Sofia M . Ciel

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Sofia M. Ciel * [sjɛl] is an independent curator, researcher, lecturer, and writer. She holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and works across the fields of social science, visual culture, theatre, literature, and art history.

Ciel has published extensively across a range of media and formats from academic articles and papers to national and international art magazines including critical reviews and essays (she collaborated inter alia with Billedkunst, Kunstkritikk, and Hyperallergic). In her texts, she often comments on structural privilege and discrimination including, but not limited to racism, class, poverty, precarity, and language. Fundamental to her work is public engagement. This encompasses curating and chairing talks and seminars which expands on thematics within the work to include a wider more diverse audience. She is especially interested in new methods of curating, teaching, and writing that challenge multileveled exclusions prevailing in art and academic structures.

Ciel is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA Norway), the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT), and The Norwegian Critics’ Association (Norsk kritikerlag).

https://sofiaciel.com/

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Noel B. Salazar

KU Leuven

Galen Strawson

The University of Texas at Austin

Steven Pinker

Harvard University

David Seamon

Kansas State University

Shaun Gallagher

University of Memphis

Jenny Chamarette

The Open University

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

Renata Holod

University of Pennsylvania

Emre San

Istanbul 29 Mayis University

Nicholas D Hartlep

Berea College

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The Representation of Lack, the Matter of Imagination: Hannah Ryggen Aesthetics of Resistance and Art Against Fascism

Modern Women Artists in the Nordic Countries, Research in Gender and Art, Routledge, 2021

In 1937 at the Paris International Exhibition, on the same exhibition where Picasso’s Guernica wa... more In 1937 at the Paris International Exhibition, on the same exhibition where Picasso’s Guernica was presented, another interesting anti-war work was shown - Hannah Ryggen’s Etiopia. Or, to be more precise it was partially shown; the part of the tapestry with the decapitated head of Benito Mussolini was folded over. The essay takes a closer look at the Ryggen’s work and demonstrates that her tapestries are a very particular example of the aesthetics of resistance. In order to give prominence to Ryggen’s art, the essay analyzes the issue of the truth of representation and the role of imagination; its mechanisms and the way it influences memory and thinking about the reality in the process of interpreting images (especially ones connected with war). What does it mean to show the reality of war in an image or in the art image in particular? For instance, in the famous print series, The Disasters of War Goya decided to leave out a motif of the glorification of death, and thus emphasized violence, while Reni Riefenstahl insisted, that The Triumph of the Will was ‘free of commentary’, ‘genuine’ example of ‘pure history’. The image seems to be suspended between saying too much or too little; when it says too little, we must imagine (Georges Didi-Huberman), and when it says too much, it becomes a radical transformation of reality in which history becomes theatre (Susan Sontag). The aesthetics of resistance (Adorno, Weiss) leaves a space for the viewer’s imagination, but not total freedom. The works of Hannah Ryggen are a very particular example of incorporating the aesthetics of resistance, or – to put it in other words – the representation of lack and the matter of imagination – the matter of textile

Sofia M . Ciel

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