What Do We Know About Desire?

After almost ten years as one of the most celebrated upcoming Scandinavian artists Annika von Hausswolff might still be young (born in 1967) but her influence on the new art photography has been immense. Maybe it’s because of the amount of layers in her art – critics like to have something to talk about – maybe it’s because of the pure aeshtetic qualities, or maybe it’s something harder to define.

In recent time she has been moving away from photography, hinting that digital photo might not have what she needs to express her self. She has successfully transferred her world into installations, and it’s a rather safe bet that we’ll get to see more of her on that scene.

Still, von Hausswolff’s photography is very much the essence of her work. Her photos are pseudo documentary. One of her most famous works Hey Buster! What do you know about desire? depicts a German Sheppard guarding a covered up female corpse on a beach. At first glance it looks like a snap shot, perhaps taken by an onlooker or as a part of a crime scene investigation, but it is in fact arranged in detail by the artist.

This ambiguous attitude is important to the artist. Besides examining a world of threats, violence and isolation, von Hausswolff asks questions about the very nature of photography in general, and documentary photography specifically. Is it relevant to view the camera as an independent witness, the way we’ve been raised to believe by the main stream news media? Do we really know what happened just by what it looks like?