Emily Sundblad
Loretta Fahrenholz and Emily Sundblad, Still from Que Bárbara, 2011. Video, color, sound, 14 minutes, Courtesy the artists.
Born 1977 in Dalsjöfors, Sweden
Lives and Works in New York, NY
Much of Emily Sundblad’s work revolves around performing identities as if in a masquerade. As the director of Reena Spaulings Fine Art, for example, she has at times performed the role of Reena Spaulings, a fictional “it girl” and imaginary director of the (real) gallery. Sundblad’s recent musical performances play with the boundaries between real and fictional identities in a similar manner; in False True Love (2014), a video for a song that she recorded with guitarist Matthew Sweeney, it is unclear whether she is simply performing as a pop singer or making an artwork about being a pop singer. The song describes a lost love—perhaps the most straightforward and time-tested subject in the history of song—though the narrative of the video is ambiguous: are the events portrayed taking place in the memory or the imagination? And is what is “false” the heroine’s lover or her love itself?
On View
Second Floor
Work by Emily Sundblad will be presented in the second floor Film & Video Gallery, May 14–25. View the calendar for more information.
Film Stills
Que Bárbara (2011)
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Loretta Fahrenholz and Emily Sundblad, Still from Que Bárbara, 2011. Video, color, sound, 14 minutes, Courtesy the artists.
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Loretta Fahrenholz and Emily Sundblad, Still from Que Bárbara, 2011. Video, color, sound, 14 minutes, Courtesy the artists.
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Loretta Fahrenholz and Emily Sundblad, Still from Que Bárbara, 2011. Video, color, sound, 14 minutes, Courtesy the artists.
