SURVEY OF YOUNG AND EMERGING SWEDISH ARTISTS
When trying to try to keep up with what Hans Ulrich Obrist and Laurence Bossé called the “Nordic Miracle” in the catalogue for the exhibition Nuit Blanche in 1998, referring to a boom of Nordic artists making an international career, Swedish artists have done quite well. Nevertheless it has been somewhat of a struggle for the generation just a few years younger than Henrik Håkansson, Ann Sofie Sidén or Annika von Hausswolff –just recently has there been opening up a space just big enough for them to build international careers. The artists entering the scene are still quite young, good-looking and very ambitious, a perfect formula to make it in an ever toughening art world. Perhaps the perfect example of this is of course Annika Larsson, who just this summer of 2003 had a large solo show at Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, Switzerland. It seems as if everyone wants to see and exhibit the videos of Larsson, and who can blame them? Her films are fresh and have multi faceted interpretation possibilities and triggers many thoughts that are fascinating stuff for anyone interested in Freudian or Lacanian theories. Her camera lingers on details, and is almost always about men and the interplay between men. Larsson are perhaps the largest star from the “New Kids on the Block,” but there are several artists that are closing in behind her.
In the Italian Pavilion of the Venice Biennial 2003, curated by Francesco Bonami and Daniel Birnbaum, several young Swedes were twinkling. Among them was Jonas Dahlberg, also working with video and previously shown for instance at Manifesta 2002, Frankfurt. Dahlberg has in several videos filmed inside intricate paper models representing architecture. When the videos are later projected, displacements of the scale and the reality makes your perception wonder around and your brain to work overtime. Johanna Billing’s video Project for a Revolution was also shown in the pavilion, in the café actually, perhaps just the right place for revolutions? However, the most interesting “young gun” from Sweden showing in the Italian Pavilion, originating from Uruguay, was probably Juan Pedro Fabra Guemberena. Fabra Guemberena’s approach is that of a painter no matter what expression or medium he uses as his tools, be it video, film, photography or even music. The form by which the content is conveyed is as important as the content itself in his work. Images and videos of Swedish military in the environment of the Swedish landscape was the object in Venice. The images/videos presents somewhat of a paradox, since Sweden is supposed to be “neutral,” and because of the fact that Sweden has not been involved in any wars for several hundred years. At the same time Sweden is manufacturing guns and selling them to other countries. Fabra Guemberena will be exhibiting at Statements in Basel 2004.
Cheaper rents and a larger art scene are attracting many Swedish artists to go to Berlin, and Johan Zetterquist is one of them. Zetterquist works in pretty much any kind of medium one could imagine, and his installations cover many different mediums. Lately he has shown some interesting sculptures and drawings actually made as suggestions for public art pieces as for instance the Make-Out Tower: Tower Solution For Flat Cities, 2003, an architectural model of a skyscraper, each floor accessible by car, with a parking lot on top. Katarina Löfström, also Berlin based, have earlier on, and are still, working with mainly video with abstract content, be it computer animated or abstracted images from the real world. The images are closely connected with the soundtrack of the films. Meditative or almost hallucinogenic at times, her videos and projects are very attractive, and are also exploring some boundaries of art: between art and music video; art and kitsch; and art and design.
Two artists often working together who showed in the section of IASPIS, International Studio Programme in Sweden, of Venice 2003 as well are Gunilla Klingberg & Peter Geschwind. Klingberg has for several years been working with logos and branding, and Geschwind has been working with sculptures made by different well-known packages. The large sculpture made by the plastic bags from different supermarkets shown in Venice was an ingenious mix of the two artists’ work into one.
Some interesting artists are of course still living in Stockholm and some are perhaps not yet known to a wider audience, but surely will be soon. Johan Thurfjell is preoccupied in narratives and how they are conveyed, be it in texts, manuscripts, films or images. Narratives are very important in everyone’s lives throughout history. How the narrative is being told, or retold, affect how we comprehend the message and the reality. His latest exhibition at one of the most fresh galleries in Stockholm showed a complex architectural structure/sculpture seemed to be built from a writing desk of the artist, with the title of Reach Out and Touch Faith – very poetic indeed. A different kind of poetry or narratives seems to be luring in the fragile drawings of Roger Andersson’s. Very tender water colour drawings portray beautiful landscapes, flowers and miniature people in this environment, which can have horns like the devil or be engaged in activity not generally considered ideal or exemplary. Kids inhaling glue, shooting drugs, or having sex are portrayed with tender strokes, in almost High Renaissance style.
Of course there are other names worthy of special interest, such as Tobias Bernstrup, Lars Siltberg or Jacob Dahlberg, with an increasing number of international exhibitions in the past and in the future to come. The new interest have natural connections to the effect in the export of Swedish curators to an international market, much similar to the effect Björn Borg had for Swedish tennis. After Björn Borg there was Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg and several other tennis players who made international success, and after Pontus Hultén we have Sune Nordgren, Lars Nittve, Maria Lind and Daniel Birnbaum. The work of IASPIS has also been tremendously important for the artists in Sweden, but contact and exchange in-between the scan-countries are surprisingly few. Hopefully this will change soon. In Oslo, the new large museum has a Swedish director, Sune Nordgren, previously director for Baltic Flour Mills, so inter-contacts can perhaps start to rise. The new curatorial players will probably continue to promote Swedish artists so there will hopefully be a place for all these artists, and more, in the future. The new international platforms will hopefully also allow the Swedes to continue to make impressing works with high quality. We will just have to wait and see.