MARIA LINDBERG

10th January - 20th February 2004

floating ip is delighted to present work of Swedish artist Maria Lindberg in her 
first solo show in Manchester. 

Maria Lindberg uses a wide variety of media and methods in her work, though at 
its core is a constant pathos that often finds its outlet in the myriad small frustrations
of language and word games and the images and possibilities their logic suggests. 

Painful puns and small attempts at phatic communication run through her drawings, 
installations and photographs - Rod Stewart plucked from The Faces and redrawn in 
the centre of the artist's face; the artist being photographed beside cars or houses 
she might like to own (and may be claiming to); postcards of impossibly hospitable 
scenes from sunnier climes being sent to an abandoned flat in Gothenburg. These 
deft and modest interventions are presented with a deadpan wit that can be biting 
but never less than generous. 

For floating ip, Lindberg exhibits a new installation work, comprising of two works,
"Where the sun don't shine", text in yellow crayon on the wall, obscured by "Curtain 
That's Too Short", a curtain hanging across the gallery. Made specifically for 
floating ip, the combination of these two pieces is an apparently whimsical act, 
which gathers a weight and poignancy from its installation in a cellar in a would-be 
gentrifying corner of Manchester's erstwhile industrial revolution. A sly reminder that 
such developments never happen evenly, spelt out as either a bald truism or as part 
of a vigorous riposte. 

Also exhibited in floating ip, is a series of drawings drawn directly onto the walls of 
the gallery. One is a small drawing of a figure handing from a broken limb of a tree 
accompanied with a drawn text, the first section of which provides its title, "When 
someone does that…". Another is called "Maria Lindberg", which is the artist's name 
drawn in a font that almost obliterates itself in a sq version of embellishment. "Toby 
McLennan" is a hand-drawn text that, although a quote, hence the title, is typical of 
Lindberg's universe: in order to save the boy from falling into the hole, he pushed him 
into it. 

"A stone that wants…" is a stone picked up from the local area and placed in the 
gallery alongside the statement on the floor, "A stone that wants to become a 
mountain again". These are thin-skinned works with a bitter after-taste. Innocence 
and worldliness swap places, as in the post-it note: "When I go down on my knees 
it's not to pray". 

Maria Lindberg has exhibited throughout the world and has been an acknowledged 
influence on a generation of artists in her native country - not only for her own art 
practice, but through her active involvement in artist-led initiatives (extending the 
generosity of her work into supporting independent spaces and collaborations in 
cities traditionally marginalised on the art world map). 

We are indebted to Mats Stjernstedt, director of Index gallery in Stockholm, for 
collaborating on producing the show.