Still Life/Work Life
From the Hasselblad Foundation collection
March 23–May 19
Still Life/Work Life – From the Hasselblad Foundation Collection is the first in a series of thematic exhibitions based on the Hasselblad Foundation Collection. The exhibition unites two very different photographic genres, still life and documentary photography, in works by 25 artists. The juxtaposition of still lives and photographs documenting work life reflects photography’s complex cultural history, as well as the rich and varied collection of the Hasselblad Foundation.
With works by: Marie Andersson, Yngve Baum, Kerstin Bernhard, Elina Brotherus, Dawid, William Eggleston, Monica Englund, Hiroshi Hamaya, Kerstin Hamilton, Jean Hermansson, Lars Johansson, Ulla Jokisalo, Sune Jonsson, Stig T Karlsson, Tuija Lindström, Lennart Nilsson, Georg Oddner, Irving Penn, Walid Raad, Björn Rantil, Åsa Stjerna, Trine Søndergaard, Tuuli Truhponen, Filippo Zambon, Pernilla Zetterman
Artist Talks and Guided Tours
17 April, 6 pm Yngve Baum, Kerstin Hamilton and Björn Rantil
15 May, 6 pm Monica Englund, Pernilla Zetterman
Public tours every Sunday at 1 pm
Book Release in Stockholm
The book STILL LIFE / WORK LIFE is published in conjunction with the exhibition, in collaboration with Art and Theory Publishing. A book release will be held at Konst-ig book store in Stockholm, 9 April, 6-8 pm.
Charlotte Haslund-Christensen
Who´s Next?
The Project Room
March 23–May 19
Charlotte Haslund-Christensen: WHO’S NEXT?
Charlotte Haslund-Christensen’s artistic practice focuses on social, political issues, operating at the intersection of anthropology, documentarism and social interaction. Her art projects often take the form of anthropological fieldwork, resulting in works that subvert museological or archival representations to investigate their role in framing and forming minorities and majorities.
WHO’S NEXT? is the latest in a series of projects focussing on stereotypes based on gender, ethnicity and nationality. The work addresses the current international criminalisation of LGBTQ people, while at the same time referencing photography’s historical role in categorization and surveillance.
The artist has photographed over 40 LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) people at Copenhagen Police Station, creating mugshots of the criminals they would be in the 76 countries that outlaw same-sex relationships. The work thus probes the matrix of politics and visual representation, as well as codes and contexts of viewing. In her staging of the participants, the artist mimics the familiar identity photograph that was first employed by the French police at the beginning of the 1880s. Using the mugshot format to depict non-criminals, WHO’S NEXT? addresses issues of innocence and guilt and perception and prejudice across the board of social and cultural identities.
Each of the participants photographed in WHO’S NEXT? was taken down to the prison basement of Copenhagen Central Police Station. They were escorted past cell doors, stripped of jewellery and had their fingerprints taken before being photographed by the artist from the front and in profile using the lighting, tripods and ink-smeared studio of the police authorities themselves. The resulting mugshots are printed in the original police format and individually inserted in archival plastic sleeves. The whole project is thus a critical mirror of the photographic procedures related to the conventional state archive and its disciplining power.
The images are among the last physical prints to be made at Copenhagen Police Station. Since 2010 mugshots of arrested suspects have all been archived digitally. But whilst the medium of the photographic print might be police history, the mechanisms of exclusion and stigmatization are still very prevalent in global visual culture. WHO’S NEXT? appeals to solidarity, community and respect in the present. Hence the title WHO’S NEXT?, which is inspired by Pastor Martin Niemöller’s protest against political apathy during the rise of Nazism:
First they came for the communists,
And I didn’t speak out
Because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
And I didn’t speak out
Because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
And I didn’t speak out
Because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me.
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.
As well as an exhibition, WHO’S NEXT? is also a multiple – a book box currently being smuggled to regions where LGBTQ people are denied basic human rights. Here, the entire collection of mugshots is assembled with Niemöller’s poem as frontispiece, enabling the project to travel across borders to LGBTQ communities globally, including the countries that criminalise their lives.
Charlotte Haslund-Christensen is educated at Denmark’s school of art photography Fatamorgana and The International Center of Photography (ICP), New York. WHO’S NEXT? is her first solo exhibition at the Hasselblad Center and the first exhibition of the project. WHO’S NEXT? is part of the Hasselblad Foundation collection.
You can read more about the artist and her work at www.charlottehaslund.com
Louise Wolthers,
Researcher, The Hasselblad Foundation