Pollock's bollocks

Closed!

2006-11-13T01:58:00.000-08:00

It’s time to move on. It’s been one year since I started Pollock’s Bollocks, and I had a lot of fun with it. But lately I’ve been neglecting it for a number of reasons, and I feel that it’s better to close the blog officially than to just let it wither away. Judging from my visitor statistics a lot of people still use the archives, and I will not take the blog down, I just won’t update it anymore.

Knowing myself, I’ll probably be back, in one form or another, and I will of course post a note here if I start another blog somewhere else.

In the meantime you can always make your own Pollock paintings (link supplied by Approx).

Now, let’s all go hit the rave party!

Texans [don’t] do it better [at all]?

2006-10-30T03:39:00.000-08:00

This piece of information is hilarious… or maybe just sad. A Texas elementary school teacher has been suspended for taking the kids to an art museum, showing, among other things, this Rodin and this Jean Arp. Apparantly the parents complained about the nudity.

I’m guessing a field trip to Gothenburg is out of the question?

Small city - big shows

2006-10-30T01:44:00.000-08:00

Norrköpings konstmuseum proves that not only the big institutions can pull off great shows. This fall they present a new video installation from Katarina Löfström (yet another of those children of the 1970s that are taking over the art scene more and more these days), new works from Helen Billgren (not my favourite to be perfectly honest, but she is of course very renowned artist) and a feature show with Scandinavian female modernists from 1900-1930 that includes not only the household names, like Sigrid Hjertén and Vera Nilsson, but also less well known artists, like Maj Bring (the painting featured in this post is her painting Fasttrain South from 1923).

Stripes and dartboards

2006-10-25T06:33:00.000-07:00

Jacob Dahlgren is a genius. His latest piece - Heaven Is A Place On Earth - consists of bathroom scales and aluminium. It is currently on display in the newly opened Bonniers Konsthall.

Dahlgren's craftsmanship is so precise, yet it spans over so many media. And he isn’t afraid to use humour in his work. Here’s a series of pictures from Signes d'abstraction, a performance with 300 people dressed in striped T-shirts. This work is entitled Root Vegetable.

Much of his work circles around materials, shapes and manufactured objects – that he seems to have a rather duchampianesque relation to, but there are several deeper layers under the visible surface. But, I don’t feel like analyzing (or overanalyzing, perhaps…) today. Sometimes you just want to enjoy art. And Dahlgren’s work is perfect for that.

Raining dogs?

2006-10-20T01:29:00.000-07:00

Dagens Nyheter reports of a strange phenomenon in Linköping, Sweden. Apparantly anonymous people are placing home made sculptors of dogs in public places around town.

It all started when this sculpture by artist Stina Opitz was vandalised last spring. The head was chopped off and the artwork consequently removed. But one morning a new dog stood in the old one's place. And all around Linköping other sculptors started to appear, mainly dogs, but also other animals, like slugs, tigers and sharks.

As it turns out, a group of you artists calling themselfs Akademi Vreta Kloster, is responsible for starting up this underground art movement. Judging by the name, and their press brief, they are pushing for a rather conservative agenda "against destruction, unsocial behaviours and occurences"

However charming this might seem, I like my dogs better alive.

Writings on the wall

2006-10-19T04:04:00.000-07:00

I don't know what this site is all about (since most of it is not in English) but I suspect it's some sort of art project including mural paintings of buildings and cityscapes. A sort of "painting the city onto the city"-thing is probably going on here.

What really caught my attention, though, was this lovely little cityscape generator called simply Konstruktor. With it anyone can produce their own pictures in a wonderful Fritz Lang inspired style. It takes a while to figure out the buttons (again, no instructions in English...) but it's definatly worth it.

Revenge of the geeks

2006-10-16T06:19:00.000-07:00

Is this any good? Lia Halloran exhibits her paintings in New York right now, and since that is a little bit too far away for me to pop in on my lunch break I don’t have the advantage of seeing her work first hand.

Clearly there is something a bit odd going on here. All of Halloran’s pictures seem to deal with questions that were dominant in the art world during the 1920s and -30s. At the same time the aesthetics of her work could be taken from a flashy web design, or even a cd cover.

About a year ago I tried to analyze the current role of internet aesthetics but I seemed to have missed the most important part: how the new geek taste invades other areas of public life. Halloran’s art is by no means the first example of this, but it is a very obvious one. It’s hard to believe that this was in fact painted, and not photoshopped.

But is it any good? Well, it’s not exactly my cup of tea yet, but I’ll give it a chance to grow before I make up mind…

Don't forget...

2006-10-09T05:14:00.000-07:00

I think it’s a good habit to remind people of the things that are truely great. So, here is – once again – a link to the San Francisco based ReBar Group and their latest happening that took place last month.

And don’t forget to read Cabinet Magazine – made by pretty much the same people.

Recommended photography site

2006-10-05T06:44:00.000-07:00

The Helsinki School is the biggest thing to happen to Scandinavian Fine Art Photography since… eehhh… well, I don’t know… but it’s been a very long time since something this good and this consistent happened.

This is an excellent site for getting to know the Helsinki School. I’m personally very fond of Illka Halso and Santeri Tuori, but all of the artists are really good. Unfortunately the site doesn’t allow hot linking, but please browse around… it’ll be worth your while.

On the outskirts of Babylon

2006-10-03T04:44:00.000-07:00

Lars Vilks regularly publishes an updated list of the top 15 Swedish artists featured on Artfacts. In September a young (or "youngish", I don’t know… he is two years older than me…) artist that I really like climbed to a very nice 8th place on the list.

Make sure to check out Jonas Dahlberg’s work if you get the opportunity. He is one of the new generation of video artists, and unlike a lot of the older artists in the same genre he knows how to take advantage of the medium. My favourite is still One Way Street with an extreme feeling of detachment and isolation clinging to the viewer. But his most appreciated piece is probably Invisible Cities from 2004.

The combination of architecture and visual art is confusing and very attractive. I’m never really sure of what is on top of what. Is it about the theory of human isolation, life in the city, or is it about the buildings and streets themselves? My guess is both.

Birds and boxes

2006-10-02T04:49:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to come to terms with what Thomas Edetun is doing. He likes birds and boxes, that’s for sure… and judging from his classic technique I’m betting he likes painting in itself too. And birds. And boxes. And Dick Bengtsson perhaps? How about Corot?

And birds.

For the Gardener

2006-09-29T02:20:00.000-07:00

Need something strange to think about over the weekend? Is it possible to integrate technology and biology to the extent of actually growing a working construction without continued human interference during the process?

The answer is coming right up.

In two hundred years or so.

American Photography VI

2006-09-28T02:15:00.000-07:00

Just one more, before I move on to something else... now, this is really stepping things up a notch. William Eddleston, expecially in his later work, is amazing. The colour, the details, the composition... pretty much everything is near perfect. And he is so good at finding that little thing at the core of people, that little thing that make them what they are.

American Photography V

2006-09-26T03:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes American photography can seem to dependent on the New Deal photographers of the early 20th Century. This especially true for the modern realists, such as Chris Verene. He is, by all means, an extremely gifted photographer, but sometimes the idea of realism takes from reality itself.

Then something happens. Like here in Don Cantrell’s Big Christmas Party. I am perfectly mesmerized by this photo! The cold and windy street outside, and the warm food on the red table cloth inside the restaurant. The food is lighted and coloured in a way that reminds me of old oil painted still lifes. It’s not for eating, it’s a metaphor for consolation.

Everything is everything

2006-09-25T07:45:00.000-07:00

What is it? It is what it is. Minimalism at its most extreme is the theme for Ann Edholm and Håkan Rehnberg, currently on display at Eskilstuna konstmuseum.

But the problem with a strict minimalist agenda is that it is almost impossible for the artist to stick to. The titling of the pieces give away meaning, shapes and figures can be made out even from the most abstract forms.

The featured picture is named The Confession Hot and White, and even if the purpose of the title isn’t to render direct meaning to the picture, it certainly reminds the viewer of how, say for instance, Frank Stella, used titling to divert attention from interpretation. It becomes a comment on art history, at least.

But I don’t mind the purism as long as it looks this good.

I will survive...

2006-09-25T01:33:00.000-07:00

It seems like a long time since my last post, but now I'm back from the election campaigning. For those readers not familiar with Swedish politics: I work as a press officer for the Left Party, and the election was a disaster (well, not really, but we lost our shared governing power to the right wing coalition by a very small margin so it feels that way right now).

But, I will survive, and now I will start blogging again. First art related post coming up this afternoon. I'm aiming for daily updates on weekdays, but as the faithful reader will remember, I sometimes hard time living up to such standards.

Say goodbye, it's soon election day!

2006-08-28T03:32:00.000-07:00

I have to be realistic here... there's no time for art in my life right now. Actually there's no time for anything but work before the Swedish parliamentary elections, taking place the 17th of september. And after that I'll have to sleep for a few days.

Well, this sucks...

2006-08-15T02:13:00.000-07:00

Why, oh why, would we need a Roerich for the Bam Margera generation?

At the risk of generalizing myself silly over the lack of interesting art coming out of Denmark right now, it seems like the last decent Danish artist was Asker Jorn, and there’s been nobody and nothing since then.

You think I’m grumpy? Prove me wrong, then!

Pixel me this!

2006-08-14T02:26:00.000-07:00

Some young artists confuse me to the degree where I can’t make up my mind about how I feel about their art. This is certainly the case with Kristoffer Zetterstrand. He is one of many younger artists obsessed with digital media and computer games, but he is also obsessed with painting as a craft. In the press release published on his website an art critic describes his work: "he explores the relations between painting and the pictorial landscape made possible by new technology."

I think I have a problem with this approach, but I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is. Maybe it’s the paradox created by Zetterstrand’s refusal to use modern computer technology to print his pictures when they are rendered? He insists on painting them in oil, but by doing that he also reduces the craft of painting - aswell as the concepts of the pictures - to a technical exercise. An exercise of skill.

But, then again, how could you not like a guy that made this?

Coming up in Stockholm this fall

2006-08-11T04:45:00.000-07:00

Moderna museet has some interesting photography shows this fall, including Jens Assur in September. But I guess we are all just waiting for the big Rauschenberg exhibition in January 2007.

Nationalmuseum opens a large exhibition with Scandinavian landscape paintings in September, featuring Carl Larsson, Kröyer, Munch and my personal favourite Vilhelm Hammershöi.

Also in September is the large inauguration show for the new Bonniers konsthall, with some of best contemporary artists in Scandinavia as participants. A must see.

Galleri Magnus Karlsson shows work by iconic and ironic artist Jens Fänge in September, and the internationally renowned Lars Ahrenius in October.

Andrén-Schiptjenko’s programme is not final yet, but it looks like we’ll get a chance to see both Mari Rantanen (feauture work above this article!), and her decorative – almost schematic – art, in late September, and Annika von Hausswolff in November.

It’s probably still a few years left until sculpture makes its definitive come back, but Gallery 17’s Maud Lewenhaupt du Jeu show is just ahead of schedule. She also paints… just to be safe, I guess.

Old school Finnish constructivist Ilkka Pärni shows some really beautiful stuff at Galleri Anders Lundmark in September.

Magasin 3 has put together the first ever single artist exhibition in Scandinavia with Korean artist Kimsooja – opens in October. Also in October is the new Gunnel Wåhlstrand show.

And new work from always overexposed Ernst Billgren in September at Galleri Lars Bohman.

Last Chance To See

2006-08-10T00:24:00.000-07:00

The summer is coming to an end, and so are a lot of interesting exhibitions and shows. Just another month to see the retrospective Olle Skagerfors show at Bror Hjorts hus in Uppsala. He passed away in 1997, but his way of combining drawing and painting never goes out of style. Just look at how he uses the singel diagonal line drawn across the feautured Torso from 1983.

Also soon to close is the Peter Dahl exhibition in Tomarp, and Animal World in Borås with photos by William Wegman.

I'll be back soon with a preview of what's coming to the galleries and museums around Stockholm (and a more random selection for the rest of Scandinavia...).

Updates and stuff

2006-08-08T02:50:00.000-07:00

I have updated some stuff in the side bar:

Gustav Doré is obviously most famous for his illustrations to Dante and Milton, but I really like this realist etching of traffic congestion in London in 1872.

Erich Fischl's Bed Room Scene #7 (after the tantrum) is social claustrophobia in a nut shell (pun intended!).

She can paint. That's all I have to say abour Dana Schutz. Dammit, she can paint!

One Track Mind .5

2006-08-06T01:37:00.000-07:00

Alright, this is a bit old, but it needs to be translated from Swedish for a larger audience. It's from tjuvlyssnat.se

Rocker #1: Did you see the Angola vs Portugal game?
Rocker #2: Noo?!
Rocker #1: Dammit! It was rough!
Rocker #2: Like sick rough, or what?!
Rocker #1: Yeah... I'll fucking never colonlize an African country and then play soccer against them. It's fucking lethal!

Some artblogs about the war

2006-08-04T01:51:00.000-07:00

Jason Laning aka Art Soldier is furious about the current situation.

NewsGrist collects "excerpts and links to calls for peace".

Tyler Green at Modern Art Notes makes a post on Henry Moore and the bombing of innocents.

Southeast Asian artist R. Streitmatter-Tran at Diacritic discusses the conflict and tries to relate to it through art in a project called Surface to Air.

Even Edward Winkleman writes about Art During Wartime.

Diamonds and Dust

2006-08-02T04:04:00.000-07:00

Apparantly british überartist Damian Hirst is on his way to producing a platinum cased human skull covered in diamonds. Edna at Militant Art Bitch is not impressed at all. I kind of like the idea myself though. I don't find it any more offensive than all the other crap sold for millions and millions of dollars.

Accusations that Hirst is just ripping off other people's work has already arisen - and I can add my own conspiracy theory that the diamond skull is in fact a concept stolen from Swedish artist Dan Wolgers who exhibited several human bones rested on diamonds at an art fair in Stockholm this february - but the death-and-luxury-thingy isn't really the core of the piece, now is it? Hirst could just aswell have made a gold plated Campell's soup can, and it still wouldn't be a rip off from Warhol.

It's not "death and luxury" at all, it's just over-the-top art in every possible sense of the word. And I find nothing wrong with that.

As the lights go out

2006-08-01T01:55:00.000-07:00

Beirut based artist Mazen Kerbaj writes this post on a laptop by a candle light. He writes as fast as he can as the batteries are running out. Scattered thoughts in the night.

"what to say? i am somehow limiting myself more and more to only drawings. i am freaking out from emails to answer. and still those comments coming on the drawings. again and again. trying to tell me that the THIRTY SEVEN kids of qana were killed with their mothers by the hezbollah. again and again i have to point out that:

THIS IS BY NO MEAN A POLITICAL BLOG. can't you fucking see there is almost just fucking drawings on it?would you think of going to picasso and saying that yeah, guernica was awful, but it was because of the republicans and not franco and the nazis air force?"

Rehumanizing the resistance

2006-07-31T03:08:00.000-07:00

Words are simply inadequate at this time. They can be used to cover up even the most obvious truths. After the first days of air strikes against southern Lebanon a colonel in the Israeli air force answered the following questions from a reporter:

Q: With all these briefings, how does it happen that 400 civilians have been killed in Lebanon?
Colonel A: There are 400 fatalities
Q: You don't accept the definition that they are civilians?
Colonel A: Our soldiers who are killed in Bint Jbail are also civilians.

Since then Israel has continued to bomb civilian targets in Lebanon, launched a missile strike against a United Nations posting and killed 37 children in the bombing of Qana. The IDF maintains that "all targets are terrorist targets".

Even though the scale of the operation in Lebanon are larger than usual, this is all perfectly in line with what Israel has been doing for years in the West Bank and Gaza. The day to day oppression of the Palestinian people seldom make the headlines, but probably has more impact in the long run.

Oppression feeds resistance. There is no other way to survive - at least not if one wants to maintain the dignity needed to feel human. To pick up a rock and through it at the military vehicles patrolling your hometown is a way of rehumanizing yourself in the face of the occupation forces.

Rajie Cook is a Pennsylvania based artist made Ammo Box in 2003 as a comment on this. It’s brilliant in all its simplicity. Just a number of rocks placed in a Nato heavy ammunitions box. No need for further comments.

Nida Sinnokrot makes a similar attempt at analyzing the levels of violence in the conflict in her installation Rubber Coated Rocks. The piece was shown at the same exhibition as Ammo Box by Cook.

I don’t know why Salmia A Halaby refers to her work as "abstract" when it very obviously isn’t. Anyone looking long enough at her beautiful and decorative paintings can make out people walking through the streets of Ramallah, a map of the divided state of Palestine, a woman holding a wounded child, and so on. Because her pictures aren’t realistic in a direct sense, she forces the viewer to feel, rather than analyze. It’s very effective.

But the most intelligent comment is made by Steve Sabella. His series of photos entitled Life is Splendid was shot during the last intifada and shows Palestine children in everyday situations. In the news we only see the riots and demonstrations, or the funeral processions. Men with guns in their hands, barely grown up kids with rocks in theirs. Through Sabella’s pictures their hope and dreams - their lives - are made visible.

Interstellar Overdrive

2006-07-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

ArtNet features a fascinating article about Frank Stella and the origins of minimalism. Looking at his earlier works it becomes obvious that he is not as preoccupied with aestethics as one may think. Material and form is Stella's main obsession, as can be seen in Mary Lou Loves Frank, from 1958.

Lenin stands alone

2006-07-25T05:45:00.000-07:00

I found a great Flickr set from an abandoned Soviet mining settlement at Svalbard, in the Arctic ocean. The small town Pyramiden was once inhabited by almost 1.000 people, now there’s nobody left (but Lenin…). Considering the location the architecture seems so bizarre I don’t know what to make of it. Just have a look at the town square, or the town welcome sign.

Back to the Grind

2006-07-24T00:46:00.000-07:00

At first I found it utterly mysterious that the number of visitors to this blog had more than doubled during my abscence. After checking my sitemeter for referals it turned out that my google ranking had risen considerably for picture searches on the phrase "American Gothic". That link has been long since removed from my blog roll, but here it is again. I just love that painting, by the way.

I spent last week in a summer hot Copenhagen, where beer is cheap and everybody still thinks that all arabs are really, really scary. When the Israeli bombings of Lebanon started the daily news were filled with letters to the editor questioning what all these "so called Danish" people that had to be urgently moved out of the country was actually doing there in the first place. This continued even after a Danish refugee convoy was shot at by Israeli forces.

I didn't really have time for a proper gallery tour, but I did see the wonderful Cardiff and Miller exhibition at Louisiana. They also displayed one of Gerhard Richter's rare minimalist artworks that I found prefectly fascinating. All good stuff, but they really need to clean the place better. I actually saw a Giaccometti sculpture with spider web on it.

Not dead

2006-07-05T06:26:00.000-07:00

This blog is not dead, I'm just taking it easy through the summer holidays. I'll be posting on a regular basis when I get back to work in a few weeks, and from time to time untill then.

Flamman is running another series of my Picture this articles right now, this time feauturing more contemporary artist. Last week it was about Edward Burtynsky's Shipbreaking, and tomorrows edition features Nicole Eisenmann's Alice in Wonderland.

Happy Midsummer!

2006-06-22T03:52:00.000-07:00

I wish you all a happy midsummer holiday this weekend, with this classic Carl Larsson painting.

One Track Mind .4

2006-06-18T02:57:00.000-07:00

Alan Potter made this study of football supporters before and after games in a Boteroesque style.

Art News Roundup

2006-06-18T02:49:00.000-07:00

Eskilstuna konstmuseum reopened this month and seem to be right on target with the new setup. In today’s edition of Svenska Dagbladet they got a four page feature article about their efforts. Some of the new stuff looks pretty interesting at first glance, but - in my opinion – something like Bo Melin’s pictures of 28 Eskilstuna women found on the internet would have been so much more efficient without the regional connection to the exhibition.

The Paul McCarthy exhibition at Moderna is the talk of the town. But somehow the expected public outcry against sex and violence has failed to gain momentum. It’s as if his art no longer breaks the rules to the extent it used to. McCarthy always used to say "My art isn’t disgusting. Reality is disgusting.", and finally the audience seem to agree with him.

In a bizarre event, artist Robert Jäppinen died from a heart attack during an interview by talk show hosts Filip & Fredrik, making him for famous than he ever was alive.

And brilliant illustrator/artist Jan Stenmark is obviously back in his old shape, after straying off into the land of confusion for a few years. The caption reads "For a long time I thought that the English word for cunt was broom".

One Track Mind .3

2006-06-13T01:25:00.000-07:00

The smile of Zlatan imortalized in tiles on the wall of an underpass in Rosengård, Malmö, by artist Björn Carnemalm.

One Track Mind .2

2006-06-12T01:33:00.000-07:00

Douglas Gordon and Phillipe Parreno show their Zidane film at the Art Basel show, June 14th-18th.

One Track Mind

2006-06-11T04:05:00.000-07:00

It's the World Cup, so don't expect any consistency from my posts. If you feel like some quality soccer art, please visit Gavin Penn and have a look at wonderfully realistic supporter portraits.

If you don't enjoy soccer you could always kill some time with this strangly addictive Java application.

Or do as I do: turn on the telly, get some beer and chips and watch Sweden getting our butts kicked by Trinidad and Tobago...

It's art if we say it's art

2006-06-07T02:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you stumble upon things that makes you wonder what the heck is wrong with some people. Here is a site with "chamberelectronica concertante" performed by Skoda trolly buses.

Don't forget to mention the war

2006-06-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

The growing disent with the US war on the world is spawning interesting opposition against the Bush administration within the American art community. Harrel Fletcher’s show The American War features documentation on what westerners commonly refer to as The Vietnam War. Din Q Lee uses a less direct approach with his Father and Son, with shots of Martin and Charlie Sheen interwoven with Vietnam villagers.

But the angriest American artist of them all is probably Clinton Fein who seems to be his own anarchist crusade against everyone who ever voted Republican. Though it’s easy to sympatize with his rage against the state of the world, it soon becomes rather tiresome. That being said I still think that Like Apple Fucking Pie is brilliant.

Searching the web for war related American exhibition it strikes me how deep the national trauma of The Vietnam War is for that country. Even though there is another war going on right now, very real for millions of people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and soon to be also in Iran, most American artists seem preoccupied with a war that ended 30 years ago.

Google Art at it's best

2006-06-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

Poetry From Above is a wonderful site I just discovered through Esbatis kommentarer. The texts are in Swedish but it’s not necessary to understand them to get the point.

American Photography IV

2006-06-01T01:18:00.000-07:00

I found this wonderful collection of Scott Mutter photo montages at The American Museum of Photography. Looking through them I just realized where digital artist Illka Halso got his inspiration from.

Deconstructing Charlie Finch

2006-06-01T00:58:00.000-07:00

Who said post structuralist reading had to be boring?

Monthly Clean Up

2006-05-30T15:16:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-29T14:36:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-05-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-23T02:27:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-05-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-22T06:19:00.000-07:00

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

Ibsen for sale

2006-05-21T06:08:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-19T06:29:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-18T05:37:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-15T06:12:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-14T04:47:00.000-07:00

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...

2006-05-13T01:28:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-13T01:14:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-11T01:16:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-10T03:14:00.000-07:00

The correct answers to yesterdays trivia was:

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

More American Photography

2006-05-09T10:06:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-09T01:17:00.000-07:00

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?

2006-05-08T01:24:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-04T01:31:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-04T00:56:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-03T00:14:00.000-07:00

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.

Noted at Bukowski's

2006-04-27T15:02:00.000-07:00

A few things worth noting about the results of Bukowski’s Modern Art Auction:

* Lena Cronqvist’s painting The Engagement from 1975 went through the roof, and was sold at more than half a million dollars, almost four times the calling price.

* Ola Billgren’s amazing Sevilla Morning from 1989 sold for double the calling price. Well deserved, in my opinion.

* This painting by Lucio Fontana was expected to break the record for highest selling price for a modern painting in Sweden, but apparently no one would cough up the one million dollars required to buy it.

Almost not words

2006-04-26T01:57:00.000-07:00

If you are not already reading Art Fag City on a daily basis you are missing out on the best available information about the Chelsea gallery hot spots in New York. Today it inlcludes an interesting comment on fascinating artist and conceptualist Ed Ruscha. The artist himself explains his work: "They are almost not words, they are objects that become words."

Theory as Art

2006-04-25T06:49:00.000-07:00

Antoher one of those hard-to-avoid Scandinavian artists is Lars Vilks. Though his level of international success has been no better than moderate, he remains an important figure, primarily on the Swedish art scene.

Vilks is unfortunately rather inaccessible unless you read Swedish, since a lot of his impact – not to say most of his impact – has been as a critic and a theorist. His essays and texts, published in abundance on vilks.net, are very much art in their own right – theory as art, so to speak. As a theorist he has one of the sharpest minds and wittiest pens. His How To Become A Contemporary Artist In Three Days is already a classic.

His most important work of art with a physical manifestation is Nimis, a collection of driftwood made into a strange construction with a hammer and nails. Vilks started building Nimis in 1980 and it continues to develop with each year.

Dan Flavin rocks!

2006-04-24T00:39:00.000-07:00

Buy yourself this stunning work of art from the brilliant minimalist Dan Flavin. That is if you can cough up the expected 150.000-200.000 dollars, of course...

Please note that the piece was previously owned by Donald Judd, which makes it super-extra-cool. I just wish I was a millionaire.

The Magician

2006-04-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

I mostly try to avoid writing about the real big shot artists on this blog, mainly because I rarely have anything to add to all that has already been said about them, but there is simply no way to write about contemporary Scandinavian art and avoid the magician of light, mist and colour, also known as Olafur Eliasson.

At Artfacts he is ranked among the top 50 artists of the world, above even Richard Serra and Cézanne. As a comparison, the highest ranking Swedish artist, Ann-Sofie Sidén, only reaches place no 458 on the same chart.

His art has grown increasingly monumental in recent years, with the Weather Project at Tate Modern in 2004 as a sort of end to all installations statement. The huge sun floating in mid air in the gigantic turbine hall was very literarily created with smoke and mirrors, and the mist in the hall even formed into cloud like shapes from the temperature changes.

But what really sets him apart from other artists making light installations is the way he incorporates the audience in his work. One commentator noted that people visiting the Weather Project often lied down on the floor, gazing up at themselves in the mirrors in the ceiling. Sometimes they banded together in small groups, forming signs and words (often naughty words, mind you…).

This is true for other works too. While visiting his exhibition in Århus this commentator found himself walking back and forth trough his Yellow Corridor just to look at how beautiful the other visitors became in the manipulated light.

Falling Down

2006-04-21T14:27:00.000-07:00

Carl Hammoud has an almost manic obsession with details. His paintings sometimes remind me of the surrealists of the 1920s, but also of the American sentimentalists like Edward Hopper. The pictures are somehow busy and quiet at the same time.

And the colours… what can be said about those colours? On commentator suggested that they are "Disney-like", but to me they look like realism with a twist. Like if they were painted by Peter Tillberg with coloured shades on him. Whatever you say about the colours in Hammoud’s paintings, subtle they are not. They are as important to the visual expression of his work as ever the actual content.

Born in 1976 he is still a very young artist. That being said some of the most interesting questions are raised by the way his art has developed over the last few years. From the clear cold light and almost neon colours of, for example, his painting b (by the) from 2003, to a much darker world falling apart at the seems in The Spirit of Enterprise from 2005, leaving only ruins left in the recently produced Epilouge.

What is happening here? Is the artist falling apart, or is he saying that the world is falling apart. Is art falling apart? If so, what is next?

Sorry about the dog stuff!

2006-04-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

I have to appologize to any feed readers for a few strange posts in the last few weeks. Either you think I'm crazy because you read Swedish, or you just scratched your head... I'll try to remember what login I'm on before posting extra cute puppy stories in Swedish on this blog again.

Getting Better All The Time

2006-04-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

Street art is moving up a notch with each passing month right now. A few brilliant additions are Banksy and a Pick Axe from London, Plant More Native from New Zealand and Jesus Christ Superstars from Sweden.

All links are courtesy of the Wooster Collective.

Knitted Intestines

2006-04-19T14:59:00.000-07:00

Perhaps this is more handicraft than art, but it's still one of the strangest things produced by human hands.

More money for Moderna?

2006-04-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

The director of Moderna, Lars Nittve, is now asking for 50 million Swedish kronors (about 7-8 million dollars) in extra funding from the government. The money is to be used to buy art made by modern female artists, like Frida Kahlo, Joan Mitchell and Eva Hesse (here’s the entire wish list).

The initial response from the Ministry of Culture and Education has been vaguely positive to the effort from the museum to make a more complete collection, though carefully avoiding to promise any money.

Some criticism has come from a feminist direction about the fact that Moderna’s collections in their entirety is worth nearly one billion kronors and that it would be more proper to "sell off some surplus male art" and make use of that money instead of asking for more funds. The wittiest of the daily news culture commentators, at Aftonbladet, claims to be "…fine with that. Just don’t sell the goat." – referring to Rauschenberg’s Monogram.

Art news roundup

2006-04-18T13:26:00.000-07:00

Last week was lazy for me, but apparantly pretty busy for the Scandinavian art scene.

Two of the big auction houses opened their modern art exhibitions. At Stockholms Auktionsverk the list of art perfectly in line with the current preferences of good taste is so long it makes me sick. Don’t get me wrong! There is an abundance of great Scandinavian art here, but when you put it all together like this and put it up for sale it looks an awful lot like a luxury yacht fair. Bukowski’s auction is even worse. - Look mommy, another Carl Kylberg going for $100.000!

And in other news Maria Lind once again fails to identify the root of the "crisis of Swedish art". As usual she isn’t actually wrong about anything specific, it’s just so cliché that it’s hard to identify what is actually being said here. I’ll try to get back to this issue promptly, since the questions raised in the article opens for some important discussions.

Oh... and I happened to find the only predominantly positive review of Louisiana’s big Baseltiz exhibition on omkonst.com. Well, it isn’t really that positive, but at least it states that even though there’s nothing radical about his art Baselitz "is still a damn good painter". And that’s the nicest thing I’ve heard anyone say about him since the exhibition opened.

The Easter Bunny says: Buh bye!

2006-04-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

I'm taking some time off now. I'll be back after the Easter holiday.

Mind Over Body

2006-04-10T15:04:00.000-07:00

I have a hard time with video installations. They are often badly manufactured and stereotypical. This is defiantly not the case with Lars Siltberg’s art. I do feel that his videos are sometimes a bit shallow in their concepts, but the brilliant finish more than well makes up for that.

The picture featured in this post is a still from his Single Head. Through very believable special effects the artist has created the illusion of a detached head trying to move across the grovel using only it’s mouth. Even more gruesome is the Alien like effects of Bowel Fountain.

At times Siltberg gets lost in the virtuosity of his own craftsmanship, and the train of thought gets lost in the process, but it looks so damn cool that I’m willing to forgive him almost anything.

Truthspeaker

2006-04-10T14:56:00.000-07:00

Tyler Green explains why chosing Felix Gonzales Torrez to represent the US at the Venice Biennale is an important statement. A society that can't handle dissent is a society gone bad.

Life is a Roller Coaster

2006-04-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

Very post modern. Very pretty. Illka Halso works with digitally manipulated photos depicting possible - though not always plausible - constructions situated in almost archetypical nature environments.

At first glance the questions concerning the nature of human civilization are the most obvious. Is society going down a path leading to environmental destruction to the degree of making museums of the last remaining forests, lakes and grasslands? At a deeper level Halso also seems to examine the foundations of what we consider to be "natural" and what kind of impact the human experience has to that concept. There is also a metadiscussion about photography and realism taking place.

Instead of an analysis of Realism

2006-04-06T15:07:00.000-07:00

I sometimes envy the more professional art bloggers for the time and dedication they put into their blogs. I’m currently working more than full time as a Web Editor, and on top of that I do some free lance writing and I’m sitting on a couple of boards. I simply lack the time I would need to do the interviews I’d like to publish here, and the in depth analysis becomes short sarcastic comments instead.

I would really like to gather my thoughts on realism in art, for example. I know that I have an unhealthy obsession with beauty, but I do feel the need for art to examine reality by seeing and interpreting. But what is realism, as opposed to for example a conceptual examination of perception? And what makes it tick?

Is representation at the core a morality in itself, as can be seen in the art of Lucian Freud or Leonard McComb – the later of the two phrased it "In art it is easy to be personal; the real problem is to speak to strangers." - or is it an interactive examination where the artist try to figure out cause and effect? Is it a selective process, or - as the American photorealists would insist - purely mechanical?

And then there is the whole issue of beauty and dreams, and that of political vision. In January I made this post about up and coming painter Kris Knight. Since then I’ve learned a little more about him and come to realize that he might not be as much of a realist as my first impression made me think. But the featured painting still represents a branch of realism that is interested not only in what can be seen, but also what can be felt, asked and known about the subject. Perhaps even what can be done.

To further complicate the issue we have the problem of realist aesthetics. There are obviously trends dictating how a realist painting “should look”. But what happens if it looks right, but isn’t at all representative, as I believe is the case with the Swedish young painter Anna Finney’s art?

Some time I’ll really try to get to the bottom of at least one or two of these issues, but until then you will have to come up with your own answers.

You have to read this!

2006-04-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

After reading this brilliant article about moronic all female art shows, over at Militant Art Bitch I almost feel like never reading any other art blog again. There's simply nothing to add to something like this:

I'm sorry if you and/or your friends are in any of these shows, but have some fucking integrity already. I don't care how much exposure you might need. Do not agree to be in a show called Little Women. Ever. Even if you live to be 95 and you never get a goddamn show.

One more time: you have to read this!

Nice Public Art

2006-04-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

The Public Chair project is a nice piece of public art from Mathias Ries in New York. It's almost a year old, but hasn't stirred much attention, so I don't feel that stupid for not noticing before.

Also, the masters of public art, Rebar, recently announced their latest project Encanment. Starting May 19th they will begin canning parts of the Southern Exposure gallery in San Francisco. They will harvest parts of the wall, put it in metal cans, and sell them.

I Have My Poetry to Protect Me

2006-04-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

This article about young artist Alex McQuilkin goes to show at least two things: 1. Just because it’s made by a woman - and just because it deals with sexuality and identity - it isn’t necessarily feminist art. 2. Just because the pictorial language is overwhelming to the viewer, it doesn’t mean that there is something important at stake.

From what I’ve seen I find McQuilkin’s art to be stereotypical, narcissistic and rather manipulative - the two later qualities enhancing the first, making it meta stereotypical, if there’s even such a concept?

Even more disturbing than the art is Ana Finel Honigan’s patronizing questions. It’s as if she hasn’t even bothered to grant McQuilkin the respect of a critical review:

AFH: What do you miss most about adolescence?
AM: I miss believing in things. I don’t miss the intensity; I miss really having faith in something. I miss believing something like rock stars will make things happen. I miss the inexplicable, naïve belief that. . .
AFH: Kurt Cobain will change everything?
AM: Exactly.

Exactly.

----------------

Edit: I think I have to balance this post a little. McQuilkin certainly knows what she's doing, and does it fairly will in some pieces. I just don't like the approach. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's all crap.

Monthly Clean Up

2006-04-02T14:08:00.000-07:00

It's that time of the month again. The Art, in the left column, has been replace with the following:

Since there's been a Michelangelo craze going around the web following the big British exhibition I had to add something by him - The Separation of Light from Darkness.

I've always been a great fan of American Gothic, by Grant Wood. It has a certain ghostliness to it, despite the realist approach to painting.

Ronald Moran is everyone's darling since his appearance at Pulse. And I have to agree. It's smart, it looks good, and it's a new twist to the old wrap-things-up-in-strange-materials-thing. Approach is perhaps not his best piece, but I had a hard time finding decent pictures on the web for this one.

The Music is also new this month. I really recommend listening to the first song by Jeffrey Foucault. It's not just a short sample, but the full song, which I hope he will forgive me for hotlinking from his web site.

Update on copyright law suit

2006-03-31T13:20:00.000-08:00

The public prosecutor has decided to drop the charges against Markus Andersson. I wrote about this story in another post two weeks ago.

However, the suspicions of copyright infringement still stand. The complaining part, photographer Jonas Lemberg, says that he is of the opinion that the prosecutor has misinterpreted the intentions of the law. The Photography Union has filed an appeal, and if that fails, they are planning a civil law suite against Andersson.

Under construction

2006-03-30T05:26:00.000-08:00

Bonniers Konsthall opens in September, but some interesting events will take place outside the building before that. Gabriel Lester’s large video installation Seen, that will be projected onto the wall of the new building, takes off on the 5th of April, and will be followed later in the spring by works from Daria Martin and Annika Ström.

It’s much to early to predict what will become of Bonniers, but the approach – with focus on new contemporary artists - looks promising, and the architecture of the building itself is simply amazing!

Art for kids

2006-03-29T05:55:00.000-08:00

Apparently Moderna Muséet in Stockholm has guided tours of the exhibitions for babies aged 0-15 months. Yes, their parents can come too! I really fail to see the point of this. Isn’t it easier just to take the kids to the local supermarket or something? Unless you believe art to possess some strange mystical qualities that speak directly to the human soul… what’s the difference?

I also found an interesting perspective on art for substantially older kids in this post on ionarts. It’s a bit old, and the fresh link was contained in this article with a hilarious picture of the author, Charles T Downey, glancing at Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde, to the right of the text. I’m sure he is a good guy, and I feel rather bad about making fun of him but when I writes "Because the students in this class are 10th graders, I obviously could not teach this much more daring Courbet painting, L'Origine du Monde (1866), which is not for the faint of heart..." it makes me wonder if he has actually met a 10th grader? Or heard of the internet?

Bored with good looking art?

2006-03-28T11:49:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, when I've already had my fix of overworked minimalism and aesthetically correct art, I go to Svensk Konst and press random links to works by artists I know nothing about.

It's very far from the best of what Scandinavian art has to offer. In fact, it's quite the opposite. But it probably gives a more representative picture of what most artists are actually doing in their studios these days.

And every once in a while you stumble on something you really like.

Deconstruction by Light

2006-03-27T11:30:00.000-08:00

If there is such a thing as subjective minimalism, Torbjörn Johansson defines it perfectly. But the term sound like an oxymoron to me, and if you go to far from the common interpretation of something you end up playing with words. But since Johansson’s aesthetics is so very similar to minimalism there is a need to say that it’s not. A critic at the site omkonst.com writes that "his intentions seem more like those of the painter, than those of the colour analyst."

Torbjörn Johansson works in many media, but is perhaps at his best when working with light. His latest installation Colores Apparantes uses light to deconstruct the dimensions of the room. It’s confusing, and beautiful.

I like a lot of his earlier stuff too. For example The Worlds Most Boring Man, and The Stair.

Concretism is the new pink

2006-03-27T00:53:00.000-08:00

If you want that arty Nordic Design feeling in your home, get something concrete! It's not very avantegarde anymore, but if you want something to show your good taste a fabric from Olle Bonniér should do the trick.

Sarcasms aside, it does look pretty good, doesn't it?

Crate Art

2006-03-26T11:50:00.000-08:00

The best resource for information on street art - Wooster Collective - supplied this adorable piece of "crate art" from Melbourne, Australia.

Going Oldschool

2006-03-23T13:11:00.000-08:00

Old school Scandinavian landscape paintings by Bertil Almlöf are currently on exhibit at Konstakademien in Stockholm. A few readers have commented on me being overly interested in the conceptual aspects of everything I review, but I'm trying to better myself here, folks. Just look at the beautiful lighting and composition of these paintings. And enjoy.

Two artist blogs worth while

2006-03-22T12:16:00.000-08:00

I actually don’t know very much about these guys, but I really recommend a visit to Semiophile and Studio of Ashes. The first blog belongs to an Austrialian painter named Ian Gutierrez Romero who is getting better for every time I go there to check. The second belongs to an artist who I think is Mexican, or at least Mexico based.

High Valley Blues

2006-03-21T14:52:00.000-08:00

In Sweden he has been called Mr Art. His name is Jockum Nordström and last year he was named artist of the year at the prestigious Armory Show in New York.

His work consists of drawings and collages made with great attention to detail. He is a storyteller, but the stories are both open ended and closed at the same time. Half frozen in time, half in motion, though the direction isn’t always forward.

Nordström started his career as an illustrator, and continues to work both fields. But after his massive breakthrough on the international art scene he is hardly driven by the need for cash. In fact, he explained in a recent interview that he often makes illustrations for free or very cheap, and makes his money on the art.

And, he lives just a few blocks from me, in the suburb of Högdalen just outside of Stockholm.

Sorry about that last remark, but sometimes we all have to show off a little, don’t we?

Trading cards for very strange kids

2006-03-20T05:14:00.000-08:00

From the same source as the Lego Giddens set I mentioned in an earlier post, I found these Theory Trading Cards. I’ll start off with a Marx, raise you a de Beauvoir, and top off with a Foucault.

See if you can beat that combo!

Memory in The Making

2006-03-19T06:58:00.000-08:00

Mikael Lundberg’s art is found on the border between art, technology and science. In his Traces of an Ongoing Memory installation from 2004 he let salt crystallize from water in an open tank. The result was both visually astonishing and conceptually interesting.

I am very fond of this kind of low key conceptual art. The questions under examination might not be the biggest issues, or the boldest statements, but they are carefully and thoroughly examined – often in a very time consuming way.

This beautiful picture is from Lundberg’s Mirage series. These kinds of phenomena are actually very rare in the cold Scandinavian climate. To catch them on camera in this way, the artist must surely have spent unbelievable amounts of time waiting for the right conditions to occur.

What's wrong with the market for Russian art?

2006-03-19T06:18:00.000-08:00

Russian 19th century paintings are selling at ridiculously high prices around the globe. Uppsala Auktionskammare recently announced that this Aivazovsky is expected to bring in almost half a million dollars.

Though some of the Russian painters from this time period are really good – most notably the groundbreaking Ilya Repin – Aivazovsky isn’t one of them. I won’t claim myself to any sort of expert on 19th century art, but even I can tell that he has an obvious lack of any real craftsmanship, that his paintings are often badly composed and that his works are poorly finished.

Interestingly enough one of his most interesting pieces, Pushkin’s Farwell to the Sea, is a cooperation with the mentioned Repin. Despite the fact that Aivazovsky was established and actually became rather wealthy during his own lifetime, he could not make a decent portrait and often failed to do landscapes. He produced over 6.000 paintings, among which there are certainly some highlights, but most of them are mediocre at best.

Copy Plus Goat

2006-03-16T12:59:00.000-08:00

Photographer Jonas Lemberg – author of this photo – is now filing charges against Markus Andersson – author of this painting – for copyright infringement.

Jeff Koons was once involved in a similar law suit some twenty years ago, and was then found guilty, but I somehow doubt that Andersson will suffer the same verdict. There is, for instance, no goat in the background of Lemberg’s photo. And I can’t for the life of me believe that any court would effectively outlaw painting after photographic images. What would happen to the works of Gerhard Richter, Charles Bell… or even Warhol, then?

Rooseum selling modernist collection

2006-03-15T12:06:00.000-08:00

According to an article in todays edition of Dagens Nyheter, the Rooseum in Malmö is planning to sell large part of it’s collection of Scandinavian modernists. Among the items for sale are works by Dick Bengtsson, Cecilia Edefalk, and Ola Billgren (in my opinion the best Scandinavian modernist painter of them all!).

The reason for selling the collection is, according to the museum management, that most of it hasn’t been shown to the public in over a decade. I don’t know which is the most upsetting: that they’re leaving loads of great art in the basement for all that time, or that they want to get rid of it?

The collection is worth 10-15 million Swedish kronors (app. $2.000.000), and even though other art museums are supposed to bid in the auction, most of the art is expected to end up in the hands of private collectors. Taking into consideration that it contains approximately 300 works – some of which represents one of the most interesting periods in Scandinavian art history – the projected price is a bargain.

Hard work in a digital world

2006-03-14T07:23:00.000-08:00

There's something manrayish over Ewa Stackelberg's exhibition at Fotografins Hus. As with Man Ray the process in the dark room is equally important as the actual photography. The result is beautiful, but it raises questions about the method. Why would anyone want to go through many hours of this kind of labour only to end up with something that is perfectly possible to recreate faster and more accurate with a digital picture in Photoshop?

Perhaps Stackelberg feels that the process in itself is an important aspect of her work, but in my opinion, modern photography has to be analyzed in a social and cultural context. And that context is largly defined by the available technical solutions.

I'm also hesitant towards the actual content of her pictures. Despite all the technical brilliance it seems to traditional for my taste.