curated by Francesca Referza

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 Velan is pleased to introduce DRUNK, a solo exhibition by the Swedish artist Annika Larsson (Stockholm, 1972) curated by Francesca Referza. The artist, who has been living and working in Berlin for the past two years, explains that "DRUNK is an almost completely silent video (the sound level is set to be nearly inaudible). The actions of the drunk person are performed in a near void. Only the room's acoustics and the presence of the observers create the sound. DRUNK had no script, only a set of rules. It was filmed in my studio with a young actor who was drinking and gradually lost control in front of the camera." The idea for DRUNK (2010) came out of the artist's research on the Internet, a virtual environment in which it is easy to find real images of the state of drunkenness. Annika Larsson selected and saved a series of stills from videos posted by different users to YouTube, documenting tragicomic examples of the effects that alcohol has on people. Emerging from this series of images from the web is a world that is, at once, attractive and repelling. DRUNK, shown for the first time in Italy at Velan in Turin for ARTISSIMA 17, is a version of the hyperreality of the web, sublimated through Larsson's aesthetics.

In my opinion, DRUNK brings together two recurring elements of Larsson's work: reflecting on the mechanisms of power and control (and its loss) and her tendency to engage her protagonists in a long, close-up gaze (achieved with slow movements of the video camera) that support and heighten the condition of being a voyeur. The psychological tension that is under the surface of Larsson's videos, whether it is an explicitly private discourse or not, is often accentuated by the sound. In her recent videos, the sound element has gradually receded to be completely (or almost) done away with in DRUNK, in which the ambient sound is nearly imperceptible. Like the sound, the set of DRUNK is very minimal: a completely white room, the young actor, in whom we see the only painterly concession in the color of his hair, a melancholy fishing net, also white, and a little bird, whose disoriented presence in the same space as the drunk young actor makes for an overall powerful effect of estrangement. The video results from the young actor's lack of control of his body due to the alcohol and the distant control of Larsson. The video fosters the voyeuristic instinct to follow, through Larsson's gaze, the unstable movements of the actor who, white on white, seems physically erased by the space and whose ridiculous image is a counterpoint to the intermittent presence of the small bird. The video projection comes with written 'documentation'. There are nine framed A4 sheets on which the artist transcribed on paper the non-nonsensical conversations between her and the young actor during the filming. Framed, as if it were a form of automatic writing, they are raised to the value of an official document, without actually being so. Just as the small bird in the video gives the scene a powerful grotesque, surreal feeling, the idea of framing and putting under glass conversations lacking any logical connections and that are difficult to contextualize right away, produces a synaesthetic disconnect that creates a sense of unease.

Annika Larsson (Stockholm, 1972), is one of the most significant artists in Sweden. She works mainly with video. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions at museums, including Le Magasin, Grenoble, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, Sala Montcada - Fundacion La Caixa, Barcelona, ICA, London and at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada.

Shown for the first time in Italy at the Velan Center in Turin, DRUNK has been shown previously at Tape in Berlin, the Grimm Museum in Berlin, Oberhausen Film Festival, Cinemateket in Stockholm and in the fall it will be shown at Tensta Konsthall, at the Exnergasse Kunsthalle in Vienna and at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin.

Picture caption: Annika Larsson, DRUNK, 2010, video still, 22 min DVD loop

Annika Larsson (b.1972, lives and works in Berlin) is one of Sweden’s most significant artists, working mainly with video. Her work has been presented in solo shows at museums such as LE MAGASIN, Grenoble, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, Sala Montcada - Fundacion la Caixa, Barcelona, ICA, London and Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada. Upcoming solo shows include DAAD, Berlin, and Velan Center, Turin, Italy.Annika Larsson (b.1972, lives and works in Berlin) is one of Sweden’s most significant artists, working mainly with video. Her work has been presented in solo shows at museums such as LE MAGASIN, Grenoble, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, Sala Montcada - Fundacion la Caixa, Barcelona, ICA, London and Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada. Upcoming solo shows include DAAD, Berlin, and Velan Center, Turin, Italy.

We would like to thank the Bugada & Cargnel, Paris. We would like to thank the Region of Piedmont for its support. The exhibition will run from October 27 to December 10, 2010 at the following times: Tuesday to Friday from 3:30 PM to 6:30 PM