Goldin+Senneby: Flare-Up

The recent work of Stockholm-based artist duo Goldin+Senneby focuses on issues of autoimmunity, accessibility, and ecology.

Drawing on the experience of living with multiple sclerosis, the exhibition’s title refers to a treatable aspect of the disease. While the gradual progression of the condition offers limited options for intervention, the sudden flare-ups have attracted significant interest from the pharmaceutical industry, paving the way for lucrative treatments. Flare-Up also alludes to the volatile, inflammable nature of pine resin, which has fueled investment in genetically engineered pines as a potential source of green energy.

Since 2018, Goldin+Senneby has collaborated with fiction writer Katie Kitamura, blending their artistic practice with her narrative craft to explore themes of autoimmunity—the fraught notion of a body at war with itself—and the stakes of reengineering life to defend against biological or environmental peril. Goldin+Senneby’s research, experiments, and performances have inspired Kitamura’s fiction, which, in turn, has influenced the duo’s artistic output. Flare-Up is also the working title of their collaborative novel, commissioned and edited by Triple Canopy, which has published several manifestations of the work. The novel is composed of two discrete parts set in parallel versions of the same world: One centers on a mysterious pine tree with a supercharged immune system, while the other follows a stranger whose identity and biological coherence are called into question as he searches for a groundbreaking treatment for his illness.

Flare-Up—the duo’s first US museum exhibition—brings together this multifaceted body of work alongside site-specific interventions that address the architecture of the List Center’s building.

Goldin+Senneby: Flare-Up is organized by Accelerator, Stockholm University, and curated by Richard Julin, Artistic Director, Accelerator. It is produced in partnership with MIT List Visual Arts Center. Its presentation at the List Center is organized by Natalie Bell, Curator, with Zach Ngin, Curatorial Assistant, MIT List Visual Arts Center.

Goldin+Senneby (est. 2004, Stockholm) explores how economic structures shape our society. In recent years, their practice has increasingly focused on issues of illness, care, and accessibility. They have exhibited at biennials in São Paulo, Istanbul, and Gwangju and held solo exhibitions at The Power Plant, Toronto; Kadist, Paris; and e-flux, New York. Goldin+Senneby’s works are included in the collections of Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.