Today I was off into Stockholm while Mirinda luxuriated in a Gazless Day with the girls. As for me, I managed to catch an express bus into Gullmarsplan, followed by the t-bana into Centralen in order to take breakfast in my favourite café.
I had a sort of plan for the rest of the day but I decided to let chance take the reins and, basically, went with the flow.
So, leaving the café, I headed for the bus/tram stop and caught the first thing that came along which was a tram. Obviously, that made me ridiculously happy. I took a seat, along with about 150 others and we trundled off to Djurgården.
At the first stop, a chap boarded and sat beside me. He had shopping with him. I thought that was interesting. He’d been to a supermarket in central Stockholm and was catching a tram home. Fair enough, I thought, I’d wait for him to get off before leaving the tram.
He took an empty double seat when one became available, just before the tram arrived at the stop for Liljevalchs, Gröna Lund and the Abba Museum. I noticed a queue outside Liljevalchs and decided to hop off and join it.
A while ago, I tried to visit Liljevalchs but was rebuffed by the lack of an entrance. I don’t know where it had gone but, today, it was back where it was supposed to be. The queue was there in order to see the Spring Salon 2023, waiting for the gallery to open.
I was fortunate enough to see the Spring Salon 2021 when we were here before so I was quite excited with this bit of random luck.
Now, I wasn’t as enthused this time. While there were a lot of exciting pieces by lots of artists I’d never heard of, only a few pieces really leapt out at me. This was quite different in 2021 but that may also have been a pandemic response.
Anyway, one big difference was the big, new annex on the back of the original building. It was added in 2021. In the big screening room, I watched some quite odd video pieces by crash artist Roman Signer. His work, which includes quite a lot of exploding things, is both surprising and unexpected. Like the car between the concrete posts which made me and the other guy watching both burst into spontaneous laughter.
There were a lot of videos but I found if I popped in and out, between looking at the other artworks on display, I could see them all without getting bored. The exhibit is called Action Sculptures. It was worth the sitting time just to watch the man playing the piano on a pontoon in the middle of an Italian lake. And the exploding yellow, hard hats.
But, back at the Spring Salon…I was taking a photo of some embroidery I thought Mirinda would like when a woman came up and asked me if the needlework was my favourite piece. Obviously, she said it in Swedish then instantly switched to perfect English when I looked confused. I told her that it wasn’t my favourite but I thought my wife would love it. (She did.)
The stranger then told me that she was an artist and came every year to see the Spring Salon. She showed me her favourite piece. It was a photograph, black and white and very serene, of a lake. I told her that I hadn’t seen enough to actually have a favourite yet.
But, obviously, now I do. I’d have to split it between two pieces, actually. Firstly, this painting by Falah Alani.
Born in Iraq in 1967, Falah has been working as an artist in Sweden since 2007. He had two paintings in the salon but I thought the one above was both intriguing and striking. I really liked it.
My second favourite piece was a bit of a toss up between a small sculpture of a triple scoop cone of ice cream, dropped on the floor (Fucking summer by Amanda Elwin & Tove Karlsson) and one that a lot of people probably liked because it looked kind of cute.
At first glance, it appears to be some sort of troll getting it’s comeuppance by an old boot. However, a myling is (or was) the soul of an unwanted and killed baby, intent on annoying people in order to be given a proper burial. This piece is meant to represent a myling emerging from a bog (or some such temporary resting place) and appearing beneath an unsuspecting walker’s boot.
Funnily enough, an article I read about the salon used this piece, saying it was a cute little troll creature. Obviously, the writer hadn’t done any research. A myling is anything but cute. As the artist explained:
“…the seed of the idea to make the ceramic sculpture, Myling, was planted during a visit to Wanås Sculpture Park on an overcast autumn day, where one of the artworks consisted of hidden speakers that made calls of “mum” and “dad” sound from time to time among the trees and bushes. I got chills down my spine as I walked there by myself along a dark forest path, and from the direction of a bush first heard an anxious voice calling for its mother.“
Creepy, right?
Having had my fill of the Spring Salon for 2023, I headed down to Blå for lunch before heading back outside to catch a bus to Blockhusudden, at the other end of Djurgården, and a gallery I’d not even heard of, let alone visited. It’s called Thielska Galleriet and it’s marvellous. Definitely one to revisit, particularly with Mirinda.
Like Prins Eugen’s place, the Thielska has exhibitions as well as the permanent collection, housed in a wonderful mansion. It was the home of Ernest Thiel (1859-1947) and his family, from 1907 to 1924. It was designed by Ferdinand Boberg specifically to house the amazing Thiel art collection.
Thiel was a very successful Swedish banker who first married into the Bonnier family (very successful publishers) that gave him networking access to some of the greatest artists and writers of his time.
“I want a home that is decorated with pictures on all the walls, a home that is pleasing and that makes me want to live there”, Thiel said to Ferdinand Boberg, the architect whom he had chosen to design his new home.
He divorced his first wife then married her companion. They then separated for reasons I can’t find, and Ernest was on his own in the mansion as his fortune dissolved around him because of something called The Great Deflation (1920-22). He ended up giving his art collection and house to the Swedish government and it opened as a public art gallery in 1926.
And, at the moment, as well as housing some amazing art works, it is showing an exhibition of the works of Oskar Bergman (1879-1963). He seems to have been mostly known for his scenes of nature. From trees by lakes to farmland and traditional Swedish buildings. He also painted a lot of still life pictures featuring mostly flowers.
I can’t honestly say I was much taken by his works on display as they are not exactly what I like but, he was clearly popular. The exhibition, called Still Nature, indicates he’s still quite popular as there was quite the crowd there with me today.
But, as I said, I wasn’t that keen on Bergman. However, I was rather taken with some of the work upstairs, including a Carl Larsson. Now, Mirinda would say I am not a big fan of Carl Larsson but, I really liked a painting of his featuring a woman sitting at the base of a stand of very tall trees.
The English translation is Beneath the Birches. She is quite small, so I’ve cropped out the tree to show the woman in more detail. The first thing you see when you look at the painting is the red of her head dress. It’s very striking against the silvery grey birch trees.
At the end of the first floor, there’s a sunken room that contains a sort of carved lounge with dining table in front of it. It is massive and looks like something out of Rivendell. The room is called the Munch room because of the big Edvard Munch paintings on the wall behind the furniture.
The whole room is quite a sight when you first walk in. I wasn’t alone in my amazement. Or my desire to take the exact same photograph as everyone else.
By the way, the white sculpture to the left of the foreground in the above photograph, is a small Auguste Rodin. It’s called The Three Sirens (c1887) and, in typically Rodin style, appears to be three bodies emerging from the marble rather than standalone depictions.
Possibly my favourite piece in the whole gallery, however, was a small painting by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). The thing I liked most about it were the creases. It had obviously been painted then folded up (by the artist?) before being, eventually, framed.
Imagine being able to not just paint like that, but then to just fold it up and stick it in your back pocket. What an amazing painter he was.
Anyway, I spent a long time wandering around, finishing with a beer at the café (which serves some very enticing food – I must remember for next time) before heading down to the ferry to Nacka Strand.
All up, it was a marvellous day, lots of art, five types of public transport and beautiful weather. Who could ask for more?
A house of cards built out of doors? Done.
