01.04.2022
Experience Kunstsilo’s summer exhibition Queering Modernism in our virtual showroom. The exhibition is curated by Anna Bonsink and Giulia Calvi, winners of AKO Curatorial Award.
This exhibition celebrates queer art and culture, shedding light on the rich diversity and complexity of Nordic Modernism. This exhibition includes artworks that explore motifs of sexuality and gender, but that also challenge our understanding of masculinity and femininity, the patriarchy and the performance of gender roles. While modernism itself as a genre is usually seen as traditionally male and heteronormative, queer artworks have always been there, hiding in plain sight – perpetually defiant, challenging and radical.
Navigation video and text further down.
From Else Hagen’s and Siri Derkert’s works challenging the male gaze and female positionality, to Anders Petersen’s photographs depicting underground communities and Gösta Adrian-Nillson’s explicit exploration of queer identity, In Plain Sight: Queering Nordic Modernism takes us on a journey to unveil the workings of power and normativity in our shared past, and tell an altogether different story. The exhibition also features works by Jo Ravn Abusland and Marte Gunnufsen from The Sørlandet Art Collection and photographs by Bolette Berg and Marie Høeg from The Preus Museum Collection.
The exhibition was conceived on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the repeal of section 213 of the Norwegian Penal Code, which resulted in the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Norway.
In 2021, Anna Bonsink and Giulia Calvi won the esteemed AKO Curotorial Award. The fifth AKO Curatorial Award, one of a series of annual awards presented by the AKO Art Foundation, was announced on 17 January 2022. The award was created to support and encourage the development of curatorial skills among recent graduates. It was conceived for a gallery space in the new museum in Kristiansand, Kunstsilo, which is opening in 2024. It follows a competition for exhibition proposals based on the Nordic modernist works in the Tangen Collection.
While awaiting a new museum space, Kunstsilo has developed a virtual showroom which exhibits art in a new and innovative way. With Queering Modernism, the audience can explore a wide range of art, including paintings, photography and video installation.
Jo Ravn Abusland / Gösta Adrian-Nilsson / Bolette Berg og Marie Høeg / Lena Cronqvist / Siri Derkert / Arvid Fougstedt / Marte Gunnufsen / Else Hagen / Tora Vega Holmström / Tove Jansson / Rita Kernn-Larsen / Anders Petersen / Kjartan Slettemark / Christer Strömholm / Nína Tryggvadóttir
Anna Bonsink (she/her; b. 1998, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) currently works as Programme Assistant at the Zabludowicz Collection in London. She completed her MA in Curating from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London in 2021, and has an interdisciplinary BA from University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands focused on Music Performing, Musicology and Art History. She studied violin at the Sweelinck Academy at the Conservatory of Amsterdam from 2011 to 2016. Her interests lie in experimental music, multimedia performance and club culture, and she is committed to supporting marginalised communities in the arts. Anna lives and works in London.
Giulia Calvi (she/they; b. 1998, Varese, Italy) is a freelance curator, researcher and writer. She has a MA in Curating from the Courtauld Institute of Art and a BA in Philosophy from King’s College London. She is passionate about queer histories, maritime heritage, and the way societal narratives play out in museums; she is hoping to pursue a PhD researching intersectional approaches to the display of material culture from the Golden Age of Piracy. Giulia lives and works in London.
This exhibition is sponsored by AKO Foundation.
All art works in the virtual exhibition are © BONO 2023.
