Dates: 2013–2014
Location: SSE atrium, Sveavägen 65
Partners: Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art and SSE Art Initiative
Curator: Nina Øverli
Artists: Janine Antoni, Smadar Dreyfus, Jumana Emil Abboud, Kimsooja, Sigalit Landau, Sam Taylor-Johnson and Marijke van Warmerdam.
Magasin III and SSE joined forces to present eight prominent video works from the Magasin III collection in the School’s atrium. Central to the initiative was the ambition to convey the experimental and groundbreaking ways of seeing represented by the works.
The program began with Touch (2002) by Janine Antoni. In the video installation, Antoni balances on a tightrope. The camera angle makes it appear that she is walking along the horizon itself.
The invention of the camera has particular significance in art history - and especially for women artists. Photojournalists and documentary photographers Dorothea Lange and Diane Arbus, avant-garde filmmakers Maya Deren and Agnès Varda, and groundbreaking video artists Joan Jonas and Martha Rosler all used the camera to accomplish something new.
The video art shown in the SSE atrium was created by women who can be understood as following paths opened by these pioneers. Each installation introduced a subtle but perceptible shift in perspective, remoulding ways of seeing and questioning established norms and conventions.
The project expressed a conviction shared by Magasin III and SSE: art continually grows and becomes richer as it is viewed, questioned and challenged by new audiences in new situations.
The series continued with six further works, including Brontosaurus (1995) by Sam Taylor-Johnson and Standing on a Watermelon in the Dead Sea (2005) by Sigalit Landau.
A symposium on World Trade in a Postcolonial Era was held in connection with the programme.
The conversations sparked among students and faculty helped establish SSE Art Initiative. In 2023, Magasin III and SSE returned to the collaboration with a new film programme marking its tenth anniversary.
Janine Antoni, Freeport, Bahamas, 1964, performance, sculpture, photography and video
Smadar Dreyfus, Tel Aviv, Israel, 1963, video and sound works
Jumana Emil Abboud: drawing, video and storytelling
Kimsooja, Taegu, South Korea, 1957, performance, film, sculpture and site-specific installations
Sigalit Landau, Jerusalem, Israel, 1969, video, sculpture and performance
Sam Taylor-Johnson, London, UK, 1967, photography and film
Marijke van Warmerdam, Nieuwer Amstel, Netherlands, 1959, film, photography and sculpture
