Catalogue > At random

John Skoog

VÄRN

Doc. expérimental | 4k | | 14:45 | Suède, Danemark | 2014

In the early 1940’s the farm-worker Karl-Göran Persson started to fortify his small house in the flat farmlands of southern Sweden. He wanted to build a place where he and the people in the village could find refuge in the event of a Soviet invasion. He took any metal he could get cheap or for free from the neighboring farmers and used it as reinforcement for the cement casting of the house`s new exterior walls. Karl-Göran lived alone in the house and continued his re-construction until his death in 1975.

Working with film and video John Skoog follows in the tradition of Scandinavian film making through the use of stark landscapes and slow pacing. The poetic use of the Swedish landscape and powerful studies of character and emotion evoke memories of film works by cinema greats such as Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller. Skoog has been awarded the Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel (2014), ’1KM film scholarship’ from Stockholm Film festival (2013), the Hessische Kulturstiftung travel grant (2013), the ARS-VIVA Prize (2013/14), Malmö Art Museum 2013 Art Grant, Aase & Richard Björklund fund, and the ARTFILM Prize, Lichter International Film Festival (2013) and a one year working grant from Stiftung Kunstfonds, Bonn (2014). As part of winning the Ars-Viva Prize 2013/14, Skoog has shown at Neues Museum Weimar, MMK Museum fur Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main and GAM – Galleria civica d’arte moderna e contemporanea Torino. In 2015, as the winner of the Baloise Art Prize, Skoog will have two major solo exhibitions at Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt am Main and Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MUMOK). Born in Kvidinge 1985, Skoog graduated from the Staedelschule, Frankfurt in 2012. Selected shows and festivals include: Slow Return, MMK Museum fur Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main (2015); 65th Berlinale, Berlin (2015); Real DMZ Project 2014, Cheorwon-gun, Gangwon-do & Artsonje Center, Seoul (2014); Redoubt, Towner Contemporary Art Museum, Eastbourne (2014); A Time for Dreams: 4th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA), Moscow (2014); Ars Viva Prize: Truth/Reality, MMK Museum fur Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main; GAM Galleria civica d’arte moderna e contemporanea, Turin (2014); Taming the Narrative, Basis as a part of b3 Biennale, Frankfurt am Main (2013); Echo Release, NKV Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden (2013); Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (2014 & -13); Video_Dumbo, Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, New York (2013); Spectrum Rotterdam International Film Festival, Rotterdam (2013); Sent på Jorden, Art Lab Gnesta, Gnesta (2013); Indielisboa, Lisbon International Film Festival, Lisbon, (2014 & -12), Rencontres Internationales: Paris, Centre Pompidou, Paris, (2014 & -11). John Skoog lives and works in Frankfurt.