BIOGRAPHY
Lena Mattsson
Born 1966 in Kungshamn
Bohuslän, Sweden
Lives and works in Malmö, Sweden
”What is beyond the surface? What is it that we actually see and what is only an interpretation of what we think we see based on our social and cultural references and personal experience? There is always something unnerving about Lena Mattsson’s art. You think you know what you have seen but nevertheless you feel you have witnessed and experienced something else entirely. She is a master in playing with our perceptions and senses. She takes us to a place and introduces us to what often seems as a simple situation but wich turns out to be something quite extraordinary. This duality and tension invest her works with a very exceptional quality. ”
Bera Nordal
Director, Nordic Watercolour Museum, Skärhamn, Sweden
Lena Mattsson is primarily a video and performance artist though she started her career with painting. There are numerous references in her work to art history and to the world of films. Mattsson has shown her films and video installations in a number of exhibitions around the world.
Selected solo exhibitions
Moderna Museet Malmö, Sweden
Malmö Konsthall, Malmö, Sweden
Malmö Art Museum, Sweden
Nordic Watercolour Museum,, Skärhamn, Sweden
Konsthallen, Bohusläns Museum, Uddevalla, Sweden
Nässjö Konsthall, Sweden
Molekyl Gallery, Malmö, Sweden
Skissernas Museum - Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art,
Birgit Rausings sal, Sweden
Selected film screenings, and group exhibitions
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark
Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago, Chile
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland
Museum for Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark
European Media Art Festival Osnabrück, Germany
Transmission Gallery Glasgow, Scotland
National Art Gallery Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Metropolitan Art Museum, Pusan, South Korea
7th International Festival of New Film Split, Croatia
SPARK VIDEO: BEACON New York, USA
Portobello Film Festival, London, England
Galerie EIGEN+ART, Germany
Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteborg Film Festival, Göteborg, Sweden
Moderna Museet, Malmö and Stockholm, Sweden
Malmö Konsthall, Sweden
Triennal of Expanded Media, Belgrade, Serbia
Island of Light, Smögen, Sweden
Mumbai Entertainment International Film Festival
4-th International video-art festival on outdoor videoscreens
Festival places: Moscow, Volgograd, Voronezh, Kaliningrad, Perm,
Rostov-on-Don, Riazan', Samara, Sochi, Ufa, Yekaterinburg [Russia] among other exhibitions and film festivals.
Selected curatorial projects
2020 GENERATION - En spegling av 1990-talets konstscen Borås Museum of Modern Art, Sweden, curator with Ola Åstrand
2020 Kultur under Covid-19, Borås Museum of Modern Art, Sweden, curator with Ola Åstrand
2004 MALM 1, Malmö Konsthall, Malmö, Sweden, curator with Magnus Wallin, Axel Lieber, Mads Gamdrup, Georg Oddner and Kirsten Ortwed
1998 Body Act, International Performance Weekend, Malmö Konsthall,
Ocean, Chokladfabriken, Malmö, Sweden, curator with Anna Bring
and Måns Holst-Ekström
1997 Tourist, Konsthallen, Bohusläns Museum, Uddevalla, Sweden
1998–1996 Galleri Rostrum, Malmö, Sweden
1996 Hårsalongen–Nordic Art Project, Malmö, Sweden, curator with Anna Bring
Selected bibliography
Lena Mattsson – The Window Opens to the World, KERBER VERLAG, 2020.
Jubileumsantologin “Filmform 1950-2020”, 2020.
GENERATION - En spegling av 1990-talets konstscen, Borås Museum of Modern Art, 2020.
The Artist’s Institute, Carolee’s Magazine, published by The Artist’s Institute and Koenig Books, 2016.
Archive of Visions and Actions, Contemporary Art from Sweden, Imago Mundi, Luciano Benetton Collection, 2015.
Water Art, Nordic Watercolour Museum, 2015.
Lena Mattsson – In The Eye of the Beholder, Moderna Museet Malmö, 2014.
Lena Mattsson – Beyond the Surface, Nordic Watercolour Museum, 2004.
Lena Mattsson – A Small Fairytale, Malmö Konsthall, 2001.
World Wide Video Festival, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 1999.
For Eyes and Ears, 2nd International Performance Festival Odense, Denmark, 1999.
Body Act – An International Performance Weekend, catalog 1–2, and a video documentation from 1999.
European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück, Germany, 1998.
The Edstrand Foundation Art Prize, Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, 1998.
For Eyes and Ears, 1st International Performance Festival Odense, Denmark,
1997.
New Art from Denmark and Scania, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 1997.
From 2006 - 2015 Lena Mattsson recieved a yearly working-grant from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee - Konstnärsnämnden in Sweden.