Ann-Sofi Sidén
Born 1962, Stockholm, Sweden
Lives and works in Stockholm and New York

Sidén’s films examine power and paranoia in narratives that merge reality and fiction. The impulse to understand and impose control informs QM, I think I call her QM. A female psychiatrist (a character based on a real-life paranoid doctor) discovers a mud-covered being, QM (played by the artist), in her apartment and becomes obsessed with this creature, who refuses to be either identified or dominated. The QM character has been embodied by Sidén in performance works since the late 1980s. While she is a complete fabrication, the artist has created a comprehensive biographical history for her that feeds from both fact and fiction. 

QM, I think I call her QM is being shown in the Carnegie Museum of Art Theater Tuesdays through Fridays at 2:00 pm, and Saturdays and Sundays at 3:00 pm.

Ann-Sofi Sidén, QM, I think I call her QM, 1997, 35 mm color film, 28 minutes (still)

Ann-Sofi Sidén responds to questions in the Artists of the Week section of this site.

Ann-Sofi Sidén’s cinematic works have been presented in the Swedish Avant-Garde Film Program 1990-94 at Anthology Film Archives, New York (1991). Her films and sculptural works have been featured in major group exhibitions, including See What It Feels Like, Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö, and Electronic Undercurrent, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (1996); Around Us, Inside Us, Borås Konstmuseum, Clean and Sane, Edsvik konst och kultur, Stockholm, and Zonen der Ver-Störung, Steirischer Herbst, Graz (1997); Nuit Blanche, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, The King is not the Queen, Nordiska Museet (Arkipelag), Stockholm, Manifesta 2, European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Luxembourg, and XXIV Bienal de São Paulo (1998); and 48th Venice Biennale (1999). Solo exhibitions of Sidén’s work have been presented since 1988, including shows at Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm (1995, 1999), and Secession, Vienna (1999). Sidén had residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine (1989), and P.S. 1 Studio Programs, New York (1993-94).

Education
1986-88 Hochschule der Künste, Berlin

1988-92 Royal Academy of Art, Stockholm

Selected Further Reading
Sidén, Ann-Sofi. No. 144 It’s by Confining One’s Neighbor That One Is Convinced of One’s Own Sanity. Translated by Eric van der Heeg. Stockholm: Utica Publishing, 1999.

Birnbaum, Daniel. “Shrink Wrap: The Art of Ann-Sofi SidŽn.” Artforum 37, no. 10 (summer 1999): 138-41.

Fleck, Robert. “Ann-Sofi Sidén: Who Told the Chambermaid?” In 48th Venice Biennale. Venice: Marsilio Editori, 1999.

Ericsson, Lars O. “The Queen of Mud Strikes Again.” Siksi, no. 1 (1998).

Lind, Maria, and Mats Stjernstedt. Ann-Sofi Sidén, XXIV Bienal de São Paulo. Stockholm: Moderna Museet International Programme, 1998.