Going for a walk at Södermalm

If you are in Stockholm and you want to see a lot of art in one day, go to the island Södermalm. Get off at subway station Slussen and go to Hornsgatan. This very nice street in Stockholm is bursting of nice shops on the left side, and art galleries on the right.

One example of a nice art gallery is Kunst och Folk. They have mostly Swedish artists and graphic artists and the quality is very good in my opinion. Galleri Puckeln is also worth mentioning, because of the funny name, but also because of the flamboyant choice of artists, although not everything was similarly exciting to me.

If you see steps down to Pustegränd, drop by at number 6: it’s Galleri Tersaeus. The gallery owner does not speak English very well, but he is kind and has good taste. Adorable art works of the illustrative kind can be seen there, (when I was there he had works by Alina Witwitzka and Eva Svennergård, the last one being extremely cute and original), as well as works with a touch of humour. I saw aquarells of Peter Czerniak that resembled romantic harbor sights, but looking closer there were cranes and building sites in it.

The best thing I saw there was actually at the beginning of the street: the artists association Grafiska Sällskapet. Lots and lots of good quality prints hang on the walls and are accessible in large drawers. The association exists over 100 years now, and they have lots of exhibitions of good quality (the work of Jan-Anders Hansson and Kjell Moritz that I saw there was incredibly good). Unless they are closed to hang a new exhibition, it is always worth stepping inside there and taking the time to go through all the prints of the various artists there.

There are much more galleries, such as Galleri Hera, Galleri Abante, Galleri Kaolin and many more; it depends on your taste where to go in. You can also drop by at the nice ceramics shop called Blås & Knåda, or the picturesque teashop near the end of the street. And if you are at the end of Hornsgatan, you are treated with a nice park where you can relax and process everything you have seen. Then, close by there is the subway station Hornstull, so your tired feet don’t have to walk you back through the whole street again.

List of galleries I mentioned:

Grafiska Sälskapet – Hornsgatan 6
Galleri Puckeln – Hornsgatan 26
Blås & Knåda – Hornsgatan 26A
Kunst och Folk – Hornsgatan 34
Galleri Hera – Hornsgatan 36
Galleri Abante – Hornsgatan 44
Galleri Kaolin – Hornsgatan 50
Galleri Tersoeus – Pustegränd 6

Parallel worlds - Eija-Liisa Ahtila at the Moderna Museet

Trees are usually props in a scene; they are part of the setting in which a situation tales place. Entering the first room of the exhibition space, trees are the protagonists in various drawings. They act like people in funny comics, they bend, twist and mirror the visitor – literally, with mirrors.

Trees are important in the work of Ahtila. In her work, that mainly exists of video, the scenery, and especially the enormous pine trees that can be seen all over Scandinavia, get a lot of attention. The main artwork that was shown at the exhibition: The Annunciation (2010) is a religious one: three screens show one movie from three different angles. We see how a small drama club prepares and practices for an annunciation play. During the movie there is a lot of attention for the scenery, which gives an almost sacred feel to that what the players are going through in the process of practicing and rehearsing. When they finally play it, it seems as if the annunciation is really happening.

Another work that I found interesting was a portrait of a pine tree on film. Ahtila found it difficult to portray something as big as a tree: if you want to have it on screen from ‘head to toe’, you get all the other trees on the portrait as well, and it turns into a group portrait. Therefore, she made several takes, first of the ‘feet’ of the tree, then a bit higher, then higher again, until she reached the top. All these takes were shown on their own screen, next to each other, together showing one moving tree – sideways, as if lying down. It is a great solution to her problem, because it really works as a portrait. You can see and enjoy his branches and needles waving in the wind and see it as an individual.

Eija-Liisa Ahtila is a Finnish woman who has quite a résumé. Her work has been among others at MoMA in New York, Tate Modern in London and Kunsthalle in Zürich. Now she can add the Moderna Museet in Stockholm to it, and I think she deserves that. She questions the little things in life that we take for granted, and gives these things – a tree, a bird, a feeling – the chance to be the protagonist, without overdoing it.

Until May 6th at Moderna Museet, Stockholm