Göteborgs Konsthall

Valand Academy, Masters of Fine Art

11 - 26 May 2013

AKADEMIN VALAND, MASTERS OF FINE ART
Frames and Stages
Curator: Claire Jackson
11 - 26 May 2013

Participating students:
Fredrika Anderson, Mina Snövit Hedstierna, Kim Johansson, Jan Marius Kiøsterud, Gustav Lejelind, Tomas Lundgren, Niklas Persson, Nils Elvebakk Skalegård, Miriam Thorpe, Mikael Vesavuori, Fredrik Åkum.

This year’s exhibition of art works by graduands in Fine Art continues Gothenburg Konsthallen’s long-term relationship with the work of emergent artists from the city’s art school. However, this year’s exhibition also occurs after a significant change. In July 2013 the Valand School of Fine Art merged with the Schools of Photography and Film and with the Department of Literary Composition to create the new Valand Academy.

The artists in this exhibition are the first graduands from a Masters programme in the new academy and this exhibition is one of many initiatives, which this particular group has been engaged with through the programme. Every challenge and opportunity has been approached by them with rigour, enthusiasm and meaningfulness.This exhibition therefore marks several moments simultaneously: the beginnings of the new Academy, the impending end of its education of the eleven artists represented here, and a renewed partnership between Konsthallen and Valand Academy.

This partnership is based on the fact that these institutions believe that a healthy, strong and dynamic framework for the development of society has to consciously and confidently create circumstances that will foster and support art and artists. It is our shared responsibility to both demand and author contexts for publics to consistently encounter artists and their works and to provide platforms for critical thought and debate. I am grateful once again for the commitment, via this exhibition, that Konsthallen demonstrates in the necessity to publicly support and profile emergent artists in Gothenburg and Western Sweden.