Welcome to an in-depth conversation based on the Lund Art Hall exhibition Under the Street Stone w/ Oscar Swanelid and Carla Zaccagnini which will be held in Lund City Hall on December 10th from 18–20 pm. From two separate but interconnected entrances, they explore how art can take shape in times characterized by political, social and psychological crises.
Carla Zaccagnini takes as her starting point two claims she has been confronted with on different occasions: first, that political art would have been conspicuous by its absence in Brazil, and second, that in times of war and crisis it may not even make sense to create art. In her presentation, she returns to Brazil's neo-concrete movement and the art that emerged during the dictatorship's violent repression.
Oscar Svanelid approaches similar questions through Lygia Clark's work Estruturas de Caixa de Fósforos (Red Matchbox), 1964, created in the midst of the upheavals of the military coup and the artist's own battle with illness. Here Clark stages a metaphorical funeral and returns to the materiality of everyday life – not least the matchboxes linked to her chain smoking – to evoke the state she herself called "complete emptiness". Svanelid also discusses how contemporary artists today process societies in psychological and sociopolitical crisis, with examples from her ongoing research project and other ongoing artistic initiatives, including Joar Nango's and Eystein Talleraa's architectural installation Refugee house / Báhtarangoahti (2024) at Ila high-security prison outside Oslo.
Together, Zaccagnini and Svanelid open a conversation about the possibilities and limitations of art when the reality around us is shaking.
Please note that the conversation will be held in English.