Karl Holmqvist

Holmqvist works with various media exploring the instability of language and dissecting its various levels of meaning. Starting from the tradition of concrete poetry, the artist subverts found phrases, verses of songs, and idiomatic expressions, using them as raw material. Following the visual poets, Holmqvist recycles common language and reconsiders its communicative purpose. His works function both as reflections on the use of language and as tools to raise social, political and cultural issues, like in his series on the avant-gardes, Untitled (DOING TIME), a part of which is exhibited here. Another example are his typographic games, inherited from the concrete poetry, that create patterns and play with abstract and real as in Untitled (Bang<3).

Karl Holmqvist (1964–) lives and works in Berlin. Holmqvist uses language as material for his works, investigating its qualities through paintings, collages, installations and poetic readings. The artist blends poetic verses, pop songs, quotes from art history, and daily anecdotes to articulate a deconstruction of the principal contemporary ideologies. He has exhibited in numerous solo shows including at the Camden Arts Center (London, 2016) and Bergen Kunsthall (Norway, 2012), and in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (New York, 2012), Institute of Contemporary Art (London, 2009), Moderna Museet (Stockholm, 2005), Manifesta 7 (Trento, 2008) and the Venice Biennale (2011).