ISSUES

For Market Art Fair, ISSUES presents a solo presentation with Stockholm-based sculptor Klara Zetterholm. Klara skilfully employs methods found in prop-making to create a fake archaeology. Architectural artefacts made from plaster and spray paints are shown alongside "people", visiting us from the past but also evidently from the future. Together they map out the civilisation of Ul'd Arbas, a fictitious site that is a little too close to home.

The two figures are presented together with around twenty individual reliefs. They are all native to Ul’d Arbas, a fictitious site not far from Valdaesti Umdar (the archaeological site for Klara’s solo show at the gallery in 2023). The life-size figures are future reconstructions of common jobs and occupations that were not only essential in the distant past but will also be essential in the future – that of the postman and the mineworker. The reliefs reassemble architectural fragments, brutally chiseled off from ornate buildings and presented on the wall like souvenirs from a grand tour in the previous turn of the century. However, they are artefacts with messages that "scientists" struggle to decipher. Some are fossils of the fauna once inhabiting Ul’d Arbas and some are scientific representations thereof. But what puzzles the imaginary scientific community is the many proverbs and idioms that seem to have adorned the buildings. "The letter A will eat the moon when Y forgets its name" is one example. "All things stir from slumber when the flute sings by night" is another. The imagery used to represent the proverbs do not necessarily help, the latter shows a pig-like figure with wings holding a flute to its bottom and the former has the letters A and Y howled at by a wolf, with later ritualistic inscriptions.

The female postman not only has a stick for her right leg, she also holds a relief in her hands, suggesting she is responsible for the exhibit. It ties the display to our time and the context of the art fair. When are we and what are we looking at?

KLARA ZETTERHOLM b. 1991, lives and works in Stockholm. She graduated from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, her MFA exhibition was awarded with a grant from the Bonnier foundation. Her recent exhibitions and presentations include Independent Art Fair, New York City, with Suprainfinit (2025); Discoveries from Valdaesti Umdar, ISSUES (2023); Downtown Issues II at ISSUES, Stockholm (2023); Liste Art Fair, Basel, with Suprainfinit (2023); Collected Fragments at Thomassen gallery, Gothenburg (2023); The simple life, the still.)) at Suprainfinit, Budapest (2023); Potpourri at ISSUES, Stockholm (2022); a temporary exhibition at Odenplan’s subway station in association with Kulturförvaltingen (2023); the MFA spring show at the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm (2022), Inside/Outside at Coulisse gallery, Stockholm (2022); Downtown Issues at ISSUES, Stockholm (2021) and Survival of the fittest at Accelerator, Stockholm (2020).