LEONTINE ARVIDSSON
ARMORS
6 OCTOBER – 6 NOVEMBER 2022
REVIEWED BY
"This exhibition is probably created out of a longing and a resistance in the body of a forgotten teenage girl. Traces of a world to conquer, where everything is possible and where there is room for every dream"
Welcome to Leontine Arvidsson’s third solo show at the gallery. In Armors the visitor meets memories and fragments from the five fictional characters Lotte, Valerie, Bridget, Modesty, and Elisabeth.
The exhibition talks about the young body meeting its aging counterpart, about a constant search for identity, and about time as both something difficult and alleviating in the encounter with teenage memories. What are true memories and are some memories only constructions by our minds? Did all that you think really happen? What about an invitation from a man to meet in A01? Are parts of the memory altered by the life you have lived, and now merely a fantasy? When nothing is said out loud, when no picture has been taken and no text has been written, what is left? In the exhibition, the drawings, collages, and sculptures are like archaeological finds, like traces of past times. Glass and bronze meet sheer fabrics and form into loose as well as tightly stretched formations. Like clothes, hangers, and draperies the viewer can sense the body that was once around and in them. Traces of a body’s movements is recognizable from the artist’s previous exhibitions where sculptures of rebar drew their way through the air.
Teenage memories charged with pink chewing gum are recognized in bubbles, doodles, and embroideries. Is the round shape a shelter for dreams, secrets, and desires? Or is it a body of resistance, a silent language?
Leontine Arvidsson has developed the five characters Lotte, Valerie, Bridget, Modesty, and Elisabeth over a long period of time in conversations at sewing workshops, in therapy, in arguments and in encounters with people on the street, and they have continued to be shaped by clichés in popular culture, from classic characters, news feeds and from the colors of an old recovered knitted sweater. The characters reunite in the book A01 where they revisit and reconquer a common memory. Leontine Arvidsson has written the script with dramaturgical assistance from Vanja Sandell Billström. The book has been designed by Kajsa Pontén and was produced with support from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee. The work with transforming the script into a radio play continues with support from The Swedish Arts Council.
LEONTINE ARVIDSSON, born 1974 in Gothenburg, currently lives and works in Stockholm. Leontine Arvidsson holds a BFA and MFA from The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, 2014. Leontine Arvidsson’s work has been shown at Norrtälje Konsthall; Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde, Stockholm; Haninge Konsthall, Stockholm; Berlinale Shorts, Berlin’s 63rd International film festival; International Film Festival, Rotterdam; FEMINA - International Women's Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro; Tempo Documentary Film Festival, New Doc and Tempo Short Award, Stockholm; Gallery Jinsun, Seoul; Galleri Arnstedt, Östra Karup, and at FORUM Stockholm, among others. Leontine Arvidsson has received Hötorget Art Grant, Bærtling Foundation Grant and Marianne and Sigvard Bernadotte's Art Grant. Leontine Arvidsson’s work is represented in the permanent collection of The Public Art Agency Sweden, Haninge kommun and Stockholm Läns Landsting. Public art commissions include Stockholm University and Östermalms Saluhall, Stockholm.