Global struktur för sociala djur, 2005 — Johan Waerndt, Global Structure For Social Animals, 2005 © Johan Waerndt. Detail of installation at Moderna Museet

The 1st at Moderna: Johan Waerndt

Global Structure For Social Animals

1.6 2005 – 24.7 2005

Stockholm

At Johan Waerndt’s graduation exhibition You Need A Mess of Help to Stand Alone shown at Galleri Mejan (2000) visitors were confronted with a complex structure made of goods pallets. Within the labyrinthine architecture there were quantities of pictures and notes that had been divided up and organized in accordance with the artist’s own system.

The complex structure might be interpreted as a self portrait of the artist – a walk through Johan Waerndt’s brain in which memories and images are stored and organized in different sections. The goods pallets also functioned on a practical level as a minimalist building module that can be assembled in innumerable different combinations. The actual construction work was documented in a series of photos which were also shown inside the sculpture. Moving pallets in search of the correct combination appeared to be a task that would never end.

In later works Johan Waerndt has built similar labyrinthine systems but without employing obvious personal references. Rather, he chooses to focus on the systems themselves and their architecture. For example he constructed Underground Structure for Social Animals (2000) – a buried, subterranean system of tunnels and rooms for various different functions and supposed inhabitants. The work, which is reminiscent of Land Art, was produced for the sculpture park in Kellokoski in Finland. Visitors could see only a few parts of the tunnels – stretching for several hundred metres – in the form of openings above the level of the ground.

Johan Waerndt

Born 1972 in Stockholm. Lives and works in Stockholm.

Three latest solo exhibitions

2005 GSFSA, Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Mexico City
2001 Jericho, Kulturhuset, Stockholm
Structure for Social Animals, Tunnel Vision, STHLM Art Fair, Sollentuna, Stockholm

Three latest group exhibitions

2004 Här byggs ett nytt Sverige (with Monika Marklinger), Read Me, Konstmuseet/Länsmuseet, Visby,
2003 Amorf 03 – Summit of Micro Nations, Finlandia House & Harakka Island, Finland,
2002 ArtGenda IV, Hamburg, Tyskland,

Studio grants

NIFCA, Helsingfors, 2002
IASPIS, Stockholm, 2001-02

The 1st at Moderna is an exhibition programme for contemporary art. The opening is always on the first day of the month, and the exhibitions are in different venues in or outside the museum.