Charlotte Johannesson:
Take Me to Another World
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, ES
07.04. – 16.08.2021

Charlotte Johannesson:<br>Take Me to Another World<br>Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, ES<br>07.04. – 16.08.2021

work by Charlotte Johannesson, photo: Lala de Dios

The Swedish artist Charlotte Johannesson is having her first solo exhibition in Spain at Madrid Reina Sofia Museum, running until 16 August 2021.

The work of Charlotte Johannesson (Malmö, 1943), a textile artist and digital graphic art pioneer, is an early example of the conceptual synchrony between artistic languages and a technique involving computer programming and the loom. The binary nature of the image resulting from both technologies — produced both by zeros and ones and the weft and warp — facilitated the artist’s transition from weaving to computer-based art.

Her work with the vertical loom drew influences as much from Swedish-born Norwegian artist Hanna Ryggen and her folk art with its strong political stance as the social and political protests in the 1970s. In her tapestries, Johannesson questions the predominant artistic canon via a material and technique traditionally associated with the female world and artisanship, and through the use of images from comic books and the media, adding a satirical slant to turn them into a medium of social outcry, as exemplified by Attack (1977) and I’m No Angel (1974).

In 1978, she swapped her loom for an Apple II Plus, one of the first PCs launched on the market. The lack of specific software to create digital images prompted Charlotte to learn, autodidactically once again, computer programming.    The exhibition Charlotte Johannesson. Take Me to Another World, the first monographic exhibition of the artist in Spain, includes textiles from her early work, both originals and reproductions of lost pieces, five of which have been made specifically for this show. In addition, Johannesson has made twenty new textiles through digital designs from the 1970s, woven on a digital loom, and therefore closes the cycle of relations and intrinsic references between her textile and digital work. Her graphic designs, meanwhile, will be shown on two supports, printed on paper and via digital projections, granting a view of the experimental drift of these images and her investigations with the colour and line of computerised art-making.

More information and video about the exhibition: 
https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/exhibitions/charlotte-johannesson

Location:
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Sabatini Building
52 Santa Isabel Street
ES - 28012 Madrid
https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en

work by Charlotte Johannesson, photo: Lala de Dios

work by Charlotte Johannesson, photo: Lala de Dios

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