Annika Larsson

In the film 40-15 by Swedish artist Annika Larsson, we are invited into the room of a small apartment space where a tennis match is taking place, although not on a TV as one would expect. In the center of the sparsely decorated living room we witness four men in game position: the chair umpire, the ball boy and two players with rackets in hand. The players warming up in preparation for the match are seductive in their too tight, white shorts. They gaze admiringly at themselves in the large mirror on the wall in front of them and in the mirror’s reflection we see narcissism and machismo looking back.

The film 40-15 was exhibited in 2000 during the second edition of Momentum. Now several years later, 40-15 remains continuously relevant in its subtle commentary on power relations and dominant positions in western society.

BIOGRAPHY
Annika Larsson (b. 1972) is a Swedish artist working mainly with film, video, performance and installation. She is interested in incidental but meaningful gestures and rituals, in corporal-linguistic patterns of behavior that conceal hierarchical social power structures. Her works have been widely shown internationally, at institutions including Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel; Fundacion la Caixa, Barcelona; Le Magasin, Grenoble; Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nürnberg; ICA-Institute of Contemporary Art, London; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; S.M.A.K., Gent and Musac, Lyon. She has participated in biennials such as 49th Venice Biennial, 8th Istanbul Biennial and 6th Shanghai Biennial among others. Larsson lives and works in Berlin.

Artist web page