Carla Zaccagnini and Runo Lagomarsino
Malmö Konsthall 40th anniversary
21 March–1 May 2015
Opening: 20 March, 6–9pm
Malmö Konsthall
S:t Johannesgatan 7
205 80 Malmö
Sweden
Hours: Thursday–Tuesday 11am–5pm,
Wednesday 11am–9pm
Free admission
T+46 40 34 60 00
info.konsthall [at] malmo.se
Malmö Konsthall presents the first survey exhibition in Scandinavia of Carla Zaccagnini and Runo Lagomarsino, two internationally acclaimed artists who live and work between Malmö and São Paulo.
Co-curated by Diana Baldon and Nicola Lees, and involving a display system designed by the artist Luca Frei, the exhibition presents a collection of works that reflect the trans-nationalism of the artists’ respective biographies. Lagomarsino was born in Lund to Argentinian parents of Italian descent, who fled the country as political refugees in the mid-1970s. Zaccagnini was born in Buenos Aires to parents (also of Italian descent) who immigrated to Brazil in 1981. These migratory roots manifest themselves in both of the artists’ practices, evident in their versatile approach to artistic media as well as their engagement in disparate fields of enquiry including linguistics, geography, post-colonialism, national identity, gender, art history and art genres, such as institutional critique. The artworks in this exhibition function as episodic encounters in the artists’ on-going research into these areas.
Despite overlapping interests and cultural backgrounds, the difference between Zaccagnini and Lagomarsino’s research methodologies quickly surfaces when their work is exhibited together. Zaccagnini analyses her topics of investigation using an almost topographic approach, often shedding light onto untold or forgotten histories. A key example of her distinctive method is Restauro (Restoration, 2001), an extensive and yet ephemeral act of conservation of the painting Sem Título (Cabeça), (Untitled [Head], c.1882), by Brazilian master Almeida Júnior, orchestrated by the artist to recapture its original light. Lagomarsino’s artistic investigations into light, however, involve repurposing both sunlight and artificial illumination devices to reverse their original meaning and context. His installation Stolen Light (Abstracto en Dorado), 2013, consists of light bulbs stolen by the artist from Berlin’s Ethnological Museum that have been presented in a cabinet to imitate museological systems of cataloguing and display. Installed next to a gold-covered wall that references El Dorado, the fabled city of gold brutally pursued by Spanish explorers during the 16th century, Lagomarsino accusingly pairs the action of “enlightening” to the colonial structures that uphold Western ethnographic and anthropological museums.
The artworks in the exhibition have been categorised into six loose themes: charting and topography, violence and destruction, collapsing distances, traversing languages and regions, dislocation and (de)constructing national identity. The groupings are formally represented by a display structure and graphic system designed by the artist Luca Frei (born 1976 in Lugano, lives in Malmö). Five monumental walls loosely reference the form of a compass, drawing attention to the recurring notion of geographical movement in Zaccagnini and Lagomarsino’s works, while shifting the audience’s gaze away from the centre of the gallery. The walls rotate diagonally between the columns of the Konsthall’s distinctive architecture, whose features have been enhanced using bold primary colours—red for the columns and beams, blue for the short sides of the free-standing walls—that transform the space to enable a new physical experience for the viewer. Framing the exhibition as a dynamic entity, Frei’s design connects the artworks and gallery space into a specific and unique configuration. Within this broader structure, the placement of artworks in the exhibition repeatedly follows logics of pairing and confrontation that echo the artists’ own methods of working.
A forthcoming exhibition catalogue with essays by Nataša Ilić and Rebecka Thor, published by Mousse Publishing, will be released at the end of May.
With thanks to Nils Stærk, Mendes Wood DM, and Galeria Vermelho for all their support in the realisation of the exhibition and the catalogue.
Malmö Konsthall 40th year
The doors of the much-awaited Malmö Konsthall first opened on 22 March 1975. The 40th-year jubilee will be celebrated with several retrospective events, a photo exhibition in C-Salen, special offers in the bookshop and exceptional workshops for families.
Press contact:
Lena Leeb-Lundberg
lena.leeb [at] malmo.se / T +46 40 34 12 94
*Left: Carla Zaccagnini, Restauro, 2001. Courtesy Coleção de Arte da Cidade, Centro Cultural São Paulo. Right: Runo Lagomarsino, Pergamon (A Place in Things), 2014. Courtesy Colección Ignacio Liprandi, Buenos Aires. Photo: Erling Lykke Jeppesen, Teixeira de Freitas Collection, Lisbon.
