Jacob Dahlgren

Jacob Dahlgren (born 1970 in Stockholm) is an intelligent, amusing and visually fascinating artist, whose life merges with his art.He has over 1,000 striped t-shirts. His paintings based on them were on display at Galerie Anhava in 2003.

Dahlgren eats tinned food and makes gaily coloured pieces of sculpture from the empty cans. He can make sculptures from IKEA clothes-hangers or a relief from disposable plastic cups. Scales, packaging for beef stock or other products, dart boards and crispbread turn into art in his mind and hands.
With each of his works Dahlgren proves to us that everyday life contains material for art. He processes the everyday experience, reminding us that it is worth our while to look around us. In a sense, he still carries on the tradition of constructivism, reforming and refreshing it, and placing it in the present-day context.

Dahlgren represented Sweden at the last Venice Biennial and has since then held a solo exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle and participated in exhibitions such as "Superabundant" at the Turner Contemporary in Margate, "Stitched and Gathered at the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center of Moma in New York and "Dangerous Beauty" at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York. At Kiasma in Helsinki he participated in the recent exhibition "Image and After" of works from the collections. Dahlgren has been candidate for the Ars Fennica Prize.

Jacob Dahlgren has made several public works of art in Sweden, and his works are in public and private collections both in Sweden and outside the country.