EXHIBITION

In Passing

Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholms Lan, Stockholm, 08/29/2008 - 10/12/2008

Torsgatan 19

ABOUT

Bonniers Konsthall starts off the autumn season with Ann-Sofi Sidén's latest video installation, In Passing, which receives its premier presentation in Sweden. In Passing is the story of a young woman who leaves her newborn baby at a "baby hatch" at a hospital in Berlin. In her moving and visually stunning work, Ann-Sofi Sidén reflects on our views on motherhood and raises questions about what makes a mother abandon her child. Ann-Sofi Sidén's video installation is part of a series of smaller exhibitions at Bonniers Konsthall, each presenting a new work by a pivotal contemporary artist. Since the mid-1990s, Ann-Sofi Sidén's art has played an important role in the art discourse both in Sweden and internationally. Bonniers Konsthall has previously shown films in this series by Salla Tykkä and Adrian Paci. In Passing is a spatial video work in which the viewer is encouraged to move through the installation in order to experience all parts of the narrative. On two monitors and four large projection screens, we follow parallel stories featuring the woman and the child after their separation at the hospital's "baby hatches". As in many of her previous works, Ann-Sofi Sidén makes use of surveillance cameras, which in this instance show how the child is cared for of at the hospital. The black-and-white, documentary-feel images are interspersed with more feature-film-like sequences. Characteristic of Ann-Sofi Sidén's art, the mixing of genres blurs the border between reality and illusion. Zeroing in on social behaviour, Ann-Sofi Sidén recurrently depicts both the human psyche and people at the crossroads, or in passing. As in Warte Mal! (1999), where she portrayed prostitutes in the new Europe, she often sets out from extreme situations, depicting them in an undramatic way. A concrete place and action serve the function of a point of departure in order to elucidate a larger structure. With strong personal engagement, Ann-Sofi Sidén depicts some of our most pressing contemporary issues, leaving it up to the viewer to piece together the kaleidoscopic stories. In Passing has previously been presented at Galerie Barbara Thumm in Berlin and Galeria Pepe Cobo in Madrid, and can also be viewed at Kiasma in Helsinki.

For More Information

APT ARTISTS ON VIEW

Ann-Sofi Siden

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