Archive Newsletter No. 18

July 2026

Annika Eriksson’s solo exhibition and order has been on view at Kunstverein München since the end of June. Through collages, dioramas, and moving-image works, the artist explores the relationship between humans and animals, as well as the acts of observing, commanding, and caring. Nearly 25 years ago, Annika Eriksson held her first solo exhibition at the Kunstverein. Such a return is a rarity in the Kunstverein’s recent history. Since Ruth Kiener-Flamm’s exhibitions in 1975 and 1977, no other artist has been invited back for a second solo presentation. In 2003, Annika Eriksson presented the video installation Arbeitswelt: a portrait of 55 employees of the reinsurance company Swiss Re and the office architecture they worked in. Arbeitswelt was part of the multi-year program Dispositiv Workshops (2002–2004), which invited artists to collaborate with groups and institutions in Munich, and the resulting works were presented either within the Kunstverein or elsewhere.[1]

On Thursday 16 July, at 7:30 pm, Arbeitswelt will be screened at Theatiner Filmkunst, followed by a conversation between Annika Eriksson and the curator and writer Juliette Desorgues.

“Security is written with a capital S here.”
Annika Eriksson’s Video Installation Arbeitswelt (2003)

“My works are often portraits of individuals who are part of a group, in other words people in collective situations, such as various workplaces. Almost four years ago, I shot a video with employees of the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. For many of the staff, that video is still a starting point for discussions about the workplace and their relationship to, or role within, the institution/company. […]

In my project with Swiss Re, I would like to proceed in a similar way: I hope that here the project can also serve as a stimulating backdrop for discussion among the employees. I am certain that in just a few years, we will see the material collected in the project and the opinions expressed in it with different eyes.”[2]

In a 2002 interview with assistant curator Tessa Praun, Annika Eriksson describes her interest in portraying people in their work contexts. The videos Staff at Moderna Museet (2000), Staff at Malmö Konstmuseum (2001), and Staff at the 25th Bienal de São Paulo (2002) all begin with a shot of an empty room.[3] One by one, employees step in front of the camera. They introduce themselves by name and role, then find a place for themselves in the room. This creates group portraits that offer a staged view of the teams at the respective institutions. Arbeitswelt was conceived as a more extensive project that portrays individuals rather than a group. To interview the employees at Swiss Re, Annika Eriksson spent several days on site in October 2002. She asked the employees to show her their favorite spot in the building, to introduce themselves and their work, and to answer the question of what the term “security” means to them.[4]

Arbeitswelt brings together the perspectives of 55 employees working in a range of positions within the company. Cleaners, managers, and security officers give accounts about their roles as employees of the company and also about themselves, as individuals with personal views, diverse class backgrounds, and private relationships. They discuss the architecture and their work on-site in Munich, but also address how current global political events—such as the terrorist attacks in New York City on 11 September 2001 and in Bali on 12 October 2002—influence their personal sense of security.

The steel-and-glass office building designed by the architectural firm BRT (Bothe Richter Teherani Architekten) and the garden designed by landscape architect Martha Schwartz had been completed less than a year before, so the employees were being interviewed in an environment that was relatively new to them.[5] The company’s structure had also changed shortly before: in 2001, Bayerische Rück was integrated into Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance companies.[6]

In the early 2000s, employees were thus confronted with both the transition from a local to a global employer and changes to their work environment. During the interviews, many managed to hide the resulting uncertainties behind a professional smile, often speaking positively about the office architecture. “I don’t really have a favorite place in this building. It’s fascinating in general no matter where you are,”[7] says one HR manager. However, a few employees also voiced criticisms. According to one speaker, “There is nowhere to withdraw, nowhere to be yourself,” while another compares the building with the high-security wing of a prison. In an interview with the building manager, it becomes clear that the feeling of being surveilled isn’t just a result of the building’s transparent architecture but is also rooted in its technological infrastructure: “We are now looking at the building control technology. Here you see virtually all movements, all temperatures, all technical details relating to the building. You can see who enters the building, who opens or closes a window, whether or not the air condition is on. You can see a lot through this control technology. Security is written with a capital S here.”[8] In a chatty tone, another employee offers an alternative perspective on what the term “security” means to her: “Absolute security doesn’t exist. And that is our job, we work here with risk and that is what makes it so exciting to work here. Because risks are everywhere. There are always new risks, or else we’d all be unemployed. So security is not necessarily the best thing for us.”[9]

From 11 to 23 October 2003, roughly a year after filming, Arbeitswelt was shown at Kunstverein München and in a lounge of the Swiss Re office building.[10] At the Kunstverein, the work was installed in the exhibition space as a three-channel video installation shown on a continuous loop. Two projections presented the interviews, while a third displayed footage of the office building’s architecture. At the Swiss Re building, the interviews were shown on a monitor in a break room. Swiss Re did not acquire Arbeitswelt for its corporate art collection.[11]

In a review of the exhibition, art critic Frans-Josef Petersson elaborated on the social and political dimensions of Eriksson’s Arbeitswelt: “Her work derives its fascination from a kind of everyday identification. […] Simultaneously, while this everyday ‘realism’ exposes subtle, sometime nearly invisible, signs of hierarchies and power relations in a specific context, it can also be seen as an investigation of the political consequences of these relations in a larger sense.”[12] The fact that the company’s restructuring and the employees’ on-site work environment were only decided at the corporate level—by an “invisible power”[13] as Petersson calls it—is the central subtext of many interviews. Arbeitswelt is thus both a portrait of the employees and a documentation of their workplace at a historic turning point. Rather than focusing on the visible signs of a new corporate order, Eriksson observes—with characteristic wryness—the intangible ways in which this transformation influences everyday life, manifesting in language, habits, uncertainty, and the rhythms of work itself.

Text: Leona Koldehoff
Edited by: Tom Engels
Proofread by: Senta Gallant
Translation: Stanton Taylor (Good & Cheap Art Translators)

Leona Koldehoff has been working as an archivist at the Kunstverein München since 2025. If you have any questions about the archive, please feel free to email leona@kunstverein-muenchen.de.