Deep into Sweden
Novosibirsk april 2012
Participating artists: Lena Bergendahl, Nadine Byrne, Klas Eriksson, Bo Christian Larsson & Danilo Stankovic
Curator: Martin Schibli, Director of Exhibitions, Kalmar konstmuseum.
One can, within the international contemporary artworld, discern two threads that are evolving in different directions. One thread is represented by artists who work with direct political actions. This thread has evolved to be a more radical take on the social criticism that started around 1993 and was the main thread within the international contemporary artworld until 2005. The social criticism is generally about the premise that the value of art exists within the possibilities to ask questions in relation to the social (for example questions about identity, globalization, migration, media critique etc). The lack of clear social and political changes due to art within the social criticism thread during the 1990's and 2000's, in combination with the global challenges, has made many young artists adopt a more realist political direct activism instead of just asking questions on how things function and are ordered. In Russia this thread is represented by artist and artist groups such as Voina, Pussy Riot, Kiss my Bah and many more. One could also exemplify this thread with the ongoing 7th Berlin biennale - Forget Fear - which is curated by Artur ?mijewski, Joanna Warsza and the Russian activist group Voina.
The interest for shamanism and similar points of departure is another thread that has been with us since the 1960's, not least through performance art (with examples such as Joseph Beuys) and land art (with examples such as Ana Mendieta). In Russia the artist and filmmaker Evgeny Yufit have worked with the relation between the human and metaphysical issues. Today, many young artists has started to show interest for these kinds of attitudes. In the exhibition Deep into Sweden – the title of which alludes to an art piece by Oleg Kulik – emanates from artists for whom recent political questions do not constitute the basis for their artwork. Instead their perspective and interest is to find alternative worlds and ways of thinking. They use and search for pagan traditions, old ways of believing, myths and rituals. Rather often with affinity to old Norse mythology and times that stretches back to before Sweden became a Christian nation. When generalizing one could say that Christianity brought with it the idea of the "western thinking" with conceptions on what is rational and logical, which later came to lead to the modernity. Over all these ideas made the old ways of thinking, when it comes to nature, disappear. Many artists try to find a constant and something more basic in the relation between the humans and the nature. This seems to become especially important to restore when faith is gone and the individual's place in a global world feels more and more insecure.
Deep into Sweden presents five young Swedish artists that, through their art, show interest for rituals and paganism but also for finding traces of old collectivist constructions of identities through actions in new rituals. Maybe the way that the secularization process and the globalization challenges the collective and the individual identity makes many search for alternatives and a fundamental set of values.
The artists in the exhibition are all part of the next generation of upcoming artists. Lena Bergendahl studies alternative approaches in Africa while Nadine Byrne, through her work, threads back to Swedish rituals and their meaning in for example her use of witches (a dark time in the Swedish history where many women were accused of being witches and were burned at the stake, which was really about who had the power to formulate knowledge). Klas Eriksson cultivates and develops the art of performances to collective performances. These bring up basic collective actions that create kinship and identity within a group and show how individuals easily can collaborate towards a larger goal. There is, in Eriksson's performances, a relationship with the Collective Actions by the Moscow Conceptualists. Bo Christian Larsson's artistry is full of symbols and creations of myths that he freely plays with. Elements of nature, like water and fire. The forest and wood has an important role as well as the animals in the forest. Tools like knives and axes that are used to cultivate the forest and objects such as boats that are made of wood. He is also interested in making performances in a collective way. Danilo Stankovic is also going deep into the Swedish Mythology.
The prospect is that the exhibition will present an alternative view of Sweden, that not only corresponds to rationality and logic but that there are notions and ideas that connect with early history. In this way a Russian audience may be able to find a relation with a former Swedish culture that is still present beneath the surface.
Martin Schibli
Director of Exhibitions, Kalmar konstmuseum and curator for the exhibition Deep into Sweden.
www.lenabergendahl.com
www.klaseriksson.com
www.nadinebyrne.com
www.bochristianlarsson.com
http://danilo-stankovic.blogspot.se/