Annika von Hausswolff, The Memory of My Mother's Underwear Transformed Into a Flameproof Drape, 2003 © Annika von Hausswolff

Annika von Hausswolff

The desire to show something and to hide it at one and the same time is a recurrent feature of Annika von Hausswolff’s photographs. A boy stands expectantly in front of a curtain with his hands over his eyes.

The curtain is a symbol for the stage, a place where something will be shown and something will be hidden. The flash of light reveals, and the proof is the photograph. It uncovers an interaction between sight and visibility, light and blindness. And captures what happens before it disappears.

The works of von Hausswolff develop into a showdown with the history of representation and an exploration of the possibilities open to photography in an age when almost everything has been photographed. Photographs that could be confused with reality have been replaced by von Hausswolff with ones that open onto worlds of their own. People and objects in a pictorial space become part of the space in which they encounter the viewer. The door and darkness frequently form part of the background, as both a threat and an escape route.

Trousers half off, someone is fleeing from the bright space towards the darkness outside. And the woman on the camp chair is on her way out into the unknown. But the girl is standing apparently unafraid in the slanting light with her eyes closed, her back towards the door which is ajar. She is holding a motor saw with some effort. Perhaps that is what is required. A catch-22 occurs in a self-portrait. The flash is turned toward the viewer in an attempt to dazzle and from a desire not to be seen.

Annika von Hausswolff

Born 1967 in Gothenburg. Lives and works in Berlin.

Education

1991–1994

University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm

Selected solo exhibitions

2005
Production-in-recidence, BAC, Visby

2004
The Painful Logic Of Colour And Texture, Air de Paris, Paris [FR]

1999–2003
Domestic Sculpure, Bohusläns Museums Konsthall, Uddevalla/ Uppsala Konstmuseum, Uppsala/Norrköpings Konstmuseum, Norrköping

Selected group exhibitions

2005
The Exposed Colour: Pink, University Art Museum of The National University of Fine Arts And Music, Tokyo [JP]

2005
Erste Haut, Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Dresden [DE]

2005
Swedish Photography, Faulconer Gallery, Grinnel University, Iowa [US]

Selected bibliography

Sara Arrhenius, Annika von Hausswolff in Dialogue with Sara Arrhenius, IASPIS, Propexus, Revolver-Archive für Aktuelle Kunst, Stockholm, 2004.

Berlin North, Contemporary Artists From the Nordic Countries in Berlin At Nationalgalerie in Hamburger Bahnhof Museum Für Gegenwart, Berlin 2004.

Marianne Torp, Room for Increased Consciousness of the Parallel Day (exh. cat.), Statens Museum for Kunst, Köpenhamn, 2003.

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