Wenn Muscheln zu Waffen werden
Swedish artist Lotta Antonsson, born in 1963, presents her exhibition "I am Everything" at Fotografiska in Stockholm, featuring around 50 works that repurpose found black-and-white photographs from 1960s and 1970s fashion and lifestyle magazines. She overlays these images of women in objectifying poses with shells, stones, and crystals, creating assemblages that obscure faces or add threatening details like crystal vampire teeth on actresses Ali MacGraw and Jane Fonda. The show opened during the Stockholm Art Fair and draws on Antonsson's extensive archive, including East German erotic magazines sourced from Berlin flea markets.
This exhibition matters because Antonsson has been addressing the male gaze and the objectification of women since the 1990s, long before these themes became widespread in contemporary discourse. By using shells as both ornament and barrier, she transforms vintage imagery into a critique of visual consumption, giving women back their mystery and agency. The show's timing during a major art fair amplifies its relevance, and Antonsson's academic background—she taught photography at the Valand Academy of Art and Design in Gothenburg—underscores her sustained engagement with feminist visual strategies.