jennifer.spangerud[at]hotmail.com
+46(0)70610 47 38
Portal - Between the legs, backwards and upside down
2019
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In an illustration* from 1514 by Hans Baldung Grien, a woman stands on all fours, looking between her legs, backwards and upside down. She is trying to gain “a magical perspective on existence”. The illustration is one of many picturing witches and prostitutes in the 16th century, pictures with a focus on female sexual stimulation, a reviled form of eroticism in its era.
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“Portal” is a colourful assemblage of conjoined body parts. The widespread legs form a carnal portal and the act is “the wrong way around” – a symbol of the reversal of the traditional order. The pose is erotic and active, while plaster and paper is timeless, hard, dead materials, far from carnal.
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* Hans Baldung Grien’s etching New Year’s Wish with Three Witches, 1514
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The Doll - A fine stripe of hair
2019
Dolls are stiff and expressionless, smooth and slightly unsettling in their representation of man. They have thrived for a long time in the horror genre with their eerie look and have often been used as a metaphor for the negative effect of visual stereotypes.
Contrary to dolls, stuffed toys has the attribute of a reassuring effect.
This doll has the attribute of a stuffed animal, with fur covering most of the body. It sits in a backward position, on a bare, cold and slightly withered round of concrete. Concrete which has attributes associated with concepts such as immobility and solidification and has a texture that seems to reject human touch.
It is a barren place and a dolls body with a layer of counterfeit sense of security and luxury. The lack of eyes and ears, with no contact with the outside world and with a glittering jewelry where the genitalia would be, if there was one. A thin strip of human hair descend from the jewelry onto the concrete surface.
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Nyfiket Yrvaket - Territorium
2018
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Collaboration with Jonathan Dewoon
Light installation for Linköping Municipality/Visit Linköping as a part of the projekt Vinterstad i Ljus/City of Winter in Light 2018
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O Death Where is Thy Sting?
2017
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Collaboration with Morgan E. Russell
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Exhibited at RSA New Contemporaries 2017
Edinburgh
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Arches Projects, AIA
Glagow 2016-17
During 2016 and early 2017 I resided in shorter periods at the Laurieston Arches in Glasgow. I had Arch no 11 to use as I pleased, which resulted in two main projects:
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- Dimension 11
(Collaborative installation with Morgan E. Russel,
as a part of our project New Flesh)
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- The Principle of Internal Rejection
(Collaborative exhibition with ritual designer Viktor Lysell Smålänning)
Dead/Asleep - Fading fleshy forest
2016
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Collaboration between Morgan E. Russel and Jennifer Spångerud
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The core thematics Jennifer Spångerud and Morgan Russell share are grounded in the physical reaction, fascination and desire in things that provoke humans on a basic neurological level.
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This installation represents a dying stage of the two artists collaborative practice. Broken sculptures and withered artworks from previous exhibitions lie surrounding newer pieces, pointing to a limbo where the merged practice must die or evolve.
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New Flesh
2016
Collaboration project with Morgan E. Russell
Exhibition in Garage Space, Barnes Building, Glasgow
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One is not born,
but rather becomes
30-31/3 2016
Joint exhibition with Rebecca Lindsmyr
at The Art School
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Simone de Beauvoir once expressed that one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. Through this quote she argues that femininity does not arise from differences in biology, psychology, or intellect. Rather, femininity is a construction of civilization. Woman is not born fully formed; she is shaped by her upbringing.
Through the title we have excluded the word woman, to expand the concept and also to highlight its possible limitations regarding a likewise fluctuating physical body.
In our artistic practice we unite in the perception of the body as a neither permanent nor definable entity. However, how we aesthetically respond to the body as a subject matter is in direct contrast to each other; the clinical set against the beastly. In this exhibition these two entry points are brought together to generate a conversation between different approaches to the body.
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<- Photo by Beejoy Sanjev
The Devil is in the Details
2015
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Consist of a found toy animal made of wood which is redesigned with a grinder and a dough-like pinkish paste to form an atypical genitalia. Standing up-side-down and watching itself in the mirror, while the mirror revealing its private parts before the viewer.
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The titel refers to how we tend to pay too much attention to the details which really should not matter.
The sex's position as a wound along the front, as a ripped torso is a reference to the myth of the primordial humans — creatures with four arms and four legs who lived two and two but, because of Zeus fear of their strength, were divided into two separate parts.
“According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”
Plato - The Symposium
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The work were exhibited at ALKA's interaction with the Art collection at Östergötlands Museum in 2016. The bear and the horse were presented as a comment to Johan Tobias Sergel's work The Faun.
The Faun is a sculpture which has an explicit exhibitionistic pose and a seemingly ambivalent sexual organ. The small outgrowth at its back makes you wonder wether it is a cut off tail or something else.
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Portal — Between the legs, backwards and upside down
2019
​
“Portal” is a colourful assemblage of conjoined body parts. The widespread legs form a carnal portal and the act is “the wrong way around” – a symbol of the reversal of the traditional order. The pose is erotic and active, while plaster and paper is timeless, hard, dead materials, far from carnal.
​
The Doll - a fine stripe of hair
2019
​
This doll has the attribute of a stuffed animal, with fur covering most of the body. It sits in a backward position, on a bare, cold and slightly withered round of concrete. Concrete which has attributes associated with concepts such as immobility and solidification and has a texture that seems to reject human touch.
Nyfiket, Yrvaket — Territorium
2018
​
Collaboration with Jonathan Dewoon
Light installation for Linköping Municipality/Visit Linköping as a part of the projekt Vinterstad i Ljus/City of Winter in Light 2018
Dead/Asleep - Fading Fleshy Forest
2016
Collaboration with Morgan E. Russell
This installation represents a dying stage of the two artists collaborative practice. Broken sculptures and withered artworks from previous exhibitions lie surrounding newer pieces, pointing to a limbo where the merged practice must die or evolve.
One is not Born, but rather Becomes
2016
Joint exhibition with Rebecca Lindsmyr
​
Simone de Beauvoir once expressed that one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.
Through the title we have excluded the word woman, to expand the concept and also to highlight its possible limitations regarding a likewise fluctuating physical body.
​
<- Photo by Beejoy Sanjev
The Devil is in the Details
2016
​
Consist of a found toy animal made of wood which is redesigned with a grinder and a dough-like pinkish paste to form an atypical genitalia. Standing up-side-down and watching itself in the mirror, while the mirror revealing its private parts before the viewer.
​
The titel refers to how we tend to pay too much attention to the details which really should not matter.