City Walks

Bonniers Konsthall reopens its doors in Stockholm with a major exhibition on cities in transformation by six international artists and free admission for all.

This spring’s first exhibition at Bonniers Konsthall explores the city as a phenomenon.

Six artists encounter urban centres from across the globe. The city is portrayed as a place for interpersonal meetings, historical power games, and global politics.

Top: Hala Elkoussy, In Search of a City (in the papers of Sein), 2011, film still detail. Courtesy the artist. Above: Hala Elkoussy, Khawaga & Johnny Stories, 2011, installation with photos, books, documents and furniture, Bonniers Konsthall

City Walks involves artists who work with the notion of how it is to live and maintain oneself in a city. Jesper Just, Sophie Calle, Hala Elkoussy, Carlos Garaicoa, William Kentridge and Lisa Torell are all interested in how the urban space is perceived and experienced, and view the urban settings as a collection of powers acting upon the individual.

Jesper Just, Intercourses, 2013. Five channel video installation, HD, bamboo, led-light, architectural elements, looped 5 x 10 min. Courtesy the artist and Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen, Bonniers Konsthall

Cairo’s winding streets, which bear witness to past European colonial rule, is the base of Hala Elkoussy’s work. We encounter a replica of Paris located a continent away from Europe in Intercourses by Jesper Just. Johannesburg serves as the backdrop for the tale of South Africa’s political history in the work of William Kentridge. Sophie Calle visits the Bronx in New York City in the early 1980s, far from its contemporary status as a tourist destination. Havana’s ruin-like architecture, a direct result of Cuba’s economic deadlock, serves as the foundation of visionary models, sculptures, and collages by Carlos Garaicoa. The current worn-down condition of the houses built during the Million Programme, implemented in mid-1960s Sweden to build one million new homes, is transformed in a poetic close reading by Lisa Torell.

Carlos Garaicoa, <i>Prêt-à-Porter</i>, 2011, Wood, cloth, feathers, paper, ink, metal. Courtesy Galería Elba Benítez, Madrid, Bonniers Konsthall
Carlos Garaicoa, <i>If you have a glass house...</i>, 2013, Glass, acrylic glass, magnets, wooden table. Courtesy Barbara Gross Galerie, München, Bonniers Konsthall
Jesper Just, <i>Intercourses</i>, 2013, Five channel video installation, HD, bamboo, led-light, architectural elements, looped 5 x 10 min. Courtesy the artist and Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen, Bonniers Konsthall
Lisa Torell, <i>Figur 017, minimum dimensions for low walk flow</i>, 2015, detached pavement sculpture, G-stöd (concrete), cold patch asphalt, Bonniers Konsthall
Sophie Calle, <i>The Bronx</i>, 1980, black and white photography, edition 17/250, Bonniers Konsthall
Sophie Calle <i>The Shadow</i>, 1985, Gelatin silver prints, chromogenic print and text panels, Bonniers Konsthall
William Kentridge, <i>WEIGHING . . . and WANTING</i>, 1998, 35 mm animated film transferred to video. 6 min. Nr 7/10, 10 Drawings for Projection, 1989-2011. 10 animated films. Total length: 1:12:36 h. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris/London


until 5 April 2015
City Walks
Bonniers Konsthall
Torsgatan 19, Stockholm
Free admission, as a new museum’s policy admission is free from reopening on 4th February