On the day of the Summer Solstice, June 21^st, Ylva Snöfrid fills Liljevalchs with The House of the Muses – a vibrant Gesamtkunstverk and cosmic play, transforming the century-old building into a pictorial and performative universe. During eight months, Liljevalchs turns into a house for the nine muses and the four elements – earth, water, air and fire.

“Once upon a time there was infinity, a revolution around the sun, a planetary time axis, a spiral. The world and time curved, String theory. Quantum physics. The back is a front, a black hole. An event horizon. Once upon a time there were nine muses and four elements.”
– Excerpt from Ylva Snöfrid’s manuscript.

The House of the Muses is based on a manuscript written by Snöfrid in the Swiss alps. The most extensive presentation of her practice up to date, the exhibition spans 400 paintings, thousands of sketches, prints, objects, as well as specially crafted furniture coated in oil paint. Everything is transferred from the artist’s home over to Liljevalchs and many of the works bear traces of the artist’s life and earlier works.

Snöfrid’s pictorial cycles spans over decades. A recurring one is the ritual painting, where each act is an artistic one, interweaving life and art in a flow where existentiality opens up towards a cosmological perspective and the imaginary is merged with the stardust and the dark matter of the universe.

The House of the Muses unfolds in thirteen galleries where each room corresponds to a muse or an element asking the questions: Whose perspective is this? Whose childhood? Mine? Yours? Ours? Who is the protagonist? Who is the monster? As a visitor, you’re invited to engage with the work and to move through the exhibition in your own individual manner. There are around 30 rituals to take part of, and you can participate in festivities, plays and happenings where the paintings and installations are made usable. The exhibition also follows life events such as birth, childhood, adolescence, wisdom and dream.

The work embraces a number of partnerships with other artists and parties. Prior to the opening of the exhibition, and during its duration, the artist is working together with the director and actor Rebecka Hemse and The Royal Dramatic Theatre. Actors from the ensemble of The Royal Dramatic Theatre will on a number of occasions enact scenes inside the work, stemming from both the world drama repertoire and from scenes based on the manuscript Snöfrid has written and edited alongside Rebecka Hemse. The scenes become elements of the work and new works within the work simultaneously – a dialogue between artist and playwright, between art and drama, between Kunsthalle and theatre.

The last gallery, number 13, is dedicated to the dream world, and here, the new painting suite The Dream Rite expands across the floor. Here, the visitors can step on the paintings and engage with the work through their own dancing rituals. On a number of occasions, the work will be activated through music created by the music producer Kornél Kovács and the musician Isak Hedtjärn, as well as dance based on the choreography of the Dream Rite.

An exhibition catalogue is produced by the culture publication NUDA. The experimental three-parted publication follows the progression of the exhibition, containing multiples, the artist’s own deck of tarot cards with instructions for rituals, texts by Nicolas Bourriaud, Cathryn Drake, Sinziana Ravini, Joanna Sandell Wright, Cara Schacter and Marina Tsvetajeva, as well as parts of Snöfrid’s manuscript.

Ylva Snöfrid is known for her performative works, pushing the boundaries of painting; within Snöfrid’s ritualized world, everything revolves around painting that moves between figuration and matter. Her artistic process often takes place in communal rooms and in collective rituals, where she takes on the role as a mediator between work and reality. In 2017, she performed a “transmutation ritual” in which she became one with her twin soul Snöfrid.

Ylva Snöfrid has been based in New York, Berlin, Athens and Stockholm. She has exhibited extensively around the world in numerous large exhibitions and site-specific works, including Istanbul Biennal, Performa in New York, Palais de Tokyo, Swiss Institute in New York, Institut Suédois in Paris, Bonniers konsthall and Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen.

“—-It is ridiculous, everything is a joke, the artist is a clown in society…but everyone is born an artist!!! I am an artist, a fool, an idiot!”
– Excerpt from Ylva Snöfrid’s manuscript for the muse Urania

The exhibition is curated by Joanna Sandell Wright, Director of Liljevalchs.

Photo: Märta Thisner