Leif Holmstrand, Non-Blessing, 2005

Lilith Performance Studio proudly presents:

LEIF HOLMSTRAND
Cabaret Sally Rattenmann
29 & 30 March at 8 pm

Participants: Leif Holmstrand, Minna Weurlander (accordeonist), Lotten Roos, Elin Lundgren, Nils Dernevik, Simon J Berger (actors), and others. Tickets 40 SEK: boka@lilithperformancestudio.com, +46 (0)40-789 97
Address: Bragegatan 15, Malmö, Sweden
Read more: http://www.leifholmstrand.com

Lilith Performance Studio proudly present a new performance by the Swedish artist Leif Holmstrand: Cabaret Sally Rattenmann. Leif Holmstrand is one of the most prominent Swedish performance artists and has worked with performance since 1996. In April his third collection of poems, ’Myror’, will be issued by the Swedish publishing house Albert Bonniers Förlag.

Leif did his first Sally Rattenmann performance in 2000, at Kristianstad konsthall, with the title ‘Sally Rattenmann and the men in Berlin’. The name is a combination of Sally Bowles in the musical/film Cabaret, and Sigmund Freud’s case history of the Rat Man. Sally Rattenmann is not really a character, but rather a flexible concept and a set of clothes: a silky night gown, a pair of suit pants, a negligé, long black gloves and a crocheted hood with a pink table mat covering the face. Leif’s new work at Lilith Performance Studio, his last with Sally Rattenmann, will be a poetic cut-up piece with actors on stage and pre-recorded repeated and distorted voices overlapping eachother in psychological acts of transformation. The work includes dialogue from ’Drottningens juvelsmycke’ [The Queen’s Tiara] by the Swedish author C. J. L. Almqvist from 1834, Leif’s own text/sound compositions that are sometimes almost radio drama-like, and bodies moving objects around !
in the
space. ’Cabaret Sally Rattenmann’ deals with gender, how we become who we are, childhood versus the adult world, sexuality, and the borderlands of assaults.

Leif Holmstrand works with performance, photo, text, video, sound and sculpture, but considers himself foremost a sculptor working with physical objects where the performative aspects, the work of the hand, are emphasized: he knits and crochets objects and garments that are impossible to wear, he has covered prams in papier maché and silicone and wrapped bodies and objects in rope and yarn. Regardless of medium, Leif’s works revolve around the same thematics: a dreamlike dissolution of gender in search for and trying to expand the cultural and biological boundaries of the body.

Leif Holmstrand (f. 1972) lives and works in Malmö. Education: Malmö Art Academy, Fine Art, 1997-2002, and Lund University/Malmö Art Academy, Critical Studies, 2002-2003. Currently his work is exhibited in a retrospective solo show at Steneby Konsthall in Dals Långed, Sweden. Leif has previously published two collections of poems at the Albert Bonniers Förlag: ”Stekelgång” (2002) and ”Går vidare i världen” (2005). Selected group exhibitions include the Bonniers konsthall, Stockholm; Babel, Trondheim, Norway; Ystad Konstmuseum, Sweden; Gävle Konstcentrum, Sweden 2007, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden; Cirkulationscentralen, Malmö, Sweden 2006, Galleri Loop, Berlin, 2005; Iaspis, Stockholm, 2004 and Galleri Mors Mössa, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2003. Selected performances include Bonniers konsthall, Stockholm; Gallery PS122, New York, 2007, Malmö Konsthall; Ystad Konstmuseum; Lilith by Night, Malmö & Kulturhuset, Stockholm, 2006 and AIT Room, Tokyo, 2005.

Lilith Performance Studio is the first combined production studio and arena for performance in Europe. Internationally prominent visual artists working with performance are invited to production periods of around a month to produce a new work which will be presented to an audience towards the end of the stay. Since the opening in January 2007, Lilith Performance Studio has presented 10 solo productions and one performance festival to a wide audience with artists from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, The Netherlands, Indonesia and The Philippines. Please visit our website for documentation films from all productions and video artist talks by every artist: http://www.lilithperformancestudio.com

Lilith Performance Studio is supported by: Stiftelsen framtidens kultur, Malmö kulturnämnd, Sparbanksstiftelsen Skåne, Statens kulturråd, Malmö Kulturstöd, Kulturkontakt Nord and Folkuniversitet. Lilith Performance Studio collaborates with: Malmö Art Academy, Myrorna, Beckers Färgservice, Svanströms Repro AB and AV-SYD.