© Jenny Magnusson, Untitled, 2024, Ph. Patrik Elgström

Jenny Magnusson is a Swedish artist. Magnusson’s site-specific sculpture explores internalisation of space, place, artefact, and materiality. The materiality of the, at times, found object is brought to the foreground. For Magnusson form follows materials, not the other way around. The found material is not revised or altered but instead allowed to become part of a constellation, creating a surprising or humorous interplay between otherwise ordinary elements that might have been discarded or overlooked. A sense of dependency, or interconnectedness arises. Revisiting and reusing material, objects, and artefacts is a key part of her practice. Her archive acts as a material pool she dips in and out of. Construction and deconstruction. She says: ‘For me, sculpture is an act of the making, the materiality is the place, and the act of borrowing is interactivity. An exhibition is an interruption in an oscillating movement in which works are created and dissolved. A temporary endpoint.’

The exchange between the space and the object extends towards the artist and the viewer as well. Magnusson’s own body becomes an instrument, relating the object to the space around it. Her sculptural work has a strong reference to performance. The choreography between performer and sculptures explores spatiality often in the present and the past.

‘The experience of something taking place – of witnessing an event rather than something static – has, not least, to do with the objects. Consisting of joined shorter or longer planks, wooden boards, stones, and other similar elements, the character of the compositions is precise and at the same time temporary. Self-evidently but never intrusively the architectural creations occupy the floor, moving upwards and to the side, using the walls as support, or expansion surfaces. The objects create islands in the room, connected to each other and to the space. Jenny Magnusson’s ability to activate and transform what can be described as construction waste holds a measure of sorcery in which the dead objects are given life and agency.’ – Excerpt from Niclas Östlind’s text Present infinity, in the book Obstructing and seeing by Patrik Elgström and Jenny Magnusson

Jenny Magnusson (*1970) lives and works in Gothenburg. She received her artistic training at HDK-Valand – Academy of Art and Design in Gothenburg. Her work has been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in Sweden and internationally, including at Galerie Jochen Hempel and Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum (San Antonio, Texas), MIEC Santo Tirso (Portugal), Galleri Rostrum (Malmö), Galleri Fagerstedt, the Academy of Fine Arts (Stockholm), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), WELD (Stockholm), and Ystad Konstmuseum. In 2020 she produced a public artwork, “Luta-Lägga-Stapla” (Lean-Lay-Stack), commissioned by Public Art Agency Sweden for Voksenåsen, Oslo. In 2021 she participated in the group exhibition “Towards Another World” at the Gothenburg Museum of Art. She is included in collections like the Gothenburg Museum of Art, The Swedish State Council, Sten A. Olsson’s grant Research and Culture.