Lina Selander

The title is from the French film-maker Jean-Luc Godard’s La Chinoise from 1967, retrospectively regarded as a prescient analysis of the looming years of revolt. Using a montage technique similar to that developed by Godard, Lina Selander unravels the film’s dialogues and images and reassembles them in an open form that generates new meaning.

Her work can be seen as an attempt to look beyond the dictums and truths of a legendary period, and to discover the many-layered meanings and ambiguities of the images. This raises questions concerning the relationship between historiography and photography – between word and image. What narratives does the image contain? What words must be removed from the image for us to truly understand what we see? And if they were really removed, what truth could fill the gap?

The camera flash burns holes through the alternating montage of stills and moving images. In the middle of each potential statement is a disturbing blank white space – like an attempt to express what we cannot see.

Lina Selander

Born 1973 in Stockholm
Lives and works in Stockholm

Education

1999–2000 Kungl. Konsthögskolan/Royal University College of Fine Arts, Stockholm
1998–1999 Högskolan för fotografi och film/School of Photography and Film, Göteborg/Gothenburg

Selected solo exhibitions

2008 När solen går ner är den alldeles röd, sen försvinner den, Nordin Gallery, Stockholm
2006 Brytning, SAK, Stockholm
2005 Lina Selander – Selected video works, Galleri 300m3 Art Space, Göteborg/Gothenburg

Selected group exhibitions

2010 Bucharest Biennale 4, Bucharest/Bukarest [RO]
2009 Les Rencontres Internationales/New Cinema and Contemporary Art, Paris/Berlin/Madrid, Centre Pompidou, Paris [FR]; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin [DE]; Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid [ES]
2007 Mot Tiden, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm

Selected bibliography

Fredrik Ehlin, Lina Selander: The Space of Memory, Stockholm, Axl books, 2010.
Lina Selander, When the Sun Sets It’s All Red, Then It Disappears, Stockholm: Nordin Galley, 2008.
Karin Faxén, Spleen Sweden: The Edstrand Foundation award 2008, Edstrandska Stiftelsen, Malmö Konstmuseum, 2008.