Society Acts
Group exhibitions at Moderna Museet Malmö
20 September 2014 - 25 January 2015

In autumn 2014, the third edition of the Moderna Exhibition will be presented at Moderna Museet Malmö. Unlike the two previous exhibitions, the selection has been widened geographically beyond Sweden, to include artists from a large part of the Baltic region. The exhibition features 38 contemporary artists and artist groups from, or based in, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. A few historical elements will also be included. The widened geographical scope coincides with the 100th anniversary of the Baltic Exhibition in Malmö in 1914.
The title refers both to “acts” as in actions and to the verb to act. Several of the featured artists and works discuss or engage in performative practices where the distance between viewing and interacting is essential, and where issues of private and collective identities, political expressions and personal reflections are materialised. Language and migration, the boundary between private and public, and between fact and fiction, are other subjects that occur frequently in the exhibition.
A rich programme of performances, lectures and film screenings is planned in conjunction with the exhibition. All the featured artists will also be presented in an extensive catalogue.

Participating artists :AaBbPp, Patrik Aarnivaara, Emanuel Almborg, Cezary Bodzianowski, Maja Borg, Eglė Budvytytė & Bart Groenendaal, Zenta Dzividzinska, Ugnius Gelguda & Neringa Černiauskaitė, Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, Joachim Hamou, Maj Hasager, Łukasz Jastrubczak, Laura Kaminskaitė, Tadeusz Kantor, Essi Kausalainen, Agnieszka Kurant, Anna Lundh, Henning Lundkvist, Maija Luutonen, Björn Lövin, J.O. Mallander, Jonas Mekas, Miks Mitrēvics & Kristīne Kursiša, Kristina Norman, Michala Paludan, Lea Porsager, Emily Roysdon, Imri Sandström, Algirdas Šeškus, Janek Simon, Ola Ståhl & Terje Östling, Mika Taanila, Anna-Stina Treumund & Marju Mutsu, Ola Vasiljeva, Visible Solutions LLC, Tris Vonna-Michell, Mette Winckelmann.
Curators: Andreas Nilsson and Maija Rudovska
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Can a dream unfold without the dreamer? Can a story be told without the storyteller?
The Messenger suddenly appears and delivers her lines, or rather an accurate observation of the actual exchange that is taking place.

The installations of Ola Vasiljeva are populated with various objects - found, constructed, modified, arranged - diffused across and integrated within the given space in order to create a certain scenography. Vasiļjeva is sort of a storyteller, but sees language as an illusion where words often offer false definitions. So, she strips them down and composes a syntax that operates outside of logic or language. Like for example in the installation entitled Jargot (2014) the fusion between argot (french for slang) and jargon conveys a precision beyond the words that already exist in our vocabulary. Vasiljeva carefully arranges a set of multilayered translations between sculptural pieces, video, found and modified objects, printed matter and poetry, but within the installation she purposely leaves cognitive gaps open for interpretation, speculation, and imagination.

Vasiljeva's spatial arrangements are more in tune with the way a libretto is distinct from a synopsis. While the libretto contains all the words and stage directions, the synopsis summarises the plot. The choreographed dialogue that is unfolding between Vasiljeva's ambiguous, absurd and scattered compositions is not about reading the sentences, but about listening to how they sound when they are put together.

Elena Tzotzi