Beautiful and thoughtful at the Stockholm galleries

From Johan Waerndts installation Photo: Artists Effective picture of the mentally room

At first glance depicts Johan Waerndts installation ”Asylum – Structure for social animals” on Södergalleriet Candyland (t o m 3/2) a plain cellar storage area. A couple of skivbackar, a little old furniture, some never unpacked moving boxes. And so on.

But under the surface hides the fact, that fills the whole room and forcing the visitor to sneak along the walls, a home in miniature. Just like in Narnia, we reach the hidden world through an old wardrobe.

It could have been unpleasant associations to the Reported-the basement and other kidnappningshistorier, but the atmosphere in the Waerndts hut is far too convivial for that.

an effective picture of the mental space as the individual's semi-discarded debris accommodates. And a merciless comment to a housing policy that allows one to collect garbage from its history while the other does not get rooms somewhere.

To consume the work is in addition pleasurable in a manner similar to dive into in Jacob Dahlgren's samtidsklassiska installation of tightly hanging cords (shown at the moderna exhibition in 2006, and then the Kiasma museum of contemporary art). Johan Waerndts installation also belong in an institution.

Sebastian Johans

”Night”, photo by Linda Hofvander Photo: Linda Hofvander Hofvander breaks our vaneseende

Linda Hofvanders elegant photographs at Cecilia Hillström gallery (t o m 16/2) grabs the spatial details that break vaneseendet. A tillbucklat the fence where ståltrådarnas grid suddenly is beautiful and signals the importance. Some white stripes on a black wall, which becomes an input to a non-existing room. The barely noticeable but distinct seam between the two pieces of fabric.

Everything is in addition created from scratch in the artist's studio. It adds an exciting a meta-level to the tillfälligheternas poetics as the images play with.

Sebastian Johans

Sculptures of Ellen Malmgard Photo: Mountain gallery, Both beautiful as intimidating sculpture

Kelp we encounter usually in the edge of the water as a shapeless brungrön lump. In Ellen Malmgards casts in the grey tennbrons in the Berg gallery (t o m 16/2), stands the proud and swaying as if it still were surrounded by water. It is as if the shapeless mass has returned and is forcing us to see – the room actually occupies.

Malmgards bladder wrack produces a nice full, together with some more elusive items of crumpled, foliate metal, and accents of glass in the intersection between the beautiful and the threatening.

Sebastian Johans

Hanna Ljunghs järnskulptur Photo: Hanna Ljungh food for thought about the contemporary mania for measurements

Hanna Ljunghs last galleriutställning was about mankind's impact on nature during our era, antropocen, and how global warming may Kebnekaise glacier to melt. Anna Bohman gallery, she continues now to drill in the relationship between humans and mountains, between the organic and the inorganic (17/2).

For the exhibition ”Anatomy of a descent” has Ljungh created sculptures out of materials such as zinc, iron, copper and cobalt. Metals from the Swedish mining industry, which at the same time essential minerals and trace elements for the human body. A sculpture is made of copper wires, which is hanging from the ceiling reminiscent of a fragile bloodstream. Copper is both a vital component in the wiring and an essential trace element in the formation of new blood vessels.

”children, students (the iron 115 kilos),” have Ljungh sculpted with the exact amount of iron, which is the total inside Kirunaborna. Järndelarna are interlinked in an aspiring ”spine” and against a reflecting background. The room's sculptures are tied stylishly together by the reflections, but together with järnskulpturens precise viktangivelse go associations on to our time, the narcissistic contemporary mania for measurements.

Birgitta Rubin