Magnus Wallin »NO.«

Magnus Wallin’s work NO. is based on a reading consisting of a real material in interaction between the letter N and the shape of a circle in a skull. The white colored skull integrates with the surrounding white cube of the focus space. Installed at a height of 170 cm it gives the impression of standing behind a person, the unease further emphasized by its awkward angle.

Despite the gravity of the subject and main material, Wallin’s artistry is permeated with a dark humour – a brutal playfulness both inviting and repulsing. With a light handed approach for mortality and an unsentimental attitude to our physical constituents, Wallin reveals the belief system that governs the classification and politicisation of the body.

Since the 1990s, Wallin has been a pioneer, both in his groundbreaking use of video animation, from its early origins, and his approach to the body as a site of ideology and political transaction. To see his work is to follow an Odyssey through the different interpretations of the human body through the history of Western art, illustrating the bodily norms of our age and 'the other'.