1966
born in Malmö, Sweden
Lives and works in Stockholm

Solo exhibitions
2010

2010 transmission, Conner Contemporary Art, DC
transmission, Galleri Charlotte Lund, Stockholm

2009

"Way Ahead", Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf
"commoncause", Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, Athens (GR)
Nordic Heritage Museum, Seattle, Washington (USA)


2008
"Maria Friberg“, Galleri 3, Kulturhuset, Stockholm (SE)
"Alongside Us", Galleri Charlotte Lund, Stockholm (SE)
"Alongside Us", Galica Arte Contemporanea, Mailand (I)

2007
"Fallout", Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf
„embedded“, Conner Contemporary Art, Washington DC (USA)
„Stil Lives”, Skvöde Konsthall, Skvöde (SE)

2006
„Working Model“, Robischon Gallery, Denver, Colorado (USA)

2005
Galica Arte Contemporanea, Mailand (I)
Galleri Charlotte Lund, Stockholm (SE)
Conner Contemporary Art, Washington DC (USA)
„Boys are us”, Skärets Konsthall, Skäret (SE)
„No Time to Fall II”, Jr. Konsthallen, Linköping (SE)
„Blown Out”, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (USA)

2004
Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteburg (SE)
„Café Royal“, Frankfurt

2003
„Endless Limit”, Sara Meltzer Gallery, NY (USA)
„AM DC”, Conner Contemporary Art, Washington DC (USA)
Embassy of Sweden, Washington (USA)
„Show up”, Galica Arte Contemporanea, Milan (I)
„Liquidación Total”, with Lawrence Weiner, Madrid (ES)
„Udda veckor (odd weeks)”, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (SE)

2002
„Seconds away”, Galleri Charlotte Lund, Stockholm (SE)
Yvon Lambert, Paris (F)
Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, California (USA)
Plains Art Museum, Fargo, North Dakota (USA)


Group exhibitions

2010

Swedish Photo, Falkenbergs Museum, Falkenberg, Sweden
Videofestival, The Historic Center of Zaragoza, Spain
BELLE VUE, Curated by: Katerina Nikou, Thanos Stathopoulos, Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Centre, Athen, Greece
LE TEMPS DU CORPS, Swedish Institute, Paris, Video exhibition curated by Brent Klinkum

2009
Book, Västerås konstmuseum, Västerås, Sweden
Our broken American heart, Museet för glömska, Norrköping
IN-FINITUM, curerad av Francesco Poli, Axel Vervoord, Daniela
Ferretti och Giandomenico Romanelli, Palazzo Fortuny, Venice
103.39’ minuter film, film program, Arkitekturmuseet, Stockholm
Helsingborg hjärta Malmö, Dunkers kulturhus, Helsingborg

"Darkside II", Fotomuseum Winterthur (CH)
Museo Fortuny, Venice (I)
"Under Water", Seattle Bridge, Washington (USA)
"rebelle - Kunst und Feminismus 1969-2009", museum voor moderne kunst, Arnhem (NL)


2008
"We interrupt your program”, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, California

2007
Global Feminism Brooklyn Museum, New York (USA)

2006
„The Culture of Fear”, The Federkiel Foundation, Leipzig
Momentum, Wien (AU)
Attityd Luna Kulturhus, Södertälje Konsthall, (SE)
„CLOSED EYES”, Museet for Fotokunst, Brandts Kledefabrik, Odense (DK)

2005
„Konstfeminism”, Dunkerskulturhus, Helsingborg, Liljevalchs Konsthall (Stockholm), Göteborg, Hudiksvall and Sundsvall (SE)
„Prospective Sites”, Billboard project in Austria
„Church of All Stars”, Kulturkirken Jakob, Oslo, Norway
„The Dream of Myself, The Dream of the World” - Set 2 from the collection of the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur
„Diskurs“, Drammens Museum för kunst, Drammen, (NO)
Western Bridge, Seattle (USA)
Young Art Europe, MOYA, Vienna (AU)
„NOCTURNAL TRANSMISSION”, Curator's Office in Washington, DC (USA)
„Prospective Sites”, Billboard project in Austria
„Le Cube”, une sélection par Transat Vidéo d'œuvres vidéographiques suédoises, Issy-les-Moulineaux (F)
Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College, Iowa,(USA)

2004
„Videoit”, L’Espace, Torino (I)
„Attityd”, Haningekonsthall, Norrtäljekonsthall (SE)
„The mythological machine - images in the media”, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, Warwick University, Coventry (GB)
„Tusenfryd“, Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Drammen (NO)
„In Praise of Silence - Still lifes in Contemporary Art”, South Karelia Art Museum (FI)
„Control”, Aula de Cultura, BBK, Bilbao (ES)
„Memory and Landscape”, La Casa Encendida, Madrid & Gran Canaria (ES)

2003
„night train”, Surrealist Routes to Kiasma’s Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki (FI)
„Doing Business (Dysfunctional Corporate Culture)”, University of Connecticut, Connecticut; University of Connecticut in Stamford (USA)
„Show Unit”, video tour in Sweden by Riksutställningar, Stockholm (SE)
„Brave New Word”, Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art, Athen (GR)
„Whithout Fear & reproach”, Witte Zaal, Gent
„How to learn to love the bomb and stop worrying about it”, Programa Art Center, Mexico City (USA)
„Contemporary Art from Sweden”, European Central Bank, Frankfurt A.M.
„De bortbjudna”, Rooseum, Malmö (SE)
„European Art at Dupont Circle”, Washington DC (USA)
„Projekt Framtiden“, Sjöhistoriska Museet, Stockholm (SE)
„Water is Art-Art is Water”, Stockholm City Conference Center, Stockholm (SE)
„Billboard project: www.women2003 CPH/MLM”, HOME GROWN, Passagen, Linköping (SE)

2002
„Beyond Paradise“, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai
„Friends Night at Isabelle Suret’s”, Paris (F)
Skulpturens Hus, Stockholm (SE)
„Coming!”, Swedish Embassy, Tokyo; Zone/Mori Art Center, Tokyo (J)

2001
„DRIVEN”, a collaboration with Monika Larsen Dennis, outdoor projection at P.S.1, Long Island City, New York (USA)
"art works.consulting“, Haus am Lutzowplats, Berlin
„Abbild (Depiction)”, Landemuseum Joanneum, Graz (AU)
„Septembre Artique”, film/video festival, Normandie (F)
„Maskuliniteter”, Nikolaj Plads, Copenhagen Contemporary Art center (DK)
„Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”, Team Gallery, New York (USA)
„Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal”
„BLICK”, NIFCA, Helsinki (FI)
Moderna Museet, Stockholm (SE)
Göteborgs Konsthall, Gothenburg (SE)
„Perfunctory”, Team Gallery, NY (USA)
„My Generation”, (Trans) position, London (GB)
„Tell it like it is”, Diehl Vorderwuelbecke, Berlin

2000
„DRIVEN”, with Monika Larsen Dennis, Sergels Torg, Stockholm (SE)
„Video 2000“, Städtische Gallerie, Göppingen
„THIS BOY COULD BE ME”, Replica Theater, Stockholm (SE)
„SENSITIVE”, Le Printemps de Cahors, Cahors (F)
Mülheim Media Mile 2000, Mülheim a.d. Ruhr
“Real Work”, 4th Werkleitz Biennale, Werkleitz
“Organising Freedom”, Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Charlottenburg, Copenhagen (SE) (DK)
“TEMPO”, Passagen, Linköping (SE)
“Changing Minds”, Experimental Intermedia, Gent


Participation in international art fairs

since 2000
Art Basel (CH)
Pulse Miami Conner Contemporary Art, Miami (USA)
Pulse Contemporary Art Fair, NYC (USA)
Armory show, NYC (USA)


Collections
Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zürich
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC
Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
Herbert F Johson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Itacha
21 cMuseum, Louisville
Göteborgs konstmuseum, Göteborg
Malmö Konstmuseum, Malmö
Norrköping Konstmuseum, Norrköping
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
Linköping Konstmuseum, Linköping
Västerås Konstmuseum, Västerås
Bonnierföretagen, Stockholm
Grafikenshus, Mariefred
Jan Widlund, Stockholm
Kiasma, Helsinki
Europeiska Centralbanken
Ringier Collection, Zürich
DG Bank, Frankfurt
Collection B von Ribbentrop, Frankfurt
The Wonderful Fund, London
Goldman Sachs, London
Mario Testino, London
The Buhl Collection, New York
Progressive, Cleveland, Ohio
Martin Z. Margulies, Florida
Anthony T. Podesta, Washington D.C
Collezione Usoni Udine, Italy
Colombo Lugano, Switzerland
Thomas Olbricht, Essen
William and Ruth True, Seattle
Donald Marron, New York
Sammlung Federkiel, Leipzig & München
Museo Fortuny, Venice

Awards

2006 IASPIS
2005 Bildkonstnärsfonden, (5-year working grant)
2005 Statens Kulturråd
2005 Sveriges Författarfond
2005 Längmanska kulturfonden
2004 IASPIS
2003 Ellen Trotzigs fond, Malmö
2000 Bildkonstnärsfonden, (2-year working grant)
2000 Bildkonstnärsfonden
1999 Bildkonstnärsfonden
1999 IASPIS
1998 IASPIS
1995 BUS
1995 Gösta Mobergsminnesfond
1994 Letterstedska föreningen
1993,1994 Helge Ax:son Johnssons Stiftelse
1992 Clara Lachmansfond
1991 Nordplus
1990 Konsthögskolanstecknings stipendium
1990 Marta, Vivi och Åke Liljessonska Stiftelsen

The ostensible image

A wall engulfed in antiquarian books, piled tidily on top of each other. In the centre a body carefully placed in between the books, its face turned to the wall. The man appears to be sleeping peacefully, completely at ease, as if this had always been his place. Only the slight shadow that the books throw around the outline of his body interrupt the orderliness of the image. It is an image which immediately stands out through its beauty and lyricism but which also, because it is so bizarre, creates a remarkable sense of alienation. In this new series of photographs, symbolically entitled “still lives”, Maria Friberg, through employing a strategy customary in her art, presents paradoxical situations with extreme simplicity and levity, thus causing us to reconsider our perception of the image we are gazing upon.

In other words, in Maria Friberg’s images, beauty is the prime means of communication, which leads directly to the interior of the piece without imposing any demands; it is only after a certain time that we perceive the uneasiness and ambiguity which gainsay the apparent perfection and subvert our codes of interpretation. The artist thus contradicts the common concept of language, understood as a pre-arranged relationship between expression and content, liberating the various elements from their destiny as ‘symbols’. An example of this can be seen in the video “blown out”, created by the artist in 1999, in which a lone male, who is completely nude, is immersed in foaming water. Although the image is thoroughly riveting and the man’s face does not allow us to perceive his emotions, we are aware of a sense of uncertainty and danger which breaks with the stereotypes linked to the male form.

In the “still lives” series, the artist’s attention shifts from observation of the universe of the male and his codes to a unique investigation of the concept of identity. In these photographs, Maria Friberg places people and things, men and women, on the same level and reinvents, obviously also in an ironic sense, the traditional beauty of the ‘still life’.

Everything is highly defined and ‘visible’ – the grand scale and the particular printing technique serving to emphasize this characteristic. The atmosphere is calm, almost mystical, although the bizarre and paradoxical equivalence between objects and bodies reveals, insistently and rather disturbingly, a certain instability and fragmentation that is a metaphor for the cultural condition of the western world. In a way, “boys are us” postulates the reverse prospect: it is a reflection on the relationship between the individual and group and, in a particular way, on the difficulty of behaving (but also of portraying oneself) as single individuals, without allowing oneself to assimilate. One of the most obvious problems with our society is that of self-identification in the perception that others hold of us; hence the attempt to find new ways of creating our own individuality that will not allow recognition in images created by others. In the great ideological void in which we find ourselves immersed, the only extraordinary event seems to be affirmation of new and different ways of creating and recreating our existence in the world. Demonstrating the superficial aspect of such creations and emphasising the apparent characteristics, Maria Friberg highlights and mocks the artificiality and the emptiness of the norm and codes by which society is regulated.

Cecilia Casorati
Freelance Curator, Rome 2005