If you want to hide a tree, go to the forest

Sofia Hultén, If you want to hide a tree, go to the forest, 2010 © Sofia Hultén. Courtesy Konrad Fischer Galerie.

Sofia Hultén

In her art, Sofia Hultén combines the deadpan, straightforward aesthetics of instruction films of the kind made for the building material chain store Bauhaus, with refreshingly absurd humour. In a form of everyday performances, apparently pointless chores are carried out with self-assumed methodical rituality.

The works are based on a background that conveys meaning, combining such disparate subjects as criminology, science fiction and quantum physics. Hultén’s philosophical examinations establish contentrelated links between the individual and the collective, the perpetual expansion of the universe and the compact matter of black holes, expressed metaphorically in these trivial attempts to influence the future.

The narrow wood slats in If you want to hide a tree, go to the forest (2010) are both newly-made by the artist and readymades. It is no longer possible to distinguish the copies from the originals. With loving care for the integrity of the objects, fact and fiction are blended in a remarkable way. The existential dilemma of disappearance is a constant theme in Sofia Hultén’s oeuvre. This work is a variation on her cyclical process works, where she activates the difference between the used and the used up. Previously, she has renovated objects she has found, only to return them to their original worn condition. Despite the authentic appearance of the sculptural depiction, something fundamental has been altered. Her reconstructions operate on several parallel temporal planes in their challenge of the status quo.

Sofia Hultén

Born 1972 in Stockholm
Lives and works in Berlin [DE]

Education

1997 Sheffield Hallam University [UK]

Selected solo exhibitions

2010 Past Particles, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Berlin [DE]
2010 Familars, IKON Gallery, Birmingham [UK]
2008 Mutual Annihilation, Kunstlerhas Bremen [DE]

Selected group exhibitions

2009 Berlin 2000, Pace Wildenstein, New York [US]
2009 Pop-Up! Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen [DE]
2008 Betwixt: Sofia Hultén between Kendell Geers, Gabriel Orozco, Jonathan Monk, Cosima Von Bonin, Paul Chan and Mona Hatoun, Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall, Stockholm

Selected bibliography

Richard Julin, Stefani Böttcher, Helen Legg, 12 Works, Ikon Gallery, Künstlerhaus Bremen, Bremen, 2009: s./p. 192.
Bettina Carl, Points in a Room Condensing, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 2006: s./p. 32.
Jennifer Allen, Suzanne Dieter, Sofia Hultén – Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt: 2003: s./p. 32.

www.sofiahulten.de

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