Åsa Jungnelius, born 1975 in Fisksätra, is a Swedish artist with a broad creative pallet-designer, university lecturer, entrepreneur, artistic director, educator and since 2022 honorary doctor at Linnaeus University in Växjö. In her teens, she trained as a glassblower at Kosta Boda and between 1998 – 2004 she took her master’s degree in ceramics and glass at Konstfack. Åsa Jungnelius lives and works today in Månsamåla, Småland. Her work is included in the collections of Moderna Museet Stockholm, Nationalmuseum Stockholm, European Parliament Art Collection in Brussels, Malmö Konstmuseum, Norrköpings Konstmuseum, Växjö kommun, Glasmuseet Ebeltoft Danmark, National Swedish Art Council, Stockholms läns landsting, Skövde Konstmuseum, Röhsska Museet, Smålands Museum and The Glass Factory in Boda. With her graduation exhibition I like your hair style! in 2004, she had an immediate breakthrough on the Swedish art scene. A presentation in glass, where female beauty and accessories were cleverly highlighted in the objects, making them powerful symbols of issues of oppression, gender and ideals. The exhibition not only highlighted outdated social structures, but also brought the traditional glass tradition into the spotlight. Åsa Jungnelius became an innovator of an entire genre while unleashing an entirely new visual idiom. Today, twenty years later, craftsmanship is an integral part of visual art.
Her most recent major public art commissions include the new Hagastaden metro station in Stockholm, for which she created Snäckan, a commission she has been working on since 2015 and is expected to be completed in 2027. The process-based public work at Södra Hamnen for Norrköpings Konstmuseum and The Inner World Exhibition began with the performance PAVILJONG 1# ENERGIER, where a hot air balloon trapped in the disused Bråvallaverket (factory) rose and fell like a collective solar mother Åsa Jungnelius in a common industrial wound. In addition, 20# pavilions with an accompanying public programme and permanent site-specific art will open in the autumn of 2023. Transit of Venus (2023), a two-part group of sculptures placed next to Observatorielunden, is a relational monument to 8 March, International Women’s Day, donated to the City of Stockholm.
Her work has been shown in recent years at Spazio Nobile in Brussels (2024), Galerie Leu in Munich (solo 2023), Galerie Glas (solo 2023), Market Art Fair (solo 2022), Kunstnarens hus in Oslo (2021), Artipelag (2020), Stene Project (solo 2020), ArkDes (2018-19), Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen (2019), Vandalorum (solo 2019) and Luleå Biennale (2019). Spazio Nobile Gallery, Brussels revealed her Prime silvered blown glass installation for the first time at PAD London last autumn. In December 2024, she has just completed her commissioned works Agnes Tårar (Agnas Tears) and Agnas Famn at new cultural centre in Gävle in connection with the inaugural exhibition Seamless Transition. “There is an earthly anchorage in the materials of steel, glass and marble, made up of some of the oldest sediments and elements on the planet. While we experience the presence of density, there is a spherical interplay of movement and contrast between hard and soft expressions. The artist manages to manifest a new phase in his creation in a supernatural union,” states Jan Stene. An artistic research project is currently running in collaboration with the Consulate General, Swedish Research Institute in Turkey and Pera Museum, Istanbul. Spazio Nobile represents her since 2021.
TLMag : Åsa Jungnelius: Rethinking Relations
2024, FORM : Hot cavities, glass artist Åsa Jungnelius follows the winding roads of desire.
