Anna Uddenberg

Premium Economy, 2024

Navigating Non-Place

Anna Uddenberg’s sculptures and performances examine the inextricable entanglements that algorithms engender between consumerism, coded feminine identity and performativity. Uddenberg is known for her sculptures of hyper-sexualised (and hyper-flexible) faceless female dummies adorned in futuristic, utilitarian luxury apparel, flaunting synthetic hair, and acrylic nails. Frozen in extreme positions or poses that push “sexy” to the brink of absurdity, these highly instagrammable figures hold up a mirror to contemporary culture’s obsession with self-styling and our being locked in a mode of “watch[ing] ourselves as someone else,” as Alice Jardine would have it, writes Lilly Markaki in the Elephant Magazine.

The edition of a drone-like book stand is released on the occasion of Uddenberg’s first monograph, titled Premium Economy, featuring works created since 2010. Premium Economy was also the title of Uddenberg’s solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Mannheim, that provoked the power dynamics of dominance and submission by transforming the armature of transportation infrastructure and architectural elements into sexualized pseudo-functional (non-figurative) sculptures activated by performers. For this edition, the artist extracts some of the essential materiality of her recent works––bent acrylic glass and a specific full cast stainless steel armature designed to support glass facades. This architectural element is now condensed into a domestic-sized, drone-like book stand.