HANNA LIDEN, photography
In Hanna Liden’s photographs, masked, hooded figures wade through swamps and ride through the woods on horseback, like counselors-in-training at some goth summer camp. But these images have a painterly aspect (rooted in the Romantic Sublime) that separates them from horror-flick clichés, and “a keen and self-ironic intelligence that underpins the creepy hocus-pocus” (in the words of Artforum critic David Rimanelli, who also sees Liden as an artist to watch). “I’m influenced by the cinema of Ingmar Bergman and Werner Herzog; also old Northern European painting like Friedrich and Munch,” says the 29-year-old Swede. Liden shows at the Lower East Side gallery Rivington Arms (her sister, Klara Liden, made her own well-received debut at Reena Spaulings Fine Art last year) and is part of a tight-knit circle of downtown artists including Dash Snow and Emily Sundblad. This April, she’ll be inaugurating Rivington Arms’ new space on the Bowery.