Matteo Cantarella is pleased to present Difference, a solo exhibition by Berlin-based Swedish artist Sanna Helena Berger. The exhibition marks the first solo presentation of Berger’s work in Denmark and first show with the gallery.
The difference is the remainder left after subtracting one value from another. By outlining the placement and dimensions of previously exhibited artworks in the gallery, Berger subtracts these formal positions from the space — declaring the vacant as potential. Her work’s size-specificity is thus determined by this so-called negative space — absence is inverted into presence. The outlined lack of work and the exhibited work is equalised as value — a value not determined by materiality. Lack becomes a formal position on par with addition.
Berger’s material practice centres around hues and gradients caused by a lived-in affect, differentiating even mass produced objects where the condition of being leaves a trace. The exhibited works ascribes to a Deleuzian idea of difference in that they deviate whilst being from the same. Repeating material does not repeat meaning and each return to repetition alters the sculptural field.
The exhibited panels all started out the same — white, now they exist in a variety of hues determined by the lived-in. A material so banal, commonplace and practical gains a painterly quality with time — proof of a room ageing alongside its occupant. Discolouration is therefore the colour of these works, materials chosen because of their flaws as patina instead of problem, echoing the gesture of negating the negative into a positive.
The freestanding unreadymade — an act of display, displaying nothing but itself, airs on the side of simulacra. Its dimension replicates the commonplace bookcase from which the exhibited wallhung panels once sat as backboards, referencing the standard from which Berger has derived a non-standard. The formality of a displaycase in a gallery can be re-assessed because of its lack of object. Here the display is the object. Tints, hues, gradients of transparencies replace the presence of motif throughout the exhibition, the outlines overlap to amass a topology of lacking works, showing themselves through reflective material which mirrors back this lack as motif.
Sanna Helena Berger (b. 1983, Sweden) lives and works in Berlin. Berger works with site-and situation-specific installations informed and influenced by critical theory, philosophy and analysis. Her extensive writing acts not only as a coupling discourse to the exhibition, but presents the exhibition as an extension of her writing – material and theory lands on par. Recent exhibition and reading performances include and, then, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, 2026, und, zwar, WRG Braunschweig, 2026, Schmutztitel, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna 2025, Absolut, Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin, Under, Simian, Copenhagen, 2025, Metod, Antics, Stockholm, 2025, Metod, Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg, 2025, Opera, Cabinet Milano, 2025, Texte zur Kunst, Berlin, 2024, Bourse, Centralbanken, Oslo, 2024.