Marie Karlberg

Karlberg’s performances, works, and videos position herself as an agent wrestling forces of disempowerment and disenchantment in the art field. Personal stakes and prejudices are fashioned into a repertoire of tools that build an auto-didactic, often comedic, critique of the contemporary art industry. Drawing on her personal experiences working as a gallery assistant and collaborator with NYC- based commercial gallery and fictional artist, Reena Spaulings; as one half of the tongue-in-cheek curatorial duo, M/L Art Space, (with artist, Lena Henke); as a DJ, party promoter, and member of early twenties-tens NYC nightlife mafia, XTA-PUSSY; and her own self-taught art education amid the ever intensifying climate of bureaucratic educational resumes—drawing on these and other experiences, Karlberg’s narratives offer merciless insights into a symbolic economy that, notwithstanding lofty delusions of bohemian value, inevitably champion money and subjugation.

Submitted by Bonny Poon