Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy website The autumn season at Moderna Museet: Louise Nevelson, Elgaland – Vargaland
october 21, 2017 - Moderna Museet

The autumn season at Moderna Museet: Louise Nevelson, Elgaland – Vargaland

The autumn season at Moderna Museet 


Moderna Museet in Stockholm


Autumn is already here at #modernamuseet. The first exhibitions this season are #louisenevelson and Elgaland-Vargaland, opening on 9 September. A joint press preview for both exhibitions will be held on Thursday, 7 September, at 10 am. 


Louise Nevelson 

9 September, 2017 – 14 January, 2018

Curator: Jo Widoff


Throughout her long artistic practice, #louisenevelson (1899–1988) explored the potential of the collage. Influenced by cubism and Jean Arp, she began early in her career to make sculptures and assemblages out of wood objects she found in the street and painted black. In the 1950s, the sculptures left their plinths and filled entire walls in a scale approaching abstract expressionist paintings. At the same time Nevelson was discovering another style in the collage, which enabled her to easily and intuitively explore subjects in smaller formats. Slips of paper, newspaper cuttings and sooty scraps of wood were combined into poetic observations of the overlooked objects, not unlike Kurt Schwitters’ Merz works.


Louise Nevelson’s monumental works evoke something spiritual and eternal, and express a deeply personal mythology. Her public breakthrough came at the age of 60 with the participation in the exhibition Sixteen Americans at the Museum of Modern Art in New York 1959. For the exhibition she created the white installation Dawn’s Wedding Feast, which included the sculpture Dawn’s Host, an allegory on a cosmic marriage with the world, or the artist’s union with her art. Dawn’s Wedding Feast overturned the notion of sculpture as an object to walk around; instead, it was an environment that enveloped the viewer. The work can be seen as a precursor to installation art. The #louisenevelson exhibition is organised in recognition of a major donation of the artist's rarely-shown collages to #modernamuseet



Elgaland – Vargaland

9 September – 12 November, 2017

Curators: Annika Gunnarsson and Fredrik Liew


On 27 may, 1992, the Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland were declared. Since then, the artists Leif Elggren (b. 1950) and Carl Michael von Hausswolff (b. 1956) have pursued the project of establishing the realms and challenging structures that we take for granted. They have annexed and occupied all geographical border areas, including mental, digital and other conceptual and real territories. Elggren and von Hausswolff open embassies, issue passports, invite #people to receptions and national days. The kingdoms have their own flag, stamps and currency, and can boast some one thousand citizens today.


The venture, which centres on the genesis and function of nation states in modern times, is both playful and serious. Their omnipotent project expands and transcends the boundaries of art, and will be presented this autumn in the Pontus Hultén Study Gallery at #modernamuseet as a separate coherent entity. Elggren and von Hausswolff have reviewed the administrative files of the Kingdoms, the project documentation, and paraphernalia that has accrued over time. Together, this material represents the first 25 years of the existence of Elgaland-Vargaland. 



This autumn will also see the opening of Manipulate the World. Connecting ÖyvindFahlström, on 21 October, 2017 – 21 January, 2018, curator Fredrik Liew with Goldin+Senneby and Aerial Kit, on 25 November, 2017 – 18 February, 2018, curator Måns Wrange.

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