Lotta Antonsson's 'I am Everything' at Fotografiska Stockholm

Lotta Antonsson, born 1963, has been exploring the male gaze and objectification of women since the 1990s. Her exhibition 'I am Everything' at Fotografiska Stockholm, opened during the Stockholm Art Fair, features around 50 works, mostly recent. She uses enlarged black-and-white photographs from 1960s and 1970s fashion magazines, including East German erotic magazines found at Berlin flea markets. Antonsson overlays shells, stones, and crystals on the women's faces, often covering their eyes like a visor or black bar used for anonymization. The shells serve as both jewelry and protection, restoring mystery and allowing refusal. In some works, jewelry becomes weaponry: actress Ali MacGraw and Jane Fonda are given sharp crystal teeth, turning them into vampiric, threatening figures. Antonsson studied fine art and photography at Stockholm University of Arts, Crafts and Design and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, and taught photography at Valand Academy of Art and Design in Gothenburg from 2007 to 2016. She is represented in Berlin by Galerie Dorothée Nilsson.