Charlotte Johannesson

Charlotte Johannesson (b. 1943, Malmö, Sweden) lives and works in Skanör, Sweden. Trained as a weaver, Johannesson began to make tapestries as art in the 1970s, work that often satirised mainstream politics. In 1978, Johannesson traded a tapestry for an Apple II Plus, the first generation of personal computers. Teaching herself to program she used the same dimensions on the computer as she had on the weave (239 pixels on the horizontal side and 191 pixels on the vertical). Funded by The National Swedish Board for Technology and Development, she started the Digital Theatre with her partner, Sture Johannesson, in Malmö, Sweden. Existing between 1981 and 1985, the Digital Theatre was a techno-utopia in miniature and Scandinavia’s first digital arts laboratory.

Johannesson will participate in the 59th Venice Biennale (2022). A survey exhibition of Johannesson’s work, Take Me to Another World, opened at Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2021, curated by Mats Stjernstedt and Lars Bang Larsen. Johannesson’s work has been exhibited internationally, including Our Silver City, 2094, Nottingham Contemporary, UK (2021); The Blazing World, S|2 Gallery, Sotheby’s, London (2019); Mud Muses, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2019); Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance, Act 2, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, UK (2019); pressure | imprint, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2018); Nordic Pavilion, Venice Biennale (2017); 32nd São Paulo Biennale (2016); Textila Undertexter, Marabouparken Konsthall, Sweden (2016); The Society without Qualities, Tensta Konsthall, Spånga, Sweden (2013); Forms of Resistance, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands (2007); and Pyramid of Mars, Barbican Centre, London, and Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, and Trapholt Museum, Kolding, Denmark (2000).

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