Annika Larsson
19 May - 02 Jul 2006
Annika LARSSON's video installations represent slightly altered universes obeying autonomous rules. The artist stages only men and deals with primarily male themes and their symbolic language, questioning concepts such as expressions of power, submission or violence.
Annika LARSSON created the video Pink Ball which deals with recurrent themes in her work. In the middle of a meticulously controlled setting (a smooth and sterilized beach), three impassive men seem to be absorbed by minimal, ritualized and enigmatic actions. Two of the protagonists play with the third one, whose pink bathing cap echoes the pink ball of the Sony Aibo dog seen at the beginning of the video. This type of robot is indeed programmed to be attracted by the pink color.
The sharp precision of the framing reinforces the singularity of the icy settings and the use of sound – an electro cover of The Cure's track The Forest by artist Tobias BERNSTRUP – as an autonomous element emphasizes the inner tension of the video. The ambiguity of attitudes and relations of strength between the different characters lies in the fact that the only expression of power is established by the real “queen of the game”, Annika LARSSON. "The people I use in my works, rather then creating characters, become figures lacking individual history or depth; they are mere ciphers. I do not mean to just represent Everyman, rather each one of them is the carrier of a wider dialogue strictly related to myself and my intimate being".
Rather than developing an analytical discourse or a simple narrative, she submerges us into a peculiar world where perfection, elegance and the power of details - a hand on a rose bath cap, a pink ball in a man's mouth – confront us with our distress facing the power which emerges from her images.
Annika LARSSON created the video Pink Ball which deals with recurrent themes in her work. In the middle of a meticulously controlled setting (a smooth and sterilized beach), three impassive men seem to be absorbed by minimal, ritualized and enigmatic actions. Two of the protagonists play with the third one, whose pink bathing cap echoes the pink ball of the Sony Aibo dog seen at the beginning of the video. This type of robot is indeed programmed to be attracted by the pink color.
The sharp precision of the framing reinforces the singularity of the icy settings and the use of sound – an electro cover of The Cure's track The Forest by artist Tobias BERNSTRUP – as an autonomous element emphasizes the inner tension of the video. The ambiguity of attitudes and relations of strength between the different characters lies in the fact that the only expression of power is established by the real “queen of the game”, Annika LARSSON. "The people I use in my works, rather then creating characters, become figures lacking individual history or depth; they are mere ciphers. I do not mean to just represent Everyman, rather each one of them is the carrier of a wider dialogue strictly related to myself and my intimate being".
Rather than developing an analytical discourse or a simple narrative, she submerges us into a peculiar world where perfection, elegance and the power of details - a hand on a rose bath cap, a pink ball in a man's mouth – confront us with our distress facing the power which emerges from her images.