A solo exhibition by Annika von Hausswolff opens the spring season at the Hasselblad Center. The exhibition features a selection of the artist’s works from the past ten years, in which the themes that have always characterized Annika von Hausswolff’s production are developed, and her importance as one of the leading Nordic artists is manifested.

Some recurrent subjects in Annika von Hausswolff’s works are patriarchal structures, criminology, global capitalism, the subconscious and a profound interest in the photographic image – with a predilection for analogue technology. The exhibition features, among other series, the dreamlike suite I Am The Runway of Your Thoughts (2008), sculptures from the series Social Abstraction (2010), images depicting gold teeth in the series An Oral Story of Economic Structures (2012), as well as the latest works – suggestive enamels created by existing archival images (2015–2016).

Annika von Hausswolff became established in the early 1990s as one of the most influential artists in Sweden who challenged the 1970s documentary tradition and 1980s subjective oriented photography. Her works are often imbued with a social commitment. She uses stagings and an associative imagery as method to create images where the boundaries between fiction and reality are fluid. Another distinctive feature of Annika von Hausswolff’s works are the spatial installations in which the photographs are often combined with sculptural elements, such as window blinds and textiles – everyday details from domestic environments that also appear in the photographs. Placed in the exhibition space, they become more than an extension of the images – they form an immersive installation.

Annika von Hausswolff’s multifaceted oeuvre is reflected in the exhibition’s title, Grand Theory Hotel, where the artist invites us to different rooms – surreal, feminist or photographic – that are woven into a vertiginous and multilayered whole.

A new book about Annika von Hausswolff will be published in conjunction with the exhibition, published by the Hasselblad Foundation and Art and Theory Publishing, with graphic design by the design duo Malmsten Hellberg. The book is released on 11 May at the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg, and 18 May at the Mindepartementet in Stockholm.

Annika von Hausswolff (born 1967) lives and works in Gothenburg. In 2007–2012, she was a prominent professor of photography at the University of Gothenburg, with great influence on the younger generation of photographers. She represented Sweden at the Venice Biennale in 1999, and her work is represented in many Swedish and significant international collections, such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Magasin III Museum & Foundation for Contemporary Art, Stockholm; Kiasma, Helsinki; Astrup Fearnley Collection, Oslo and the Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenburg. Annika von Hausswolff is one of the founders and editors of the art blog tsnoK.se.

Curator: Dragana Vujanovic, Hasselblad Foundation