Annika Larsson
Annika Larsson (Stockholm, Sweden, 1972) is a contemporary artist living in Berlin. She received a Master of Fine Arts from the Royal University College of Fine Arts, Stockholm.
Since the late 1990s, Annika has produced a body of work in video often consisting of men in highly charged scenarios. Presented with a surface banality or with implied or explicit violence, and filmed in a sleek, polished style, without voiceover or dialogue, they are made up of slow gestures, dramatic camera angles and extreme close-ups. They create a subtle but palpable erotic tension.
In an interview with the Independent newspaper she said, "a cliché is something that we are supposed to see in a certain way. When you get close to it, it can have a new meaning - it is that twist I am interested in." [1]
Critic Maura Reilly wrote in Art in America in 2004, "Larsson has consistently sought to expose masculinity as a performance, and to explore male power plays of domination and submission." [2]
She has exhibited at prestigious art venues including the Venice Biennale and Art Basel, as well as having solo exhibitions at the ICA in London, the Andrea Rosen gallery New York.
She has had a long-standing collaboration with Tobias Bernstrup and was director of photography on some performances by Vanessa Beecroft
