Denise Grünstein

How does one transition from a career as one of the most successful and influential portrait photographers in Sweden to an artistic practice in which one conjures entire environments, worlds, and installations into being? In Denise Grünstein’s case, the answer probably lies with her background in drama. Her sense of theatre, scenery that oozes mood, and use of props to communicate meaning, combined with her past career as a set designer for Sveriges Television, have allowed her to refine her sensitivity to atmospheres into something altogether her own.

The title of the work in the exhibition, The Cast, has dual meanings. On the one hand, it refers to the cast of a theatrical production, and thus to the odd gathering of figures on the turntable: bears, birds, rabbits, all looking like toy animals that have been fused to parts of dolls. They are all crowded up together in the limited space offered by this small, peculiar, stage. What’s about to happen? Or is something already underway between these magical objects, something that human senses can’t pick up on? Something in the air? However, the word cast is also a reference to casting as a means of fabrication, which might bring to mind the fact that the “real” objects are actually absent, and that the things we’re looking at are bronze substitutes, ghosts, if you will, which remain connected to the casting process by the runners that she has chosen to leave in place like a set of magical umbilical cords, vessels that were once in immediate contact with the now absent objects. The stage is set!

Denise Grünstein is represented in many collections, including those of Nationalmuseum and Moderna Museet. She has had several solo exhibitions in recent years, including two at CFHILL: Casting (2018) and Nymphaea (2020). She has also made several royal portraits.