Sofia Bertilsson

B. 1966 in Malmö, Sweden; lives and works in Berlin, Germany .

Art History at Lund University, MFA Malmö Art Academy 1996. Currently director at Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin, and freelance curator.

First sound art work: Divided Nation, 1994.

Sofia Bertilsson’s art fuses elements from different music traditions: pop, rock and country music. She also works with fictive narratives delivered in a pseudo-personal way typically used by singer-songwriters and country-singers.

The first sound installation draws heavily on Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape”, placing a boom-box from the eighties in the middle of a gallery with a tape recording of a whining voice telling a strange story (Divided Nation, 1994). Some works use a performative set-up, such as a stage, as in Reading, 1997, or a microphone hooked up to a sound system, as in The Bombay Pop Story, 1996.

In 1997 she asked Anders Lindsjö from the Artfarmers to make music for a so-called pastorale (Pastorale, Oh Yeah Come, 1997), a tender but suggestive melody with a slow rhythm. Bertilsson provided the lyrics and the whispering voice. The work was made for an exhibition at Wanås Castle, an idyllic and rural setting in the south of Sweden. A concert-sized PA and the rock music gave it a contemporary edge contrasting with the rural setting.