A Quiet Spring Wanders Through the Apartment

Born 1895, in Östersund, Sweden. Lived and worked on Frösön, Sweden, until his death in 1975.

Primus Mortimer Pettersson’s body of work includes painting, sculpture and tapestry. As a teenager he went to work as a sailor in order to avoid military service in Sweden which took him across the seas to countless places around the world. After many years at sea, Primus Mortimer Petterson developed mental health problems which came to affect the rest of his life. He returned to Sweden and was admitted to what at that time was the Frösö mental institution in Östersund. He spent most of the remaining 45 years of his life at the hospital. That was where his intensive art production began. He carved and painted sculptures and created paintings, primarily aquarelles and oils, in clear, brilliant colors. If his existence at Frösön was hemmed in and limited, his motifs reached far away, out into the world and into his past, memories and fantasies. Among the subjects in Pettersson’s vast production are trees, landscapes, buildings, ships, cities, and occasionally people.

The three sculptures in the exhibition are likely from the 1950s and consist of depictions of a church structure and a house, as well as an abstract composition. The sculptures are painted in pastel colors and muted shades with just a few details. The sturdy, unpolished pieces of wood and softboard have been joined in structures that are at times crude, at times delicate and small. They might be based on actual memories, or created to gain control over a restless interiority and split identity.

Born 1958, in Baarn, Netherlands. Lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Peter Schuyff is best known as a painter, but he also works with carved sculptures and is a professional musician. In the 1980s, Schuyff established himself on the art scene in New York primarily through his painting. During a difficult period in his life he traveled to New Guinea and set out hiking with only one change of clothes and a pocket knife. In the evenings he occupied himself with carving. Nearly asleep he would hold his pocketknife still and rotate a stick around into different angles. In this way patterns were created, which he came to see as algorithms or formulas. Back in New York, Schuyff moved out of the Chelsea Hotel where he had lived for 16 years and got rid of most of his belongings. Without any plan for the future he began to carve pens, in the same manner as during his journeys. The carving became a sort of temporary task in life, a meditation that he still practices today when he needs to take a break from painting. Through carving he has found a mode of creating that is free from expectations—both his own and those of the outside world.

The eight sculptures in the work Eight small totems (2006) were created out of logs that the artist found outside Vancouver. When Schuyff moved there in 2003 he began to work with logs instead of sticks or pens. No longer in darkness, but in the same meditative state and with similar techniques, they take shape like totem poles. The sculptures are formed based on being strongly anchored in the present, while also being disconnected from the distractions of the outside world.

Born 1962, in Grabs, Switzerland. Lives and works in Zurich and the Swiss Alps.

In her colorful visual language, Pipilotti Rist examines physical as well as mental spaces. She works mainly with moving images and dreamlike installations. The body, our senses, rituals and taboos are explored in ways that are just as playfully entertaining as they are poetic and intimate. Rist aims to include us in a specific environment and to place us “in the film” with the desire that we open our minds to complex themes.

To experience Deine Raumkapsel (Your Space Capsule) the viewer must come close and lean over the seemingly humble transportation crate to discover a miniature bedroom. Every carefully staged detail contributes to bringing the room to life. The unmade bed, the open pizza box, and the lit lamp give the impression that the person who lives there has just left the room temporarily.

Rist’s miniature bedroom contains innumerable personal references to her work as well as to her private life. Slow-motion video sequences slide across the walls, guide the gaze and dial down the pace. The sparse use of music and the faint sound of galactic winds convey a sense of being adrift—floating in time and space. The room has collided with a moon that has torn up the floor and is now exposing a surrounding universe in which rest and sleep, but also insomnia, dreams and intimacy can take place. A space for privacy, introspection and the subconscious.

Born 1963, in Stockholm, Sweden. Lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.

Jockum Nordström has worked interdisciplinary with art, books and music since the late 1980s. He has been drawing since he was a child, and naivist expression remains in his practice as an adult. He works with techniques such as drawing, painting and collage. Relationships and sexuality, as well as the exploration of memories and the subconscious are recurring themes throughout his practice. In order to depict that which he can’t reach or grasp on a flat surface, Nordstöm also works with paper and cardboard sculpture. He describes the restrictions that the medium places on scale, along with the fragility of the material, as an important aspect of his work with architectural objects.

The exhibition borrows its title from Nordström’s sculpture, En tyst vår vandrar genom lägenheten (2015), which is presented alongside eleven additional objects by the artist, created during the same period. Nordström’s naivist constructions can be described as architectural puzzles for our inner and personal experiences. The fragile sculptures unite components into new arrangements. The objects bring to mind children’s drawings as well as modernist architecture, and the socialized Swedish housing projects of the 1960s and ’70s. They depict physical spaces, established for continued exploration of emotions, relationships and memories.

Born 1924, in Uppsala, Sweden. Active in Härnösand, Sweden until his death in 2015.

In Rune Hagberg’s artistic work there is a persistent and consistent exploration of silence and introspection. In his practice he approached these conditions through a number of techniques rooted in painting and drawing. Deeply influenced by Zen Buddhism and the calligraphic currents of his time, he worked in the 1950s using ink on paper in large-scale works. Hagberg, who was an autodidact, was active in the Scandinavian art movement referred to as spontanismen. The actual execution, especially the random way in which the paint and ink took shape on the paper, was an important part of the creation of the works. Over time Hagberg’s practice came to focus on a gradual dissolving of the surface, a sort of elimination of the sheet of paper, as if to approach the idea of nothingness. This investigation later found expression in sculptural objects.

The works I tystnaden (2005) and Avsiktslös rörelse (2003), presented in the exhibition, are two of these. The sculptures consist of sheets of paper of varying sizes, that have been painted, rolled up, and carefully sealed with string. Hagberg’s sculptures, which he called refuser (refuses), shroud the surface of the image. They refuse to be deconstructed and imbue a feeling that we cannot access their innermost. The sculptures can be compared to the psychological state of reserve, but in the case of the artist, also personal freedom. They give expression to his intention: to explore the intangible in our existence.

Born 1967, in Gothenburg, Sweden. Lives and works in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Annika von Hausswolff’s photographs, which are often psychologically charged and ambiguous, allude to the liminal space between fiction and reality. Her practice spans many areas, but some recurring subjects in her artistic work are social power structures, psychoanalysis and violence. von Hausswolff’s expression is closely associated with carefully staged photographs, the aesthetic of which brings to mind photo documentary material from criminological investigations. She also investigates and depicts the domestic sphere according to the same premises. The carefully arranged photographs, where seemingly quotidian objects and environments in the home are portrayed as psychologically loaded, are multi-faceted and suggestive.

The work Forced Entry by Proxy (2004) is a close study of battered blinds. In the work there are details that reveal an activity that has taken place. The human absence is nevertheless palpable.

Born 1959, in Nieuwer Amstel, Netherlands. Lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands and Karlsruhe, Germany.

Marijke van Warmerdam’s work often involves repetitive and slow processes, seemingly without an impelling force. She works with film, photography, and sculpture. van Warmerdam’s films can be described as contemplations of mundane situations and environments. In contrast to the classic narrative structure of film, that propels the story to a final resolution, van Warmerdam’s interest lies in depicting the present. Thus, her films create looping mediative sequences. Through repeating details of every-day observations the works can be seen as an attempt to break with our linear perception of time.

The video work Wind (2010) shows particles swept up in a spontaneous gust of wind traveling aimlessly across a seemingly unpopulated industrial landscape. The camera closely follows the path of the wind across the asphalt as it gathers up leaves, garbage and a lone feather that accompanies the unfettered drifting. The video depicts nature’s relationship to a given context—the free state of the wind, when it has the opportunity to travel aimlessly—but also how vegetation can adapt to a new environment.

Born 1967, in Stockholm, Sweden. Lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.

Miriam Bäckström’s work features a pervading interest in characters and roles. Through photography, video, text, performative practices and textile installations, she explores our relationship to the acting and social mimicry that provides the foundation on which our identities are formed. Bäckström’s practice has also highlighted the private and public spaces we create to affirm and establish our roles, as seen in the work Set Constructions (1995–2002). During her work with the comprehensive photographic series (of which seven photographs are presented in the exhibition), Bäckström made use of the esthetic and methods of documentary photography. Over the course of five years she documented scenographies that had been used in film, television and commercials. The photos could be documentations of actual homes, offices and public spaces, but details such as camera tripods and abruptly interrupted architecture reveal them to be elaborate sets. By drawing attention to staged versions of reality, Miriam Bäckström indicates that all environments in our society might be regarded as constructed.

Set Constructions depicts public environments, workplaces, as well as seemingly private spaces. The definition of a home has gained further relevance today, as the outside world has moved into our homes and the line between domestic space and workspace, private sphere and public sphere, has been blurred even further.

Born 1958, in Malmö, Sweden. Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Truls Melin’s work is characterized by a poetic and subtly playful expression. The motifs in Melin’s art are based in a retained sense of childish fantasy and an interest in model building and fabrication, which he has turned into several series of works. The sculptures are often painted in limited color palettes, giving the impression of a monochrome unity. Similar to minimalist art, Melin often returns to shapes that are part of a serial system, but what sets his work apart from that of the minimalists is the way in which the works are rooted in personal memories and references.

The sculpture Mentalt sällskap (Mental Company) (2009) was created specifically for the site in front of Magasin III and is Melin’s first work to be installed in an outdoor location in Stockholm. The more than five-meter tall sculpture consists of an intricate system of pipes with several parallels to the surrounding harbor. The work is painted in a green shade thought to have a calming effect and which Melin has often returned to in his works. The color is familiar from interiors at psychiatric clinics, but is also used in tight crew spaces on submarines and airplanes. Two figures are incorporated into this labyrinthine structure. Hopelessly caught up in the system, they appear to have melded with the pipes and their static form. The two figures are outsiders, but keep each other company in an imagined and desired community. Melin himself has referred to his works as sculptures of silence. To him, the work on them is a way of tuning out the noise of the outside world.

Born 1958, in Ljushult, Sweden. Lives and works in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Maria Lindberg’s work is manifested in the observation of the seemingly unassuming events and happenings of every-day life. Language and an underlying humor—alternately dark and subtle—play a central role in Lindberg’s art. She works mainly with drawing and painting, but also with photography, collage and performance with parallels to the Fluxus movement of the 1960s. Lindberg’s expression is characterized by a paired-down minimalist approach, her works are often multi-faceted and touch upon social norms and structures, as well as on feelings such as intimacy, loneliness and longing. The work En om dan/One a day (1997) shows a young woman resting on an unmade bed in a bedroom full of daylight. The text “en om dan” is written across the picture in black marker. We can only guess to what this text is referring. Is the scene harmonious and restful or anxiety-laden? Lindberg gives no further explanation. Rest is also present in the painting Resting Monument (1999), in which the Eiffel Tower has laid down. A monument, erected in the memory of an important person or event, is the very symbol of stability. Perhaps even the most stable monuments need time to recuperate?

Lindberg’s four works in the exhibition are set in our most private spaces and in public environments in which we are expected to interact with others according to established social norms.