Category Archives: Works

Exhibits, Installation, Misc, Recent Works, Works

Entrance / Ingång (2006)

July 10, 2006 admin

Wall construction of hay, clay, chalk and spruce pales
20 x 2,4 m

Realised for Wij Trädgårdar, Ockelbo, Project: “Konst och Trädgård”

Play
This piece started off from a series of curved wall sketches. The specific curved form was producing the effect of a closed space but open to the surroundings. The issue of hiding and the hiding-place as a start of childrens play and imaginations were important considerations but also the idea of entrance of a mental passage in time and memory. The form also materialised the philosophical cause and effect and the mystical arrow of time.

Memory
The smell from the hay, the temporary construction (with its material) and the inner space which opened up towards the peasant landscape made me think of memories and activities that belonged to my childhood. After a period a ruin-alike shape takes form (and the hay-smell has slightly changed).

Early July: Exhibition visitors are walking into the field
photo: Yngve Gunnarsson.

Late July: After a period the ruin-alike shape takes form, photo: Arbetarbladet

Activity
Remanings from grass and some hay was left on the ground when a circle was cutout with an old fashioned scythe to enhance the effects of some activity that had been interrupted. The form open as a scene of events was suitable for creating engagement into a sudden in-the-moment activity from the public i.e. a role play or story telling. The distant placement of the wall was nessesary to make the observer go out in the field and to mentaly produce some expectations.

Press (SWE):
“Vinden har delvis raserat Tomas Nygrens vitkalkade mur av höbalar ute på fältet, men samtidigt har ruinkänslan vuxit. Verkets titel “Ingång” syftar på den smala passage som öppnar sig i höet när man kommer nära. Det finns beräkning i den rörelse besökaren måste göra för att ta sig in mellan balarna; plötsligt är man på andra sidan och muren är borta. Kanske vill konstnären visa att den enda ingång som finns leder till dig själv. Det hänger på dig vad du gör. ” Niels Hebert, Arbetarbladet

Map over the area >>>>>>>>>

Entrance imageEarly June: Front View

Early June: Front View

Early June: Rear View

Early June: Entrance/Door View

Early June: Myself in work with a scythe

Conceptual Works, Graphic, Misc, Recent Works, Works

What turns the Wheels? (2006)

June 28, 2006 admin

6 paper sheets 150cmx270cm, ballpoint pen drawings, wood, wire, turnings.

Wirsbo konsthall

Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it. Václav Havel

Spirals of thought
This piece was created in relation to the exhibition space. Eventhough the questions I asked in making the work had clear formal relations to the exhibition space (history, floor etc.) I found myself repeating the questions I had asked. What is a spiral? What is motion? How tiny is my life compared to the living in everything?
The spiral movement of the pen was energized with my questions. Self sustaining motion for moving energy and thoughts in the easiest form, what connects? The small drawings were in a middle position where I found them acting both as an overview and a closeup for something that holds the emptiness beweeen us together, vital energy, massive and activating. Among some spin-off effects one interesting line with this piece was for me addressing meanings in economy in relation to internal time (micro-macro).

Closeup view on one of the thousands small drawings

Info sheet at the exhibition (Swe) >>>>>>>>

Press (SWE):
“Nystanet tycks samla upp golvets slumpmässigt tillkomna mönster och få det att slå ut, att blotta tidens gång med poetisk uttryckskraft. Motsatta processer krockar. Att samla upp och att sprida ut återkommer i installationens andra del som består av fem lakansbreda våder med penntecknade härvor, klotter- snurror som små nebulosor i ett universum.

De kan ses som beståndsdelar i oändliga gåtfullt fungerande sammanhang, våra kroppar eller själva stjärnhimlen, som alltid är i rörelse för att förvandlas,
gå under och återfödas. Det döda materialet får liv: historia fångas upp, minnen dras fram och förvandlas till kunskap.”
Kristina Mezei, VLT

Conceptual Works, Installation, Misc, Recent Works, Works

Peak Performance (2006) Västerås

January 30, 2006 admin

Installation with: Children paintings, sound, light and video.

Västerås Konstmuseum, 2006

Platon’s cave inverted
In the autumn of 1999 I recorded the sound from a grasshopper in the countryside of Malmö. The sound appealed to me in the various meanings of manipulation of the nature, artificial or natural. Then some weeks after I contacted a day nursery because I wanted to have the children’s paintings as an opposite element to the low pressure sodium light. This sodium light produces a special phenomena in that it only has a peak in the spectrum of 589.0nm – 589.6nm producing a monochrome environment. The strobes acted as a link between the paintings, light and the sound in that it shows the colours of the paintings when the strobes are active in the space. I wanted to keep the age of the children quite low as an indexical element of their positive interests in colour and composition. The setup is arranged so that a layered inner room exists within the space.

Schematically the installation is a layered structure:
1) Audio recordings of grasshoppers
2) Colour paintings and participation of Target group (children or other group)
3) Low pressure sodium lights (could also be visible outside the gallery at night as well)
4) Strobes activating the space and the linkage between the elements
5) Interaction with audience during the exhibit (moving in the space, setting the flashes on with motion detectors)
6) Information about the procedure of the piece with documentation video connected to installation

The children’s paintings and performance – video documentation
This movie shows a small discussion we had with the children before they went up to the space and started create different kinds of insects and grasshoppers. This was to assure that everyone of them understood their part in the process for the final piece. We talked about why I came up with this idea on grasshoppers and their special sound they make. We noticed that not everyone hear the sound from them and we also listened to the sound for remembering the high frequency and for grasping personal memories.

In addition to the installation a video was showing our discussion we had with the children and their participation and paintings.

Slide show
Images from the preparation where the children paints in the installation slide show >>>>>>
photos by Anna Lindén, Västerås Konstmuseum

text available at the installation (Swe) pdf >>>>>>>>>

Thanks to:
Hammarbyskolan, Students and Teachers

Audio, Conceptual Works, Installation, Misc, Works

Peak Performance (2002) Umeå

November 20, 2002 admin

Installation with:
Children’s paintings,
the sound from a grasshopper,
low pressure sodium light and
IC controlled strobes (revised element for this exhibit).
Constructed walls (for inner room)

Gallery 60 Umeå, 2002

Reflections:
In the autumn of 1999 I recorded the sound from a grasshopper in the countryside of Malmö. The sound appealed to me in the various meanings of destroyed or undestroyed and artificial or natural. The children’s paintings became an opposite element to the low pressure sodium light that only has a peak in the spectrum of 589.0nm – 589.6nm producing a monochrome environment. I wanted to keep the age of the children quite low as an indexical element of their positive interests in colour and composition. The strobes acted as a link between the paintings, light and the sound.

Umeå 2002, Documentation movie from the show

will be available soon from youtube

Introduction text avaliable at the exhibit, pdf >>>>>>>>

Girl in action, painting grashoppers or insects

when flashes went occationally on it looked like this above

mostly it looked like this above (when flashes were off)

Boy in front of camera, in the background his own drawing

Girl in action, painting spiders

The Space (the inner room inside the gallery space)

outside Gallery 60 (the sodium light was on 24 hours)

Thanks to:
all at Sandbacken’s day nursery, Umeå!
special thanks to Jan Norlin
Philips Light Sweden

Audio, Early Works, Installation, Misc, Works

The continuum of Time/Tidens Gång (2002)

June 28, 2002 admin

Installation and performance with: Four channel sound installation with water sounds, chlorine smell, performance (sweeping the floor, acting as a swimming-pool attendant), floating lines, bathing toys. (site specific)

exhibited: VLT press, Västerås, Time limited exposure, commissioned

”The illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-
embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which
are,and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb, for we have no
word to speak about it.” Thomas Carlyle (1795 –1881)

Play and fluidity
This event and sound installation was a commissioned work for VLT-Press in their new large space for their large daily paper press. The flow character of the industry in printing daily papers was taken into consideration when hanging the long floating lines.

Typical smell and watch out!
I cleaned the floor with a slight dilution of chlorine used in swimming pools during exhibit. I warned people to not go so close to the blue fictive pools and blowing in a whistle.

Text available during the exhibit (Swedish) pdf >>>>>

This work was curated by Joachim Granit, Färgfabriken