Liljevalchs Konsthall has a long tradition of organising ‘vårsalongen’: the spring salon. As soon as the holidays are over it is time to look forward to spring – at least in Sweden where the winters are long and cold. So although the snow is thick outside, inside Liljevalchs spring is celebrated with a broad selection of young, talented artists. Walking into the building of Liljevalchs, which is beautifully designed by Carl Bergsten, I see big halls where a lot of art can be shown. A jury containing artists picked out what is – in their opinion – new, interesting or otherwise worth to hang in this enormous space. Of course something like this is subjective to a certain level, but in my opinion the jury did a good job.
Interesting to see in this overview, is that knitting and crochets are booming. Why this trend suddenly comes up I do not know, but it is always nice to see such diverse materials used within one exhibition. Lolitta Nedoman for example, being brought up by Serbian parents, uses embroidery to find a way of connecting Swedish culture with the Serbian culture.
The popularity of textiles may have something to do with another trend: being concerned with the environment. For years the Swedes have been very good at taking care of the environment, just by not messing it up in the first place. Still also here the environmental changes are an issue, which is also visible at this exhibition, for example in the work of Greta Voćar. Although this artist says it is the fear of loosing a type of design that made her refill the bottle, this image of the two bottles, one extremely colourful and the other serene and pure, is very strong and seems to tell us something about the environment as well. It is too bad that this is a photograph though, I would find it even stronger if it were a sculpture made out of two bottles.
Photography is of course also well represented, for example in the work of Casia Bromberg, which I found very interesting. Come Closer is a triptych of self portraits, with arms shown of others. She says about these photos: “In this triptych I want to show how vulnerable we can feel in an intimate relationship.” And indeed I can see how she tried to capture that, with strong shading, a certain anonymity of the other person and her own, somewhat empty facial expressions.
Another discipline was of course not left out at the exhibition: conceptual art. I have to say, of some works I don’t see the relevance. Other works were of a more selfreflexive, humorous and interesting kind, such as the MING-vase by Åsa Landström, which made me laugh out loud. Thinking that the fake or even kitsch Ming-vases are probably for sale in every dubious corner of the world, Landström puts an end to the confusion: this one definitely is fake.
The image above (I Strömsalen II, Nationalmuseum by Johan Patricny) is also a form of selfreflexivity, because it shows, in paint, how paintings (all right, and a sculpture) are received by the public. It is art within art, painted in a traditional technique, with a funny twist. And to me, the rosy cheeks of the girl who tries to look professionally at the well-shaped figure of a naked man are the cherry on the cake.
There was much more to see at Liljevalchs, from fashion to giant Lego rabbits, and there were QR codes everywhere, which makes the exhibition even more interesting. If you want to know what’s happening in the Swedish art world, this is the place to be.
Until March 25th at Liljevalchs Konsthall
Djurgårdsvägen 60, Stockholm
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