Lisa Torell’s (b. 1972, Gothenburg) piece Cm by cm, metre – by- metre, km by km is a collage of photographs, writing and painting, is described by the artist herself as “construction-based interpretations of a city space.” Torell analyses mass-produced materials and designs in a deliberate, pragmatic manner. Concrete, asphalt, and graffitied wooden benches come together to create momentary reflections, factual descriptions and personalized commentary. The collage could be viewed as an attempt to allocate a new status to things of little value. Lisa Torell has worked in New Belgrade, a municipality of the Serbian capital Belgrade, which was built in the late 1940s in a characteristically Communist fashion. Today it is the city’s fastest developing area, as well as the financial centre.
For over a decade, Lisa Torell has been attracted to the public sphere. She begins by questioning just how the spaces themselves came about, what their purpose is, how they look. She unscrambles the complex interaction between politics and aesthetics, and often returns to standardized settings, constructed without bearing any real aesthetics in mind. Through the use of sculpture, collages, installations, the written word and performance art, she comments on the aesthetics of the public sphere, or better yet the lack of aesthetics present, and why this was allowed to happen. Lisa Torell commonly works on site, involving herself in close conversation with selected places and situations. For the Bonniers Konsthall exhibition, she has worked with the museum’s proximity to the heavily trafficked street Torsgatan.
