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I felt very sad handing over my residency card today, but it had to be done. It was time. I had an appointment at the service centre in Liljeholmen, so I took the bus at 9am this morning and arrived with plenty of time to walk from the bus stop down the hill to the office. Having been there a few times, it wasn’t difficult finding it again. It was just a bit sad.
Mind you, I wasn’t there long, unlike a few other people with much more complex reasons for being there.
Obviously, given I’d gone all the way into Stockholm, I continued into the city via the t-bana then on a bus onto Skeppsholmen in order to visit two exhibitions at the Moderna Museet.
The Art of Collecting was a showcase of recent purchases by and gifts to the museum with lots of information regarding the pieces and the artists. There was some amazing stuff.
Most disturbing was a video piece by and about Anna Odell who I had never heard of. She sparked controversy when she was sent for psychiatric evaluation after appearing to be threatening suicide off a Stockholm bridge. The video was on three screens and was, at times, deeply disturbing.
Was it art though, is what I wondered. I was not alone.
Mind you, while there’s something of a debate about whether it is art or not, it certainly evokes strong emotions. I sat and watched it in the small room, transfixed by it; stirred by it. It’s shocking, upsetting, revealing. If nothing else, Odell paints a depressing picture.
It wasn’t my favourite piece in the exhibition. That honour goes to a painting called, appropriately, I Love Colour by Chéri Samba, an artist from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In discovering him, I discovered something extremely bizarre. Apparently, in the DRC it was deemed illegal to have a Christian name. There was a ban on giving or keeping them. For that reason, he was just known as Samba for a while. Originally named David Samba, he changed his name to the far more memorable Samba wa Mbimba N’zingo Nuni Masi Ndo Mbasi.
I don’t know how he changed to Chéri Samba because that sounds like a Christian name to me. Maybe the rules changed in the DRC to be a bit more logical than confusing. Anyway, this is the painting.
But I hadn’t finished at the museum yet. There was a second exhibition downstairs, The Secret Signs of Paris, featuring the photographs of Brassaï. He would wander the night streets of Paris in the 1930’s, capturing the secrets of the city.
The exhibition was beautifully laid out. Through dark rooms and corridors, Brassaï’s ability to capture the private life of Paris shines out, mesmerizing the viewer. While it’s obviously not a Paris I know, it feels familiar and I was enthralled by almost every photograph. An excellent exhibition.
I found it quite difficult to choose a favourite work but, on reflection, I think I’d go for this one.
But that’s just the tip of a very large iceberg. His photographs are all pretty amazing.
Anyway, that was my day spent in Stockholm under some pretty glorious weather.
Oh, and I was at the service centre in Liljeholmen in order to get my photograph taken and fingerprints taken for my new residency card. They only last five years though my residency is permanent. And, while I felt quite bereft at losing my old one, a shiny new one will turn up soon.
