Kategori: Ocak

Calmation, 2013, video, 5 minute loop

Over the last 20 years, technological advancements have provided us with tools that have profoundly increased the extent to which we are able to interact and communicate with each other as well as help us record information and store it as part of a collective memory. Thus, we now have the ability and freedom to communicate what we are doing and what we have done how and when we want, increasingly ingraining ourselves in a hyper-connected but at times more physically isolated landscape. This is not necessarily a new phenomenon, as Friberg notes, photographs of public transport interiors from half a century ago often show people reading newspapers in solitude in a scene analogous to that of today. It is however a phenomena that is rapidly increasing in scale and extension. While some people adapt to this increasingly networked landscape, utilizing platforms that allow them to live parallel digital lives, those without the correct capabilities are left alienated. Either way, physical isolation is intensified.

Friberg’s work explores this key characteristic of the contemporary cultural condition of the western world. In their solitude, her tender subjects seem to find their place in this frenetic interconnected and fast-paced world by jettisoning perpetual connectivity and finding a moment of profound stillness amongst the chaos.

About Maria Friberg, b. 1966, Sweden. Friberg’s solo exhibitions this year include, Maria Friberg at Alingsås konsthall, Alingsås, Sweden; Artphilein collection on display: Maria Friberg at Choisi Cultural Association, Lugano, Switzerland; Between solitude and belonging at Connersmith, Washington, DC, USA; and Maria Friberg at Bohusläns Museum, Uddevalla, Sweden. Also in 2014, she was commissioned to make a new work by the Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenbeurg in honor of Erna Hasselblad. She was previously had solo exhibitions at Kulturhuset Borgen, Gislaved, Sweden; Fotografiska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; Galeria Galica, Milan, Italy; and Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf, Germany. Her works can be found in private and public collections such as those of the Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO, USA; European Central Bank, Frankfurt, Germany; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA; The Elizabeth A Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY, USA and the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, among others.

For press information, images or an interview with the artist, please contact: Neil Jefferies (nj@piartworks.com) or call +44 207 637 8403