Programme
To accompany the exhibition, Bonniers Konsthall has programmed a series of events where specially invited guests will give their personal perspective on the art of Gunilla Klingberg.

18 Feb, 7 pm Gunilla Klingberg, artist
4 Mar, 7 pm Sara Arrhenius, Director and the exhibition's curator
18 Mar, 7 pm Zandra Ahl, artist-craftsperson, writer and Professor at Konstfack
1 Apr, 7 pm Leif Nylén, author, art critic and musician
8 Apr, 7 pm Release of the exhibition publication

For further information, please contact:
Metta Flensburg, Press Officer Bonniers Konsthall +46-8-7364266, +46-70-2800413 metta.flensburg@bonnierskonsthall.se

Bonniers Konsthall
Torsgatan 19 - Stockholm

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