NEWS Two new exhibitions will open at Bildmuseet on Sunday January 19th at 14:00. One of them is Andreas Johansson / Place Position, a pop-up landscape in large scale that the artist has created especially for Bildmuseet.
Andreas Johansson's illusionary, three-dimensional landscapes depict dilapidated, abandoned areas. He employs a collage technique, using photographs of his immediate environment which he cuts up and re-arranges into new coherent entities. He thus creates fictitious locations which are pure constructions and yet relate to real events and activities in the past – inaccessible, mysterious environments between reality and the dream world.
The artist has previously presented his landscapes in the form of pop-up books, where the motifs unfurl when the covers are opened. For Bildmuseet, he has created an entirely new work, a large-scale pop-up landscape. With the help of illusionary tricks and techniques that have existed in architecture and landscape gardening for thousands of years, he has manipulated perspectives and distorted proportions. The location is grandiose yet inaccessible. It exists only when seen from a certain angle. If we attempt to enter it or view it from another direction, it disappears.
Recurring themes in Andreas Johansson's work are urban architecture and city planning, environment and capitalism. They portray escapist dreams, memories from youth of forgotten, mystical areas on the outskirts of the urban landscape.
Andreas Johansson, born in 1977, lives and works in Malmö. Following studies at Malmö Art Academy, he has participated in exhibitions in Stockholm, Malmö, Copenhagen, Arles and Hannover.
Lisa Lundström, curator Bildmuseet
E-mail: lisa.lundstrom@bildmuseet.umu.se
Phone: 090-786 7012
Editor: Helena Vejbrink