Exhibition: Cosmos et Vanitas by Ylva Snöfrid

For over thirty years, Ylva Snöfrid has been building a coherent body of work focusing on painting and sculptural objects, which she uses in the staging of her performances. She has presented exhibitions, rituals and performances in leading galleries and institutions in Europe, the USA and Asia. "Cosmos et Vanitas" is her first solo show in Paris.
Start date:
15 Oct 2024
End date:
23 Feb 2025
Category:
At the Institut Suédois
Time
12:00 - 19:00
A person standing in the snow in the mountains, surrounded by artworks placed as a spiral.
Ylva Snöfrid, 2024, The Jungfrau Spiral at Jungfraujoch and the Aletsch Glacier, Photo: Rodrigo Mallea Lira

As a child, Ylva shared her life with Snöfrid, her mirror-double. When she became an artist, she brought Snöfrid into the real world via rituals and ceremonies, objects and publications, food and elixirs, and by painting her over and over again … until the pair ended up merging together as Ylva Snöfrid.

The central element of Cosmos et Vanitas is a series of 24 paintings, one for each hour of the day, which Ylva Snöfrid made during a stay at the Jungfraujoch research station in the Swiss Alps. It is the highest research station in Europe, where scientists observe the atmosphere, the climate, the stars, the snow and the glaciers. Ylva Snöfrid describes this expedition as a metaphysical ritual, a piece of artistic research whose aim was to help her to understand her place, and that of humanity, in the universe. This quest took her to the highest possible point, which is as close as possible to the immensity of the cosmos.

The second part of the exhibition is a voluminous journal comprising 1,200 drawings made between the winter solstices of 2020 and 2023. Their pages are scattered with everyday thoughts, musings on big universal questions, notes on the artistic process, quotes and drawings. The drawings have been bound together in three volumes, each focusing on a theme that is central to her work: Birth, Life and Death, enhanced by thoughts on the form, origins and future of the universe.

The idea of encountering the viewer underlies the third part of the show and forms an essential component of Ylva Snöfrid’s work. Breaking down the barrier between everyday life and art, creating art under the public gaze and performing rituals in which she invites us to take part – all of this forms a dialogue-oriented approach where artworks come to life in the presence of other people, the mountains, the cosmos.

Curator: Sara Arrhenius

Ylva Snöfrid was born in 1974 in Umeå, northern Sweden. She lives and works in Stockholm.

In 1998, she graduated with a masters in Fine Arts from the Royal University College of Fine Arts, Stockholm.

Since then she has presented many solo shows, rituals and performances in Europe and the USA and taken part in group shows all over the world. Several monographs, catalogues and books have been published on her work.

Our thanks to the Swedish Embassy in France and the Swedish Arts Council (KulturrĂĄdet).
Thanks also to the Firestorm Foundation, the Swedish Public Art Agency (Statens Konstråd), Längmanska Kulturfonden, Helge Ax:son Johnsons Stiftelse and Akademiska Hus for their support for the book.
Special thanks to friends and benefactors of Institut suédois for their generous support.

We would like to thank the International Foundation High Altitude Research Stations Jungfraujoch and Gornergrat (HFSJG), 3012 Bern, Switzerland, for enabling us to carry out our experiments at the Jungfraujoch High Altitude Research Station.

Useful information

  • Admission free.
  • Tuesday to Sunday, 12 noon to 7 pm. Late opening until 9 pm on Thursdays.
  • The exhibition will be closed all day on October 17th to make way for the Initiation Rituals: book here.