About the Book
Originally published on the occasion of the 2010 exhibition at David Zwirner in New York, Who is sleeping on my pillow marked the first time Andersson and Nordstrom presented their work in concurrent solo shows. The book showcases their work from the late 1980s to 2010 in over two hundred full-color plates, as well as numerous reproductions of family snapshots and source material.
The Swedish artist couple Mamma Andersson and Jockum Nordstrom have been at the forefront of contemporary figurative art since the late 1980s. Updating Vuillard for a post-Hitchcock age, Andersson paints beguilingly eerie interiors and landscapes. Nordstrom's detailed collages, watercolors, and drawings occupy a more folkloric realm peopled by historical and contemporary characters enacting sexual and social roles across broad narrative panoramas.
Included in Who is sleeping on my pillow are texts by Paolo Colombo and Anders Kruger, a poem by Stig Claesson, and an interview with Nordstrom by Marcel Dzama. As Colombo notes in his accompanying essay, "The miracle is that Jockum and Mamma spent more than half of their life together, and that over the years their complicity has guided them into the artists they are, each the complement and the best sounding board for the other." The publication was reissued to coincide with Nordstrom's 2014 exhibition, For the insects and the hounds, at David Zwirner in London, and Andersson's 2015 presentation, Behind the Curtain, at the gallery in New York.
About the Author :
Born 1962 in Luleå, Sweden, Mamma Andersson studied at the Royal University College of Fine Arts, Stockholm, from 1986 to 1993. Her work has been represented by David Zwirner since 2004. She has had two solo exhibitions at the gallery in New York, including her United States debut in 2006. Her second gallery show in 2010, titled Who is sleeping on my pillow, marked the first time she exhibited alongside her artist-husband Jockum Nordström in concurrent solo exhibitions. She had her first museum solo exhibition in the United States at the Aspen Art Museum, Colorado, in 2010, and her first solo exhibition in Ireland at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, in 2009. In 2006, the artist won the Carnegie Art Award, a prestigious prize for Nordic contemporary painting, which received a corresponding exhibition that traveled extensively throughout Europe. In 2007, she was the subject of a critically acclaimed, mid-career survey at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, which traveled to the Kunsthalle Helsinki and the Camden Arts Centre, London. Her work was represented in the Nordic Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale (2003). Andersson's works are included in prominent collections internationally, including the Dallas Museum of Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
Jockum Nordström was born in 1963 in Stockholm, where he continues to live and work, and he has been represented by David Zwirner since 2000. In 2010, his fifth gallery show, titled Who is sleeping on my pillow, marked the first time he exhibited alongside his artist-wife Karin Mamma Andersson in concurrent solo exhibitions. In 2013, a major survey of the artist's work was on view at the Lille Métropole, musée d'art moderne, d'art contemporain et d'art brut in Villeneuve d'Ascq, France, which traveled to the Camden Arts Centre in London. He has exhibited in numerous solo shows at prominent institutions worldwide, including the Swedish Institute, Paris (2011); Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2010); and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2005). Nordström has participated in a number of recent group exhibitions, including the 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale, Greece (2011); Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall (2010); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2009); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2008); and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2007). Work by the artist is represented in major museum collections, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Gothenburg, Sweden; Helsingborgs Konstmuseum, Helsingborg, Sweden; Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina.
Born in Stockholm, Stig Claesson (1928-2008) was an award-winning Swedish writer, artist, and illustrator. He published more than eighty books during his lifetime, several of which were translated into English, with some adapted for television and theater. His Walking in the Sun from 1976 was made into a film.
Italian curator Paolo Colombo is an advisor to the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art. From 1989 to 2000, he was Director of the Centre d'Art Contemporain in Geneva, and from 2001 to 2007, he was Curator of the Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo in Rome.
Marcel Dzama was born in 1974 in Winnipeg, Canada, and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Since 1998, his work has been represented by David Zwirner, and he has exhibited widely both in the United States and internationally.
Anders Kruger is an artist, professor, and curator based in Sweden. He was Director of the Grafikens Hus in Mariefred, Sweden from 2008 to 2010.
Review :
"Andersson focuses on space, building eerie interiors where space and perspective seem to warp and melt, while Nordström is more concerned with figures: his naked cavemen, horse-riding Indians, and gun-wielding colonists tend to float in blank voids."--Andrew Russeth "Artinfo"
"But while the distorted collages, graphite drawings and miniature sculptures conjure a profound world of make-believe, they concurrently address certain inherently human and undeniably real concepts: relationships, hierarchies of power, the process of maturity and animalistic lust."--Harry Thorne "Studio International"
"If you can't make it to the Zwirner gallery [exhibition], you can buy the beautiful catalog."--Carmela Ciuraru "ReadyMade"
"Works like these deftly remind us how painting conjures poetry out of fluid matter."--Joseph R. Wolin "Time Out New York"
