Monthly Clean Up

The Art

1. Caspar David Friedrich at the peak of Romanticism with Abbey In An Oak Forest.

2. Joseph Beuys' strange installtion The Pack was based on a true story... that was mostly a bunch of lies.

3. This month it obviously had to be American photography, from brilliant Scott Peterman.


Blogroll Updates

Cabinet Magazine
Compressionism
ionarts
NewsGrist
Speaking of Ashes

Life on Desolation Row

One part Edward Hopper, one part Olivo Barbieri, one part The Sims - is that the equation that makes up Amy Bennett's art? I’m not sure, but it’s absolutely enthralling. It’s simply an irresistible mix of my two favourite art forms at the moment: miniature modelling and skilled oil painting.

And Galleri Magnus Karlsson is proving themselves to be the best Stockholm based gallery time and time again - promoting good art, not hyping the rock star qualities of the artists.

Mass Communication Breakdown

Jessica Kempe is – by far! – the most amusing Swedish art critic. The featured picture was made by art graduate Love Enqvist. According to her large essay in todays edition of Dagens Nyheter, Kempe actually had to go on "a complicated hunt through video art and internet pages" to understand the reference to Lord of the Rings.

I wonder where she locked herself in for the last five years…

Exercise Me!

I can’t decide if this work by Ludvig Löfgren, exhibited at the College of Arts, Crafts and Design, is brilliant or just plain lazy. Löfgren has spent a year trying to get in shape – or transforming his body, as I’m sure he would put it himself – documented the process, and labelled it as art.

American photography III

My infatuation with American photography continues, this time with Henry Wessel. Very American motifs indeed, but the really amazing part is the way he manages to freeze objects in motion, like in the featured Santa Barbara, California, 1977.

The horror! The horror!

I wonder what my boss would say if I bought a 10,5'' tall bust of Christopher Lee? Available for 80 bucks from Lambert Artworks.

Minimania

Please take some time to read this interesting essay on Eva Hesse (and more...) on John Perreault's Artopia.

Ibsen for sale

Auktionsverket is now selling this painting by Norwegian author Henrik Ibsen. Let’s just say that it’s a good thing for Ibsen that the traditional rivalry with Swedish author August Strindberg wasn’t decided by the ability to paint…

Bright Future

This year’s final exhibition from the graduation students at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm opens next week. From a first glance at the press release it looks good. Better than good, actually.

I made a larger interview with one of the graduates, Ida Selbing, on this blog some time ago, and from the looks of things it seems that more of them are worth keeping an eye out for in the time to come.

The featured picture is a photo of Charlotte Widegren's beautiful sculptur Circle of Ghosts. Her drawings aren’t half bad either. They have a certain surreal touch to them, and she seems focused on examining the border between nature and human life.

I haven’t come to understand what Niklas Karlsson is doing yet, but his constructions made from thin lines of sewing cotton look very interesting, at least judging from the photos.

Susanne Vollmers manic drawings make me think of the stuff you scribble down while talking on the phone, and I do mean that in a good way.

I’ll have to get back to you on the rest of the participants when I have actually seen the exhibition.

Going Dental

I haven't been able to blog much lately, due to a rather gruesome experience at the dentist's office. But now, I'm finally off the painkillers and soon able to think straight again. I'll be back writing about art tomorrow.

Great Blue Yonder

All blue, in this interesting exhibition I found through NewsGrist. The featured oil painting is called Jet Trail by Jennifer Brown (ironically...).

Fade To Grey

Richard G Carlsson is paints it grey. He uses simple shapes and shades of grey to create interesting optical effects. The light conditions, the colours of the walls that the paintings hand on, even the reflections of other objects in the room - all of these aspects transform the impact of his pictures.

The shapes look like constructs, or minimalist objects, but to me it seems like the artist isn’t actually all that interested in them. They look rather like representations, or surfaces for the optical effects to take place on.

Another interesting feature of Carlsson’s work are his "surveys" of his own work, in form of realistic paintings of the rooms where his other paintings are located. These are most often made in the same shades of grey as the rest of his work.

This is truly meta art if there ever was such a thing.

Canadian photography is good too...

Just wow! Edward Burtynsky claims to have a rather post modern agenda to his photography - focusing on the "transformation of nature" by human hands - but all I see is realism at it's best. He probably just needs a reminder that representation isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Suspended Animation

Shapes and colours in suspended animation. Just on the border between tension and rest, balance and movement. A new John Sundqvist exhibition opens today at Prins Eugéns Waldemarsudde.

Strange stuff

It's hardly news, but as everyone knows you find the strangest things on the internet.

This author of this site is devoted to collecting Sneeze Art. It's mostly just random graphics from obscure illustrators, but you can also find Situation Comedy by Dana Schutz here. [WARNING!: Apparantly the site is managed by someone with an actual sneeze fetisch, so you might encounter some adult material.]

For the vaguely intellectual and the slightly nerdy: get this bumper sticker from Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, USA.

Correct Answers

The correct answers to yesterdays trivia was:

1. Keanu Reeves
2. David Bowie
3. Peter Falk

More American Photography

I’m growing increasingly fond of American photography. Old and new. Scott Peterman from New York takes amazing architectural pictures, with repetitive patterns, as can be seen in the photo featured above, Ecataepec.

Trivia: Guess the artist

There's a big market for celebrity art. Most of it is mediocre at best, but it's still good fun to watch. So, here's the question: can you correctly identify the authors of the three works featured above this post?

Here are a few clues:
1. The first piece is an attempt at designing a brand. I would like to hope that it's the first, aswell as the last, attempt from this artist.
2. The second piece has a very british-bording-school-feel to it.
3. The third piece is, not surprisingly, made by a man who has left his youth behind him some years ago.

The correct answers will be coming up tomorrow, together with credits and sources.

A Swedish Walker Evans?

Sune Jonsson meets Walker Evans at Galleri 3 in Kulturhuset. A full generation later than Evans’ famous photographic journey through the American south in the 1930s, Jonsson used similar methods to describe the rural life in the north of Sweden in the 1960s and 70s. The pictures featured above are Evans to the left, Jonsson to the right.

The purpose of the exhibition is very obviously to resurrect the work of Jonsson by putting him side by side with the greatness of Evans. This is, however, not necessarily to the advantage of Jonsson. The impression of him becomes that of a disciple, not of a master in his own right.

Apart from that, the exhibition is a really good chance to see some important and beautiful photos from two of the best social realists.

My full review of the exhibition will be published in Thursdays edition of Flamman.

Confessions of a Terrible Painter

We all have a past. In the middle of the 1980s I had a short and not very successful career as a graffiti artist in Gothenburg. It ended promptly when my mother found out, due to a letter from the police. I was never formally charged, but the graffiti scene lost most of its attraction after that.

At Walls of Fame someone has collected photos of Gothenburg graffiti from about the same time as I was active. A lot of it isn’t nearly as good as I remember it, but it sure is worth looking through the archives. There’s nothing of my work on the page (and thank God for that!) but I was actually present when this piece was made by CasCade and Craz. And this one by Doe.

The graffiti scene has changed a lot since the 1980s, but lately you have been able to notice a slight revival of the old school design patterns. Once again style and technique is in. The naïvist trend of the late 1990s is not as dominant as it has been for the last decade. Personally, I think this is a good development. Graffiti is supposed to look good.

Edit: links were broken so I hosted the pictures myself instead.

Going Underground

Yesterday the town of Sundbyberg (in the Stockholm region) bought the Marabou Park with all buildings and art included for a bargain price of 30 million Swedish kronor. The new owners are planning to build a public art hall, placed underground. The opening is projected for 2007, and the first exhibition is supposed to feature renowned Austrian artist Erwin Wurm.

Badlands

This friday I'm going to the opening of the Sune Jonsson meets Walker Evans exhibition at Kulturhuset here in Stockholm. Two documentary photographers made famous through their pictures of life in rural communities. One Scandinavian and one American. Should be interesting.