Filmform (est. 1950) is dedicated to preservation, promotion and worldwide distribution of experimental film and video art. Constantly expanding, the distribution catalogue spans from 1924 to the present, including works by Sweden’s most prominent artists and filmmakers, available to rent for public screenings and exhibitions as well as for educational purposes.
The film Vacuum clean love, give form to a young woman that, masked with a wig and costume, acts out her feelings in a table similar to the cleared-up and polished environment of a commercial. In the made-up world where people reproduce, transform and become a product, the woman revolts by trying to puncture, or strive, to get out of her present reality. She no longer wants to be seen as an image, or a representation, of the female being. In the film vacuums her body with a mini vacuum cleaner.
The image is similar to an American TV-shop commercial from the eighties. The colour is bubblegum pink, and the tune of the film is harsh and cynical, describing a manic act on the edge to pornographic. The woman wants to get out from the little pink bubble, that in many ways oppress and ridicules her as a woman. The sexuality and obsession of her own body constitutes a part of the revolt, but simultaneously there is another side the act that tilts towards obliteration. Every little part of the body must be clean and perfect. The body is no longer human; it is now the image of one. She has been transformed into an image.
Born in 1966 in Stenungsund. Currently based in Stockholm, Sweden.
Charlotte Åberg is a video artist educated at the art academy in Umeå, Sweden 1990-1995. The images in Charlotte Åberg’s films are inspired by commercials from tv-shop, fashion magazines and Hollywood productions. Charlotte Åberg is interested in how media and junk culture influence a greater and greater part of society, and how their ideals affect the individual. The representation of romanticized love is a constantly recurring thread in the video works. Clichés and beauty adoration in a narcissistic culture are reflected in several video performances.
Charlotte Åberg has worked with social structure and hierarchy in schools and places of work. The exhibition ‘The Dream Garden’ with Lott Alfreds, has been an examination of the employees’ dreams at an eldercare. During the years 2003-2006, Charlotte Åberg worked in a broader field of art, with the projects vårbygård.nu and SkiSS. She has also exhibited at Polyphonix, Videoprogram, Centre Georges Pompidou, in Paris, October 2002. In 1999 she was an holder of the IASPIS-scholarship in Stockholm.
Recent projects include Drömsällskapet at Norrtälje Konsthall 2019 and Illuminated dreams, Alexandria 2017.
