Annika von Hausswolff
Time Out Photography And About

29.11. - 22.12.2013

Helsinki Contemporary has the pleasure to present the first solo exhibition of the Swedish artist Annika von Hausswolff at the gallery. The title of the exhibition, Time Out Photography And About, characteristically both describes and defines the content of the completely new series of works.

In this exhibition Annika von Hausswolff focuses on the crucial issue of contemporary image making, in her works confronting a pair of existential and deep-seated questions: what is a photography about? And how do we keep on making images after moving from analog to digital technology?

“Reflections upon the tools of image making have always been in my mind since I started out with photography. Of course the transition from analogue technique to its digital successor has amplified the urge to understand the evolution of our visual culture. Looking at certain implements used for analogue image making, but also certain key aspects of photography itself – for example, its ability to mirror reality – I have made a series of images that all, in one way or another, relate to analogue image making. Some works, like the contact sheets of light, have a very conceptual point of departure, while others – for example, the self-portrait – deal more with the connection between photography and death.”

With the new series Annika von Hausswolff is literally re-visiting the tools of the trade that were central in the processes of analogue photography. She has produced images or objects from these no longer used materials. With the chosen strategy of “poetic justice” she has given these almost historical items a new life that cannot be reduced to their original function, but given them a completely new temporality and textuality – not to forget sensibility.

“It is impossible to imagine our existence today without the possibility of representing the world around us. The indexicality that is so typical for the photographic technique is unique, and although we understand more and more about its tampering with reality, it is still this powerful tool of presenting, representing, informing and reflecting our lives and space.”

“For an artist integrity is everything. Either it is about speed, or slowness. To me, ideas come with the speed of light, then it could take years to carry them out. When the images/ideas go public they start to exist in a different logic where I am no longer participating. It is like cutting off your fingers, again and again.”

“I believe the whole photographic apparatus to be saturated in mechanisms of desire. When you depict something there is a movement of getting closer as well as distancing yourself from the subject matter. It is a complex ritual of creating desire both within the witnessing subject and the reflecting object.”

This set of works again achieves this dual task. They demonstrate a painstakingly and accurately conducted genealogy of a medium, from a very personal and committed perspective, certainly depicting the demise of an industry. Simultaneously, this is achieved with a decisive and dedicated reflection that lacks any hint of one-way instrumentalization, silly nostalgia or cheap sentimentality.

Instead, it is a series of works that burns and heals, pushes and pulls, caresses and could not care less. It is a series that do the ultimate thing we can ask from works of art: they remind us what it means to be alive and kicking – kicking with pleasure, gusto and stamina against the pricks.


Quotations are from a conversation text between Mika Hannula and Annika von Hausswolff

Annika von Hausswolff is a Swedish artist who was born in 1967 and completed her formal art studies in the mid-nineties. Exploring different visual strategies within the field of photography, she has participated in numerous group shows and done many solo shows in Europe and North America, for example It All Ends With a Beginning at ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, 2013, and Ich bin die Ecke aller Räume, Magazin 3, Stockholm, and Turku Art Museum, 2008. Her work revolves around existential and spatial issues in a conceptual yet formal manner. For the past five years she has been professor for the master's students in photography at Gothenburg University in Sweden.