PARIS.- David Zwirner is presenting an exhibition of works on paper by Swedish artist Mamma Andersson at the gallery’s Paris location. This focused presentation of Andersson’s drawing and printmaking practice features new etchings made in Paris at intaglio workshop Atelier Tazé-Lipreau-Araï alongside works on paper, engravings, and painted proofs from series recently undertaken by the artist. Œuvres sur papier is the artist’s sixth solo exhibition with the gallery, and follows Mamma Andersson: Adieu Maria Magdalena at David Zwirner Paris in 2023. Andersson was awarded the eleventh edition of the prestigious Guerlain Drawing Prize by the Daniel and Florence Guerlain Contemporary Art Foundation, Paris, in 2018.
Andersson’s works recall late nineteenth-century Romanticism while also embracing a contemporary interest in layered, psychological compositions. Her enigmatic scenes draw inspiration from a wide range of archival photographic source materials, filmic imagery, theater sets, and period interiors, as well as the sparse topography of northern Sweden, where she grew up: mountainous backdrops, trees, snow, and wooden cabins are recurrent elements within her works. Yet, rather than conveying specific spatial or temporal reference points, they revolve around the expression of atmospheres and subjective moods, and frequently appear to merge the past, the present, and the future.
The artist has been engaging with printmaking since the late 1990s. It is a formative part of Andersson’s practice—a medium in which she finds inspiration, generates ideas, and grasps new ways of creating compositions. Printmaking has allowed the artist to occasionally depart from the solitude of the studio and collaborate with others to produce work. Andersson has published editions with renowned print shops such as BORCH Editions, Copenhagen; Crown Point Press, San Francisco; and Edition Copenhagen, among others. On view in Œuvres sur papier is a diverse selection of prints and hand-painted proofs created at these studios using a wide variety of techniques—etching, aquatint, lithography, and woodcut—as well as unique drawings that further speak to Andersson’s affinity for working on paper.
On the occasion of Œuvres sur papier, Andersson debuts a new series of prints, Porte clé (2026), published by David Zwirner’s print publisher, Utopia Editions. The imagery featured in these works takes as its departure paintings from Andersson’s 2023 exhibition at David Zwirner Paris, Adieu Maria Magdalena. The artist conceived of the six etchings created at the Atelier Tazé-Lipreau-Araï—an intaglio print studio that is located at a walking distance from the gallery—returning to the city on several occasions in the past two years to make these prints. Much of their imagery relates to the paintings that were exhibited in Adieu Maria Magdalena and pays homage to Chinese woodblock prints, the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916), and Carl Fredrik Hill (1849–1911), a Swedish landscape artist who studied in France and whose oeuvre primarily comprised works on paper. Andersson’s new etchings revisit enigmatic subjects that recur throughout her oeuvre, while introducing new motifs sourced from found imagery. Evoking private and personal associations, these works portray furniture, doll-like figurines, deer heads, and mysterious landscapes. Andersson depicts in these compositions an interplay of surfaces and subject matter that probe the nature of representation, paying particular attention to interior settings that capture a sense of the unearthly and the uncanny.
Mamma Andersson (b. 1962) was born in Luleå, Sweden. She studied from 1986 to 1993 at the Kungl. Konsthögskolan in Stockholm, where she continues to live and work.
Andersson’s work has been represented by David Zwirner since 2004. The artist’s previous shows with the gallery include The Lost Paradise (2020); Behind the Curtain (2015); Who is sleeping on my pillow (2010), a two-person exhibition with Jockum Nordström; and Rooms Under the Influence (2006), which marked the artist’s United States debut.
In 2022, the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Denmark, organized the two-person presentation Tal R & Mamma Andersson–About Hill, which traveled to Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden, and Museum MORE, Gorssel, the Netherlands (2023). In 2021, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark, presented a solo exhibition of the artist’s work, Mamma Andersson: Humdrum Days. In 2018, a solo presentation of Andersson’s work titled Memory Banks was on view at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2011, the artist’s work was the subject of a solo exhibition at Museum Haus Esters in Krefeld, Germany. She had her first solo museum show in the United States at the Aspen Art Museum, Colorado, in 2010, and her first solo exhibition in Ireland at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, in 2009. In 2007, a critically acclaimed mid-career survey of her work was organized by the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, which traveled to Kunsthalle Helsinki and the Camden Arts Centre, London.
For the 33rd Bienal de São Paulo in 2018, Andersson curated the group presentation Stargazer II, which featured a number of the artist’s paintings. In 2006, she won the Carnegie Art Award, a prestigious prize for Nordic contemporary painting, and received a corresponding exhibition that traveled extensively throughout Europe. Her work was also represented in the Nordic Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale, Dreams and Conflicts – The Viewer’s Dictatorship, in 2003.
Work by the artist is represented in museum collections worldwide, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Dallas Museum of Art; Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Gothenburg, Sweden; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; Magasin III, Stockholm; Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Public Art Council, Stockholm; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Västerås Konstmuseum, Sweden.
