SIX LOVELY PEOPLE – ANNIKA STRÖM – LONDON MARCH 2015

On entering the ICA studio you see a group of people mingling and drinking, ostensibly adhering to the underlying etiquette of a private view. A rather friendly person starts up conversation with you and you both talk about everything and nothing. You now realise you are talking to one of the six lovely people, an actor, paid by the artist Annika Ström to act in a lovely manner towards you as part of the performance Six Lovely People.

 

Six Lovely People is an exhibition that activates fig-2 as a space of encounter. Ström works with the concept of loveliness to question language and expression in performance and performativity. Through detailed instructions given to the actors and reminders of what the actors will not speak about given to the audience, a situation is established where the viewer is constantly scrutinising the encounter.

Six Lovely People is intelligent in the way it juxtaposes surface co-operation with complex co-operation. Once you have conversed with the actors you are almost left with an aversion to the pleasantries and surface interactions, which these encounters are built on. This in turn influences how you behave in the encounters with the non-actors making you aware of the techniques and gestures you employ. Ström's work tends to be built around a concept or feeling (The Upset Man, The Inept Five) and successfully questions our relations to others and environments, namely those associated with the gallery and exhibitions.
You leave the situation in positive disarray regarding everything you thought you knew about yourself and the art-world.