Index 19: Hilda Stammarnäs

Artist Hilda Stammarnäs will present “Jiwon Lee”, the live presentation of a muse.

“Jiwon Lee” counters a technocentric description of the muse’s modern conditions and states of existence. We’re in a situation of expecting ourselves to increasingly represent and literally depict ourselves. In contrast, the figure of the muse feels like a self-proclamation, a role that can be traded. At Index 19, the classic potential of the muse becomes revived, as a reflector of whom she’s being described by, but in connection with new premises, values and structures that we imagine as conditions of our new so-called “intimacy economy”. We are turned into commodities through digital representation (which in turn renders real life bodies with some mystique), simulating authenticity, playing in the hands of structures that isolate individuals and capitalize on the least and last part of what makes them what they are.

The depiction of the muse in Hilda Stammarnäs’ presentation operates through an extraction of authenticity with an unconcealed, non-directed, direct presence. She creates an ambivalence between Jiwon’s status as a subject and her presentation as a material representation, inviting projections between sublime and explicit interest. The frame of the image is the bar, where spectators and the artist meet on the same level as the subject of the representation, as part of the same composition. It is a live portrait playing with Jiwon’s own flesh and blood representation, as an avatar without direction.

Hilda Stammarnäs, born 1989 in Gothenburg, studies at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main.

Index 19 is a weekly events series in Index’ front space. Presenting single works, films, readings and discursive events, the aim is to create a space for dialogue with our surrounding community and visitors. Index 19 is a flexible program initiative, with one night or returning events by international artists and Stockholm-based initiatives.

Please rsvp to rsvp@indexfoundation.se