Fredrik Roos Art Prize 2011
Oskar Mörnerud: Panorama/Midbody
Malmö -
16 November 2011
- 22 January 2012
The Malmö-based artist Oskar Mörnerud is the first recipient of the newly established Fredrik Roos Art Prize – one of the largest stipends in Sweden in support of young artists’ further development. On November 16, Oskar Mörnerud, will receive the stipend and his exhibition Panorama/Midbody will open at Moderna Museet Malmö, where a completely new work will be featured.
Oskar Mörnerud (1976) studied at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, and today he lives and works in Malmö. His work is permeated with a fascination for the mechanisms of perception, the limitations of words, and the mystery of reality. He works with sculpture and installation but is perhaps best known for his paintings, in which he uses photographs, illustrations and newspaper cuttings as prototypes in the creation of new and startling contexts.
- In his works, Mörnerud recurrently deals with the relationship between the external world and the internal world view. What is it we don’t see when we see, and how do language and learned frames of reference influence how we systematise our perceptions and put together our world view? In installations based on fragmented paintings – and with strong links to biology, religion and language – he explores how we absorb the world, through our bodies, our metabolism and on a cellular level, says curator Joa Ljungberg.
In the new work, Panorama/Midbody, which is presented for the first time at Moderna Museet Malmö, Oskar Mörnerud brings together an illusionistic painting tradition – the panorama – with cellular biology. The work is a seven-meter-long painting that in the black-painted gallery space appears like a projection. Fragmented pictures and geometric figures form two linked ovals that recall the way a cell duplicates its set of chromosomes and then divides into two daughter cells. The two ovals confront us like a pair of gigantic eyes, through which we are afforded a panoramic glimpse into a fragmented world. The work can be described as an intermediate form between a painting and a text, and the piece invites us to reflect on the interface between the actual world and our worldview.
The Fredrik Roos Art Prize is a newly established stipend in support of young artists’ further education and development. The purpose of the foundation is to award stipends to young Nordic artists, primarily active in the fields of painting and sculpture. The holder of the stipend is selected in collaboration with Moderna Museet Malmö, who produces an exhibition with the artist and hosts the award ceremony.
Main sponsor for Moderna Museet Malmö is E.ON.
About Panorama/Midbody by Joa Ljungberg
Invitation to the press preview of Oskar Mörnerud: Panorama/Midbody, Wednesday, 16 November, 10-11 am. Museum Director Magnus Jensner welcomes visitors and Axel Roos presents the background to the Fredrik Roos Art Prize. Then curator Joa Ljungberg will give an introduction to Oskar Mörnerud’s artistry and to the exhibition.
The award ceremony will be held the same evening, 7-9 pm at Moderna Museet Malmö.
RSVP for the press preview by Wednesday, 15 November: s.alsterhag@modernamuseet.se