Annika Larsson - Animal : Stockholm

We are proud to present Annika Larsson’s fourth exhibition at the gallery. The opening takes place on Thursday, January 12th between 5-8 pm.

ANIMAL is an exhibition about the notion of "human" in change. With the help of, among others, Kafka, The Grimm Brothers, Mayakovsky, Mr Panda, a group of fursuiters (people who dress as animals), a rope, a tree, a hole and an anthropomorphic animal god, Annika Larsson contemplates man, animal and thing in metamorphosis, the dissolving concept of identity and the creative process.  

The relation between man and animal evokes questions about relations, power, politics and ethics, but also around identity, borders and subjectivity. What we perceive as being "human" includes the domination of animals and "to be like an animal" is to be deprived one’s "humanity", one’s status as a subject. There is both fear of and excitement in loosing control, and of loosing one’s "Self". To loose one’s mind, to go mad, a temporary liberation from the prevailing established order of hierarchical ranks, privileges, norms and prohibitions. To become animal or "becoming-animal" to quote Deleuze and Guattari, can also mean a process and a method that "replaces subjectivity", a way out that the human would never have thought of himself.

The exhibition features, among other things ANIMAL (in 14 movements) a 41 minutes long video, divided into 14 chapters. The piece consists of documentary material shot by the artist of people dressing up as anthropomorphic animals, so called fursuiters. Images of them climbing, hugging, dancing, swinging, talking, drinking and dancing are juxtaposed in a montage with sound and noise from an analogue synthesizer, a cello, a prepared piano and different field recordings. A Musical Score for Animal consists of a series of black and white printouts, drawings, collages and copies that together compose a complex system of diverse but coherent images, texts and notes. 

Annika Larsson (b. 1972) lives and works in Berlin. She has done several institutional solo-exhibitions in recent years, at the Museum für Gegenwart-skunst, Basel, Fundacion la Caixa, Barcelona, Le Magasin, Grenoble, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nürnberg, ICA-Institute of Contemporary Art, London, ZKM, Karlsruhe, S.M.A.K., Gent and Musac, Lyon. She has participated in biennials such as 49th Venice Biennial, 8th Istanbul Biennial and 6th Shanghai Biennial among others.