Exhibitions

The exhibition Liquids, Conflicts and Influences at the Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm (March 27 – May 9, 2021)

Liquids, Conflicts and Influences consists of several newly produced and site-specific works. Central to the exhibition is the question of how different forces affect society, the world around us and our lives. The exhibition is a visual examination of the fields of tension that we all find ourselves in that bring together painting, drawing, interactive sculpture and moving images into a spatial whole. The works can be described as a poetic flowchart that maps out different processes, connections and contradictions that mix political, physical, biological and personal reflections that show the connections, conflicts and paradoxes that we are constantly exposed to. The works arise through a multilayered layer of drawings, images, symbols, moving images and generated information flows from the internet (Twitter, Google News and more). The static images, symbols and signs shown in the paintings and drawings meet the movements of the video projections, which means that the artworks are in constant change.

The exhibition Liquids, Conflicts and Influences at Örebro konsthall

The exhibition Liquids, Conflicts and Influences at Örebro konsthall raises the question of how different forces and movements around us affects the way we look upon our society and our lives.

The artwork can be described as a poetic flowchart that maps out different processes, connections and contradictions that superimposes political, economical, physical, biological, and personal reflections that visualizes connections, conflicts and paradoxes.

The paintings are put together through a semitransparent multilayered layer of drawings, images, symbols, moving images and generated information flows from the Internet (Twitter, Google News, etc.). The static images, symbols and signs of the painting and the drawing meet the movement of the projections, which means that the overall expression is in a constant flux.

The exhibition Clouds, Bubbles and Star at HSS 2019

The exhibition Clouds, Bubbles and Star consists of three newly produced and site-specific works. Central to the works is the question of how different forces affect the development of society, and the works shed light on the uncertainty that characterizes our surrounding world. The exhibition, which brings together painting, drawing, and moving images into a spaciousness. Here, a large flow chart in the form of a monumental painting is revealed, where a thought process is shaped by a multilayered layer of drawings, news feeds, texts, and symbols. The exhibition shows conflicts, contradictions, and connections that we are constantly exposed to.

Revolutions, economics, and bubbles are about natural disasters, economic bubbles, political changes and contemporary technologically generated information flows.

Energy, Mass and Gravitation, 2018, Färgfabriken

The installation Energy, Mass and  Gravitation combines various media such as painting, moving images, text, sculpture and readymades; generating a transference between different forms of representation and reality. In this manner, Hagdahl visualizes our world that is divided between a digital and physical reality. An associative chain of events represents the flow of information and images that bombards us constantly. Hagdahl describes his process as both intuitive and planned: ”The confluence of the different elements reveals connections and consistencies that I occasionally predicted, occasionally suspected but also ones that surprised me completely. I am interested in what happens when you create these meeting points between shapes, images and words.”

Interferences, 2018, Konstnärshuset, Stockholm

Interferences consists of two mental map images, two parallel paintings with projections. These create a form of monumental flow charts over inner and outer movements, and the commentaries that can arise when the media flow encounters the individual’s own associations and references. The installation also visualizes the contradictory interpretations that can arise in the encounter between the public and the private.

Hagdahl’s art is often comprised of interdisciplinary and poetic renditions in the charged field between contradictions, events and circumstances – where the character of the site as well as the current situation are important components and starting points. A common theme throughout Hagdahl’s oeuvre has been the attempt at portraying the unstable and transient, where every description or construction is directly dependent on courses of events and reflections both outside and inside the viewers themselves.

Liquids, 2013

The possibility to visualise change is continuously fascinating to Hagdahl and he has rigorously pursued projects that in varying ways investigate both material and immaterial processes. In Liquids, Hagdahl returns to an exhibition scenography that has become a classic in his œuvre, with a long sculpture placed close to the floor that intersects the space and acts a point of departure for numerous images and objects – sculpture, projected images and animations, painting, works on paper and photography.
Liquidsdeals with changes and transformations of emotions and states of mind within individuals as well as within larger communities. The apparently stable is transformed into the ephemeral and the volatile, thus question this very dichotomy. Liquidssimultaneously explores and exposes the construction of complex systems, systems that in turn reflect connections and interdependencies of contemporary society.

Sustained,  1992

During a state visit in Japan the President of USA George Bush s:r had trouble with his digestive system. The hyper nervous stock markets in USA immediately reacted and the rates fell and soon the rest of the markets went back as well. This of course shows on an Achilles heel of the super powers, when one man’s health can cause an economical fall, but also it shows how small incidents can be connected to world wide consequences. Every action and body is integrated in a large system where any minor action will generate other actions and in the system the individual is close to the collective, small to large, virtual to physic, economy to body and so on in different complex behaviors.