Menn I Dress

13.03.2026 – 24.05.2026

Kjøpmannsgata Ung Kunst, Trondheim

The exhibition Men in Suits explores the suited man as a cultural figure, visual code, and social sign. Here, the suit functions not merely as clothing, but as a historically and ideologically charged symbol of masculinity, authority, and institutional power. In Linn Svensson’s practice, this figure becomes an analytical tool for examining how gendered roles, norms, and power structures are naturalized through visual and material expressions.

The project can be read as a deconstruction of hegemonic masculinity. By detaching the suited man from his familiar contexts, such as the office, the state, capital, or the public sphere, the figures are placed in a contextless landscape where they appear both staged and disoriented. This displacement reveals how power is not inherent in the body or the garment, but is produced through social and cultural structures, in line with Judith Butler’s understanding of gender as a performative practice.

The exaggerated poses and theatrical staging highlight the figure as a performative construction. The suited man appears both as subject and object, both actor and sign. In the absence of institutional frameworks, the normative authority of the suit is destabilized, opening a space for speculative and critical readings of the visual regime of masculinity.

The materiality of the works is central. By working with textile techniques traditionally associated with femininely coded craft, Svensson introduces a material friction between masculine representations and femininely coded modes of production. This collision activates feminist discussions about hierarchies between art and craft, high and low culture, and between gendered forms of labor. The textile expression functions not only as a medium, but as an epistemological and political structure, a network of threads serving as a metaphor for how inheritance, environment, and social relations are woven into the subject’s space for action.

The exhibition further addresses the relationship between individual and role, body and symbol, subjectivity and expectation. By breaking the figure down into fragments; gesture, attire, and posture, Svensson investigates what remains when symbols lose their institutional anchoring. The works thus invite reflection on how power, gender, and social order are produced through repetition, representation, and materiality.

Drawings, sketches, and textile studies are also included as part of the exhibition, offering insight into a practice that is both analytical and process-oriented. These works make visible how the figure develops through a material-based investigation, and how the artist’s method itself functions as a form of critical knowledge production.

Exhibition text written by Cathrine Hovdahl Vik

The exhibition was curated inside four separate gallery rooms, P2, P3, P1 and Hvelvrommet, where the main works were mounted inside P2 and P3 (as seen above). P2 and P3 were curated with two separate moods in mind, where the two bigger works, Men With Snake and Man With Volcano, functioned as anchors to which the remaining figures acted on to express these.

Below is a collection of pictures from the room P1. P1, a smaller gallery with black walls, featured sketches, drawings and early embroideries – prototypes for the final form that are presented inside P2 and P3. On the far wall of the room hangs the series Wishing You Were Here that can be viewed in close up by clicking on this link.

Hvelvrommet (shown below) featured works from the project Public Interest. A series of works that became an exhibition shown at Galleri Seilduken in the spring of 2025. Pictures and more information about this project can be accessed through this link.

All artworks featured in the exhibition are available for purchase and can be accessed through this link.