@MEDELHAVSMUSEET

Bonniers Konsthall presents one of the most expansive exhibitions by Lawrence Abu Hamdan to date, which includes a new series of work alongside pieces by Abu Hamdan that allow for an interrogation of witnessing and testimony. The title »Dirty Evidence« comes from Abu Hamdan’s definition of evidence in which a truth value is derived from its very inadmissibility before the law. It is precisely the evidence’s figurative dirt and dirtiness that works toward the production of truth.
Abu Hamdan recognizes the space for art as a site wherein attention can be drawn to real socio-political conditions in order to challenge the structures behind those conditions. Three major discourses have emerged wherein the representation of violence is permissible—juridical, media and art. Abu Hamdan engages the aesthetic practice of art as an alternative vis-à-vis the aesthetic practices of the media and juridical to uncover and challenge their representational logics. The artist can therefore push at the boundaries of what constitutes testimony.

Testimony is integral to understanding violence, human rights violations and state abuse. Abu Hamdan’s work in this exhibition draws us not only towards questions of testimony’s presentational circumstances and conditions of use, but also towards questions of who can speak in which spaces, what kinds of talk can and cannot be heard, and what conditions establish the possibility to make claims. The exhibition creates space for listening to testimony that might otherwise not be heard. For example, that of Bassel Abi Chahine, whom Abu Hamdan interviews in the two-channel video Once Removed (2019) and whose testimony not only concerns a war-crime but as a reincarnated subject upends given assumptions about presence and witnessing. Or as in the piece Earwitness Inventory, (2018–2019) comprised of 96 custom designed and sourced objects all derived from legal cases in which sonic evidence is contested and acoustic memories need to be retrieved, which challenges what we know about memory and testimony.

On the occasion of this exhibition, Bonniers Konsthall and Lenz Press will publish the artist’s first major monograph. This richly illustrated publication will present a comprehensive overview of the artist’s practice accompanied by commissioned essays by Ruba Katrib, Andrea Lissoni, Ramona Naddaff and Yasmine Seale.

In 2019 Abu Hamdan received the esteemed Turner Prize alongside Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo, and Tai Shani. Abu Hamdan has exhibited extensively, amongst others at the Venice Biennale, Tate Modern and the Hammer Museum. The artist’s audio investigations have also been used as evidence at the UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and as advocacy for organisations such as Amnesty International and Defence for Children International together with fellow researchers from Forensic Architecture.

Image: Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Bassel Abi Chahine, Shot Twice (By the Same Bullet), 2021. Installation detail.

Mint presents A Careful Strike*; a group show that departs from the monumental painting The History of the Workers Movement by the sheet metal worker, musician and artist Ruben Nilson (1893–1971), permanently installed at ABF Stockholm. Painted during a ten year period around 1940. Following a tradition of workers’ art, the collective struggle for emancipation is at the centre of Nilson’s painting. The exhibition follows Nilson’s artwork both in its ambition and challenge: What does the reproduction of a movement’s history entail? What different roles can art play in social movements and through which expressions? How is art engaged in today’s movements? A dialogue with the specific struggles and the histories that inform Nilson’s composition of intertwined visual narratives, structured through visible conjoined cuts form the curatorial framework of the exhibition. The works historical connections to contemporary situations are put in relation to what is missing within the frame – the histories and experiences that are left out while establishing a prevalent worker’s history. A Careful Strike* is an exhibition and a public program (that preceded the exhibition during the fall of 2020), where workers’ art is confronted with Swedish and international contemporary works. The form and history of social movements are reflected through situated experiences of migration, care, exploitation and struggle. Through songs, poetry, talks, and artworks historical events and issues are made visible in a conversation on our current condition. What do we need to remember and what is to be done to win back the future? *The exhibition borrows its title from the militant feminist collective Precarias a la deriva (Precarious women adrift) 2004. The collective was formed in Madrid in 2002 in reaction to the male-dominated unions that were organising a general strike in reaction to labour law reforms in Spain. Precarias a la deriva wanted to highlight the challenges many face in participating in strikes, due to a reality of precarious employment and a higher burden of reproductive work. They wanted to create a collective situated narrative on the general tendency toward the precarization of life they were experiencing and the ways to revolt and resist in our everyday lives. – Precarias a la deriva, Una huelga de mucho cuidado (Cuatro hipótesis), 2004. The exhibition is produced with generous support from The Worker Movement’s Culture Fund, The Swedish Arts Council and The City of Stockholm.

Diaspora Letters är ett visuellt samtal mellan fotograferna och konstnärerna Nicolás Wormull, baserad i Chile och Ricard Estay, baserad i Stockholm, Sverige. Samtalet inleddes i samband med protesterna i Chile 2019 helt utan ord, där bilderna som de skickade till varandra fick tala. I två parallella dagböcker som demokratiskt samlas i Diaspora Letters får åskådaren ta del av en feberdrömsliknande resa.

En intim mikro-makro dialog som troligen pågått längre än arbetet sträcker sig. Till synes längre än de två känt varandra. Kanske till och med i generationer. Från en diaspora till en annan. Denna utställning är en inblick i hur samtalet har gått under de två år som dessa individer hade en konversation. Vad pratade de om egentligen? Och vad säger samtalet om de två världarna under denna tid?

Accelerator presents British artist Jonathan Baldock’s first solo exhibition in Sweden. Baldock is presented in parallel with the Swedish artist Adèle Essle Zeiss in an Autumn exhibition programme focused on transformation and how we relate to the human body and our personal space. Two exhibitions characterised by sensuousness, presence and a cautious hopefulness.

Please note some artworks contain dried lavender.

Accelerator presents Swedish artist Adèle Essle Zeiss as part of an Autumn exhibition programme focused on transformation and how we relate to the human body and our personal space. Essle Zeiss is presented in parallell with artist Jonathan Baldock. Two exhibitions characterised by sensuousness, presence and a cautious hopefulness.

The big misconception presents Carl Johan De Geer's textile works. Fabrics, print sketches, installations and photographs from the early 60s to the beginning of the 21th century are shown together with films where Carl Johan De Geer talks about his inspiration and output.

A group exhibition of painters only.
The 1st Stockholm Painters’ Salon brings a concentrated blast of contemporary Sweden-based painting across a range of expressions.
More than 30 painters on less than 20 m2.
Love painting and it will love you back!

Members of Pussy Riot exhibiting

Artists’ Film International is a network of art institutions from around the world, first established in 2008 by the Whitechapel Gallery, London. From a selected theme, each participating institution chooses a film from an emerging artist. The theme for 2020 is Care.

Bonniers Konsthall has invited Victoria Verseau to participate with her film Approaching a Ghost.

Stora Galleriet