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OLAFUR ELIASSON AT BRÄNDSTRÖM & STENE

The gallery Brändström & Stene have set the new record in Stockholm with their new and spacious gallery space situated in the centre of the city. Just like their previous gallery space, situated in one of Stockholm’s suburbs, young architect Eric Andersson made the designs of the space, and this time too with a slick and light result. With the new 500 m3 gallery and with a “stable” of some of Sweden’s most interesting artists, Brändström & Stene entered a different league with this space, and with just enough daredevil to be able to compete in a larger international sphere. If this wasn’t enough, the first exhibition in the new space was with the international giant Olafur Eliasson, exhibiting two large new works.

The exhibition in itself leaves however more to wish for as the “phenomenological kitsch” Eliasson is all about sometimes may strike a “one-liner” or two, but this time around his works are perhaps more suited in airport lounges than in the high art category. The simplicity in the structures where the eye might be lured is supposed to be a stroke of genius, and the theory behind it all have been described by some critics as “too advanced to even try to explain.” It may be as it wish with all this, and it doesn’t really matter since the optical villas of the sculptures/structures are truly “bling-bling” to the eye, and nothing could be more suited as the fireworks to salute the premiere of the gallery’s standoff as the new leading gallery in Stockholm.

Power Ekroth