Marie Høeg Meets Klara Lidén

An exhibition curated by FRANK at ONE Archives

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives presents the Norwegian artist run platform FRANK, directed by Liv Bugge and Sille Storihle, and the exhibition Marie Høeg Meets Klara Lidén. Pairing work by contemporary Swedish artist Klara Lidén alongside rediscovered photographs by Norwegian suffragist Marie Høeg (1866-1949), this exhibition marks the first showing by Lidén in Los Angeles, and the first exhibition of photographs by Høeg outside of Scandinavia. Situated within the context of an LGBTQ archive, a space dedicated to the conservation and categorization of history, the meeting between Lidén and Høeg dislocates the narration of history as linear progression through humor, play, and sly performativity.

In the 1980s a box of glass negatives was found in a barn in Eastern Norway. The person behind these rediscovered images proved to be Marie Høeg, a Norwegian suffragist and commercial photographer. While Høeg was known during the late 19th and early 20th century for her conventional photography, typically landscapes and seated portraits, these rediscovered negatives showed Høeg and her partner Bolette Berg challenging normative notions of gender through private performative gestures. Produced at the turn of the 20th century, a period when women did not yet have the right to vote in Norway, the images are arresting in their anticipation of contemporary discourse around gender roles and performative identities.

Presented as Høeg’s sparring partner in this exhibition, Lidén’s work performs a personal collapse and psychological isolation as a means of questioning the construction and presentation of progressive history. Lidén’s introspective gestures feel especially apt for considering legacies of queer and feminist thought and activism, both internationally as well as within the US, within the context of an archive like ONE.

In conjunction with the opening of Marie Høeg Meets Klara Lidén, FRANK and ONE will present a lecture by Norwegian art theorist and queer critic Mathias Danbolt followed by a book launch of the third FRANK publication Voluspå, edited by Bugge and Storihle. Voluspå marks the 100-year anniversary of the Norwegian suffrage movement. FRANK comments on the centennial as a year for celebrating women, feminism, and equality in Norway while questioning the established narration of feminist history. Voluspå serves as an exploration of this lineage in Norway and Sweden through the lives and works of artists and writers. The book features Vanessa Baird, Katarina Bonnevier, Kajsa Dahlberg, Mathias Danbolt, Marie Høeg, Hilma af Klint, Carl Larsson, Klara Lidén, Wencke Mühleisen, Claes Oldenburg, Henrik Olesen, Sidsel Paaske and Martin Skauen.

Support for Marie Høeg Meets Klara Lidén is provided by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway and the GuestHaus Residency. Marie Høeg Meets Klara Lidén is organized by FRANK.

Bios

Klara Lidén (b. 1979) is a Swedish artist, based in Berlin and New York, who works with architectural interventions and installations. Her practice functions as a parasite on existing structures, using materials such as cardboard, corrugated metal, drywall, wood, and carpet remnants. Lidén rethinks the places we inhabit and constructs spaces that deviate from their normal functions. She has had solo exhibitions at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Serpentine Gallery in London, Jeu De Paume in Paris, Reena Spaulings Fine Art in New York, Kunsthalle Fridericianum in Kassel, and MUSEION of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano. The work featured in Voluspå depicts Lidén falling backwards, slide by slide, in a handicap toilet, performing a self-portrait of personal collapse and capturing a moment stretched out in time.

Mathias Danbolt (b. 1983) is a Norwegian art theorist and queer critic based in Copenhagen. He holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Bergen with the dissertation Touching History: Art, Performance and Politics in Queer Times (2013). Danbolt is the founding editor of Trikster: Nordic Queer Journal and co-editor of the book Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive (2009). His work on contemporary visual art and performance, queer temporalities and the politics of history, LGBT and queer feminist art and theory, have been published in anthologies including Temporal Drag (2010), Chewing the Scenery (2011), and Performing Archives/Archives of Performance (2013). Danbolt is an Assistant Professor of Art History at University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

About FRANK

FRANK is an Oslo based platform run by the Norwegian artists Liv Bugge and Sille Storihle, established to nurture art and critical discourse revolving around gender issues, desire, and sexuality. The platform operates in different locations and with various co-curators. Since April 2012, FRANK has developed a practice where Bugge and Storihle functions as hosts, curators, and editors. The work they do with FRANK is intertwined with their individual artistic practices, and aims at building community while creating discussions that address hegemonic structures in society.

For more information about FRANK, click here.

Image: (Top) Installation photograph of Marie Høeg Meets Klara Lidén, June 2014. ONE Archives at the USC Libraries