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O—Overgaden is one of the leading non-profit art institutions in Denmark with an irreverent program of emerging local and international voices in contemporary art, displaying around eight grand-scale exhibitions each year from its position in the heart of Copenhagen.
  • Tuesday, Wednesday: 13 – 18h
  • Thursday: 13 – 20h
  • Friday: 13 – 18h
  • Saturday, Sunday: 11 – 18h

Isabella Solar Villaseca: Memory Marketplace
18 Nov 2022 – 28 Jan 2023

On this page:

Isabella Solar Villaseca: Beware of the Giant, 2022. HD video, arkiv material, found footage, 26:30 min, (video still)

Isabella Solar Villaseca: Beware of the Giant, 2022. HD video, arkiv material, found footage, 26:30 min, (video still)

Isabella Solar Villaseca: Beware of the Giant, 2022. HD video, arkiv material, found footage, 26:30 min, (video still)

The emotional catch of the protest song—the folkloric beat—is scrutinized in Isabella Solar Villaseca’s practice.

“Rhythm Is a Dancer”, the 90s dance hit stated. Rhythm is also the backbone of Isabella Solar Villaseca’s artistic practice. Whether in her films or sculptural pieces, the work is grounded in her Chilean descent and Swedish upbringing in diasporic communities on the outskirts of Stockholm, singing and dancing to evoke the Patria lost to fascism. And rhythm—and its metaphorical cousin, dance—is the recurring catalyst of Villaseca’s new series of artworks, composed for her exhibition at O—Overgaden.

For her exhibition Memory Marketplace, her first major institutional show, Villasecaʼs work comprises a new 26-minute-long film; a large gymnasium-like floor with outlines referring to folk dance steps; a series of statement T-shirts like those worn by music fans; and sculptural elements resembling emblematic architectural features, such as the stadium tribune and the presidential balcony. Together, the works scrutinize the luring, emotional catch of the Chilean protest song and folkloric beat; a type of popular music that tends to summon a certain kind of genuine bodily collectivity and kinship, but which also has a history of being used and manipulated in populist political campaigning and the media’s captivating marketing.

In Villaseca’s grand new film Beware of the Giant, pixelated and low-fi footage, spanning the 1973 Chilean military coup by General Augusto Pinochet to current civilian protests in Chile, radiates from a large commercial LED screen. It is accompanied by a soundtrack of Chilean folksongs and protest anthems from Violeta Parra and Victor Jara to Cueca-dancing and public chants of “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido” (The people, united, will never be defeated).

Colorful and seductive, the film and surrounding installations challenge the knife-edge balance between, on the one hand, spellbinding, propaganda-like “tools” rooted in rhythm—think of any advertisement, TikTok-meme, or dance hit—and the search for sincerity and solidarity in the South American musical landscape. Between these poles, Villaseca’s works unveil deep rifts of social conflict and structural, economic violence that have not ceased to exist despite Chile’s dictatorship being long gone.

Film by Christian Brems

Isabella Solar Villaseca (b. 1992, SE) lives and works in Copenhagen. She has a BFA from Bergen Academy of Art and Design (2017) and an MFA from the Royal Danish Art Academy (2021). In 2021 she was the recipient of the Poul Erik Bech Foundation’s art prize. Her exhibition Memory Marketplace is the culmination of Villaseca’s participation in O—Overgaden’s 1-year postgraduate program, INTRO.

The INTRO program is funded by Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansenʼs Foundation. The exhibition has received further support from the Danish Arts Foundation, The Nordic Culture Fund and Hielmstierne-Rosencroneske Foundation.

Isabella Solar Villaseca: Something Big of a Dream, 2022. Diptych installation, Photostat banner, 190 x 220 cm, balcony of cast iron. Photo: Laura Stamer

Isabella Solar Villaseca: Something Big of a Dream, 2022. Diptych installation, Photostat banner, 190 x 220 cm, balcony of cast iron. Photo: Laura Stamer

Isabella Solar Villaseca: Memory Marketplace. Installation view at O—Overgaden, 2022. Photo: Laura Stamer

Isabella Solar Villaseca: Pop-up Infomercial, 2022. Installation, 18 printed T-shirts, curtain, variable dimensions. Photo: Laura Stamer

Isabella Solar Villaseca: Memory Marketplace. Installation view at O—Overgaden, 2022. Photo: Laura Stamer

Isabella Solar Villaseca: Great Yearnings, 2022. Installation, handkerchiefs, spotlight. Photo: Laura Stamer

Isabella Solar Villaseca: Beware of the Giant, 2022. HD video, arkiv material, found footage, 26:30 min, (video still)

Isabella Solar Villaseca: Beware of the Giant, 2022. HD video, arkiv material, found footage, 26:30 min, (video still)

Isabella Solar Villaseca: Beware of the Giant, 2022. HD video, arkiv material, found footage, 26:30 min, (video still)

  • Related

  • Events
    28 Jan 2023, 13:00 – 17:00
    Memory Marketplace mini festival
    25 Jan 2023, 16:00 – 18:00
    O—ROOOM LAUNCH⎮FILIP BERG + SALLY GINGER-BROCKBANK + ESBEN WEILE KJÆR
    19 Jan 2023, 16:00 – 17:00
    Tora Schultz & Isabella Solar Villaseca
    18 Nov 2022, 16:00 – 20:00
    Opening: Tora Schultz & Isabella Solar Villaseca
  • News
    Essay, 6 Dec 2022
    Essay by Isabella Solar Villaseca published by IDOART

    Isabella Solar Villaseca wrote an essay accounting for a trip to Chile researching for her current show at O—Overgaden. The essay is published by IDOART.DK

    OPEN CALL, 5 Oct 2022
    INTRO: APPLY NOW

    Deadline 10 November 2022, 1PM

    INTRO program, 28 Jun 2022
    O—Overgaden continues its INTRO program up until 2025

    Thanks to the invaluable support of 3.7 million kroner from Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen’s Foundation, O—Overgaden now has the opportunity to continue the INTRO program’s long-term work to help strengthen young newly graduated artists all the way up until 2025.

    publications, 18 Jan 2023
    Nye publikationer

    The two new publications focusing on, respectively, Tora Schultz and Isabella Solar Villaseca are here!

    Awarding of prizes, 20 Dec 2022
    Two exhibitions at O—Overgaden awarded with prize from The Danish Arts Councel in 2022

    Isabella Solar Villaseca and Julie Stavad each awarded a prize from the Danish Arts Foundation for their exhibitions at O—Overgaden in 2022.

    INTERNSHIP, 27 Oct 2022
    Communications Intern for Spring 2023

    Student related internship with focus on communications at O—Overgaden Spring 2023. Please sent us your CV today.

  • Press
    Isabella Solar Villaseca: Memory Marketplace
  • Publications
    Memory Marketplace
OVERGADEN
EXHIBITION, CURRENT: Tora Schultz: Bitch on Wheels
EXHIBITION, CURRENT: Isabella Solar Villaseca: Memory Marketplace
EVENT, NOW: Memory Marketplace mini festival
NEWS: O—Overgaden’s future secured!
AWARDING OF PRIZES: Two exhibitions at O—Overgaden awarded with prize from The Danish Arts Councel in 2022
EXHIBITION, CURRENT: Marina Dubia: Flooding In
    • O—Overgaden
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    • Tuesday, Wednesday: 13 – 18h
    • Thursday: 13 – 20h
    • Friday: 13 – 18h
    • Saturday, Sunday: 11 – 18h
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