The C-print team and contributors share art by artists which have made long-lasting impression and as such bears particular impact for one reason or another.
Nora Hagdahl, contributing writer
I was an overstimulated and not easily amused teenager on an art road trip with my dad when I came across Untilled (2012) by Pierre Huyghe at Dokumenta 13’. My first experience of the work was like looing into a mysterious "other world". It became the most memorable work of the trip and it is a piece I come back to over and over again. Untilled is an installation that both interacts and shields itself from the visitor and continues to mutate and shape from within itself. I am still intrigued by the idea of art being more than human.
Corina Wahlin, photographer
Miro was quoted as saying "You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life." I find this section of Miro's threefold Painting on a white canvas (1968) particularly enticing. I follow the black thread as it makes its way across the canvas. The simple line, so clear. Executed minimalistically. The details of this clear black thread of paint reveal a sigh, a treble. What comes off as effortless has in fact an underlying energy. Where does it begin and where does it lead me? I like that I don't know. I like it even more that it will keep me trying to figure it out.
Maria Stenfors, contriubting writer
How It Is by Mirosław Bałka was exhitibed in 2009 in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. It was a 13 x 10 x 30 meter steel structure on 2m legs. The Sculpture was entered by a ramp at the furthest short end leading up into the hollow sculpture. Once entered, only the first few steps are aided by subtle or natural light of the Turbine Hall. Very soon, the walk into the work becomes a fumble in the dark. Whilst walking in the darkness void of light the beholder becomes acutely aware of their own body but is also forced to notice the bodies and shadows of her fellow beholders, both scaring and comforting each other in the darkness. From the dark silhouettes you are not able to tell who is a victim, who is a perpetrator and who is a silent bystander or enabler. The collective of bodies, inside the sculpture, perform the silhouettes as both victims and perpetrators, showing that ‘anyone of us’ could be a victim or a perpetrator but also as the silent mass of anonymous characters that helped to aide the systematic machine of the Holocaust.
Bałka is one of my favorite artists. His work is difficult and uncomfortable and maybe not the birthday celebration you wish for, but in light of events this year and now with the elections in the United States, I feel it is important to remember.
Teresia Bergström, photographer
I have only recently been discovering Lee Lozano's work and she has my jaw dropping. I like her rawness, the feeling of imperfection and the playful approach in details. To me she visualizes anxiety and sex in relationships with men so neatly. I can sense a destructive pattern which I can relate to myself. She's just the coolest bitch, pardon my French.
Koshik Zaman, editor
For me this one is easy. The first work that genuinely touched me is by the late Felix Gonzalez-Torres from 1992. I remember being in awe of how a work so simple based on an utilitarian object could feel so magnetic. I love what the bulbs so cleverly represent; the fragility of life. Noteworthy is also the exhibitor's freedom to hang the chords whatever way they want, allowing visitors to interact with it differently.
Azmi Kashem, creative director
David Lynch's Mulholland Drive while being a motion picture for the cinema is an interesting mirror and reminder of what generally feels threatening to people about contemporary art. No clear answers are given, the narrative is blurred, no hand holding the audience. It comes down to a feeling and intuition of either enjoying what feels like a ride or not in the end, which feels like an easy and sound way to relate to art in a gallery as well.
Pär Lindström, graphic designer
Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck's suite of late self-portraits never seize to fascinate me. Seemingly in an effortless fashion she depicts her own aging. Without embellishment she paints herself on a way towards death. Here: Self-Portrait With Red Spot (1944)
Ashik Zaman, editor-in-chief
Felix Gonzalez Torres instantly comes to mind as an artist whose work touches the core in a very real and rare fashion, stressing favourite notions in art like the ephemerality of human life and the fleeting quality of time. His Untitled (Perfect lovers) is such a beautiful representation of two people synchronized, by love, in Gonzalez's case a very personal tribute like much of his work to his partner Ross Laycock who like himself passed away in AIDS. His words to his partner in a note about the work itself is perfection;
We imprinted time by meeting at a certain TIME in a certain space. We are a product of time, therefore we give credit back to where it is due, to time. We are synchronized now and forever.