Pressure/Imprint at Malmö Konsthall Unites Three Generations of Artists

Malmö Konsthall presents Pressure/Imprint, an exhibition featuring Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, Charlotte Johannesson, and Ester Fleckner, running from 30 September to 28 January. These artists, born in 1932, 1943, and 1983 respectively, hail from former East Germany, Sweden, and Denmark, and work across divergent media yet find common ground in subverting technological and manual processes. Johannesson, with her husband Sture and computer engineer Sten Kallin, pioneered digital translation of textile images in the 1970s using self-built software, creating tapestries like Drop Dead (1977) and I'm No Angel (1974) that prefigured digital aesthetics. Wolf-Rehfeldt employed typewriters under GDR restrictions to produce intricate mail art, such as Limits Endlessness (1975) and Aufbruchstimmung, exploring language as graphics. Fleckner uses woodcutting, a method dating to the fourteenth century, in works like Clit-dick Register, 1–22 (2013–14) and A closet does not connect under the bed, 1–20 (2016), challenging reproduction norms. The exhibition architecture uses temporary walls to create porous chapters for each artist, emphasizing their distinct yet entangled practices. This grouping highlights how manual and technological binaries are false, with each artist's experimental approach forming alternative connections and resisting normativity. The show was reviewed in the January & February 2018 issue of ArtReview.