Every three years, the Kunsthalle Mannheim, in collaboration with the Hector Foundations, bestows the Hector Prize upon international contemporary artists or collectives. In 2022, the jury, with a focus on a robust feminist standpoint, selected the Swedish artist Anna Uddenberg. Born in 1982, Uddenberg currently resides and works in Berlin and Stockholm.
Through her artistic endeavors, Uddenberg offers a captivating, challenging, and divisive perspective on physicality, sexuality (or gender), and the aesthetics of consumerism. In both her figurative and recent abstract pieces, Uddenberg delves into the realms of gender performativity and the seemingly authentic self-images prevalent in the era of social media platforms.
The Kunsthalle exhibition features numerous sculptures, the majority of which were specifically crafted for this event. In her exploration of the sculptural medium, Uddenberg continues to refine her formal language, utilizing the 3D printing process in her latest works to construct an immersive composition. This composition is harmonized through an engaging exhibition architecture.
The distinctive, unconventional forms of bodies draped over suitcases or furniture—earlier works that garnered international recognition—have evolved into a series of even more peculiar devices. Departing from the portrayal of the objectification of the human body in the mediated present, the artist now introduces objects capable of influencing the poses of the bodies depicted in her earlier creations. The showcased works at the Kunsthalle will be performed in a performative manner during the opening evening.
Curators: Johan Holten, Pia Goebel (curatorial assistant)
Anna Uddenberg — Premium Economy- 21st April 2024, Kunsthalle Mannheim
About the artist
Through the feedback loop of consumerist culture, Anna Uddenberg investigates how body culture, spirituality, and self-staging are intertwined with the mediation and production of subjectivity by new technologies and circulation of forms. Her practice integrates approaches to gender while acting as a space for reflecting on taste and class, appropriation and sexuality, pushing these questions into new material territories. Uddenberg’s work continues to confront feminine identity in consumer culture and explores performativity by using sculpture and performance as visual platforms. The use of automobile skeletal structures and other utilitarian structures in her latest abstract and figurative works refers to the concept of comfort zone and proxies for architecture. The “furnituresque” outlook is a result of multiple rearrangements of everyday objects and materials, which are set in a new dialogue with one another.
Anna Uddenberg, born 1982 in Stockholm, Sweden, lives and works in Berlin and Stockholm. Recent solo and group exhibitions with the artist have taken place at The Perimeter, London (2023); Kunsthalle Mannheim (2023); Meredith Rosen Gallery, New York (2023); Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2023); Kiasma Museum (2023); Centre Pompidou Metz (2023); Mendes Wood DM, Sao Paolo (2023); Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2022); Bundeskunsthalle Bonn (2022); Cylinder, Seoul (2022); Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin (2021); Berghain Panoramabar, Berlin (2020); Marciano Foundation, Los Angeles (2019); Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2019); Museum Folkwang, Essen (2019); Powerlong Museum, Shanghai (2019); 14. Fellbach Trienniale (2019); the 33rd Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana (2019); Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2019); Migros Museum, Zürich (2019); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2018); Spazio Maiocchi, Milan (solo; 2018); nGbK, Berlin (2018); Centre Régional d’Art Contemporain Occitaine, Sète (2018); Splendid Cleaners, New York (2018); Athens Biennale, Athens (2018); Evoluon, Eindhoven (2018); Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sankt Gallen (2018) House of Gaga Mexico City (2017); Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2017); Kiasma–Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2017); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2017), Kamel Mennour, Paris (2017) and at Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin (2017). Uddenberg was the 2020 artist fellow for Black Cube Museum in Denver, CO.
Her work is in the collections of:
Kiasma Museum Helsinki, Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Bonn, Moderna Museet Stockholm, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Boros Collection Berlin, Ståhl Collection, Norrköping and K11 Foundation Shanghai.
Anna Uddenberg is the recipient of the Hector Kunstpreis, 2022 and Overbeck-Preis für bildende Kunst, 2023
