Upcoming Exhibitions

Esther Shalev-Gerz

WHITE OUT: Between Telling and Listening, 2002

installation view, Jeu de Paume, Paris 2010

Photo: Arno Gisinger

Esther Shalev-Gerz

WHITE-OUT: Between Telling and Listening

March 24 to June 16, 2012

Esther Shalev-Gerz is internationally recognized for her investigations into the nature of democracy, citizenship, cultural memory, and spatial politics. Made in Sweden, WHITE-OUT: Between Telling and Listening presents a kind of portrait. One comprised of fugitive stories—stories that exist fleetingly between the actual and the fictional, between the imagined and the experienced.

Here, the portrait subject is Åsa Simma, a woman who is both Sami (the indigenous peoples of Northern Sweden, Finland, Norway and Russia) and Swedish. One of two back-lit projections in the gallery presents Åsa Simma, seen in her home in Stockholm, as she responds to Shalev-Gerz’s off-screen reading of Sami and Swedish texts. Simma responds by providing an intimate account of her experience growing up in these two cultures. The texts are from oral and written sources—myths, fiction and other literatures, travel stories, historical and archival materials, and articles from newspapers and magazines—on topics such as nature, war, love, desire, gender and the role and conditions of women and children. In the other projection on a facing screen, in a loop filmed in her place of origin in the far north of Sweden, Åsa Simma attentively and silently listens to her own story. The installation includes the texts read to Simma and a series of photographs showing the vaults of the Museum of History in Stockholm, which commissioned this work and where it was first presented.

WHITE-OUT will be accompanied by Shalev-Gerz’s1998-2000 video projection Perpetuum Mobile in which a 10 Franc coin spins in constant motion so that both sides merge into one, just as Åsa Simma's dual identity merges in a unified and perpetually evolving sense of self. A study of a currency replaced by the Euro and thus no longer in use, Perpetuum Mobile reflects upon money’s symbolic value and its role among the other economic forces that determine and interconnect national and individual identities.

Curated by Annette Hurtig, KAG Adjunct Curator, and Charo Neville, KAG Curator 

Astrid Menze

still from all inclusive HERE | THEN | THERE | NOW, 2010

single channel video, 30 min. Courtesy of the artist

Transart Collective

Connecting the Dots

March 24 to June 9, 2012

The Cube and BMO Open Gallery

The Transart Collective consists of a group of international artists collaborating with regional artists on projects through digital media and technology. The exhibition speaks to the notion that artists can come together locally and globally, connect and share ideas, issues and themes. This becomes increasingly apparent with the advent of technology and social media. Video and photographic works from this collaboration will be featured in The Cube and BMO Open Gallery. Following the exhibition at the KAG, Connecting the Dots resumes at the Arnica Artist Run Centre with an exhibition of additional collaborative works.

Curated by Tricia Sellmer and Craig Willms, KAG Assistant Curator