Collective exhibition, until September 9^th 2012.

The Moderna Museet in Stockholm presents Explosion! Painting as Action which is a collective exhibition gathering more than 45 international artists, curated by Magnus af Petersens. This exhibition, which will travel and settle in Barcelona, studies the limits of painting and its links with performance and conceptual art.

Since the 1940s, painting has changed form, it is more of a game and is sometimes interactive. Mid-20^th century painting was innovating, constituted of aggressions and experiments rather than academism, it used randomness, spontaneous creation and called for a necessary rehabilitation and further exploration of materials and spaces.

A documentation of the Loving Care performance by Janine Antoni (The Bahamas), in 1993, is exhibited. Janine Antoni uses her hair as a (paint)brush to paint the floor of a gallery thanks to the hair dyes of the brand Loving Care.

Janine Antoni, Loving Care, performance, 1993 © Janine Antoni / Photo : Prudence Cumming Associate

Taking care of one’s body and the beauty rituals become metaphors of the artistic ritual. The artist, throughout her multidisciplinary career, has often used her body (hair, eyelashes, teeth…) as artistic tools and instruments- thus matching our daily rituals and their social implications with art.

Explosion! Painting as Action also shows the artworks by Ana Mendieta (Cuba), an artist who combines body-art and land-art. She has largely worked on the human body and its marks on nature. She used her own body to leave traces in the nature thanks to materials such as blood, earth, fire, water or powder.

Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Blood Sign #2 / Body Tracks), 1974 © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, Courtesy Galerie Lelong, New York