Christer Strömholm
10 Jan - 19 Mar 2006
Christer Strömholm
10/01/2006 - 19/03/2006
Exhibition organised in collaboration the VU and the Bildverksamheten Strömholm, Stockholm, with the support of the Swedish Cultural Centre and Swedish Institute.
“Stockholm, 1965. The gallery in the NK department store puts on an exhibition of work by Christer Strömholm, the greatest Scandinavian photographer, working as a teacher at the time, who would influence three generations of Northern European photographers. Christer, who had never much worried about his œuvre, or about the market, and who left Otto Steinert's Fotoform group in its early stages, shows his images as if they were self-evident: 50x60cm prints, stuck on Isorel, without a frame, brutal or at least direct, simply hanging by the string fixed on their back. Three days after the private view, the exhibition was taken down: too depressing — too radical, in fact. Unacceptable in an age that wanted mildness, anecdotes — everything that Christer wasn't.
Forty years later, because most of that exhibition was fortunately preserved and has been found, we are showing some sixty images in their original state, thus recreating Strömholm's statement. If we have framed those original prints, it is only for reasons of conservation. It is our conviction that this ensemble, in which the obsession with death, the use of the series and the rejection of anecdote are all characteristic of this eminently important exponent of the European documentary tradition, represents an essential, historic moment in European photography. For us, recomposing that exhibition is both a great opportunity and a duty, because Christer Strömholm, who died the day his last exhibition was taken down, remains an outstanding example of what we look for in photography: an art that questions the world without indulgence, that calls it into question, that says it without representing it, that states its deliquescence and its faults and probes its permanent suffering. At the same time, without even trying, he was constructing the image of an uncontrollable author for whom the first person voice comes as naturally as breathing, and who spits in the face of convention. Forty years after its creation, this exhibition — this reconstitution — is more than a homage, it is an affirmation of the artist's indispensable liberty.
From a text by Christian Caujolle,
curator of the exhibition,
catalogue of Les Rencontres d'Arles, 2005
www.jeudepaume.org
Image:
Christer Strömholm
Sans titre
Christer Strömholm / BVS / VU' La Galerie
10/01/2006 - 19/03/2006
Exhibition organised in collaboration the VU and the Bildverksamheten Strömholm, Stockholm, with the support of the Swedish Cultural Centre and Swedish Institute.
“Stockholm, 1965. The gallery in the NK department store puts on an exhibition of work by Christer Strömholm, the greatest Scandinavian photographer, working as a teacher at the time, who would influence three generations of Northern European photographers. Christer, who had never much worried about his œuvre, or about the market, and who left Otto Steinert's Fotoform group in its early stages, shows his images as if they were self-evident: 50x60cm prints, stuck on Isorel, without a frame, brutal or at least direct, simply hanging by the string fixed on their back. Three days after the private view, the exhibition was taken down: too depressing — too radical, in fact. Unacceptable in an age that wanted mildness, anecdotes — everything that Christer wasn't.
Forty years later, because most of that exhibition was fortunately preserved and has been found, we are showing some sixty images in their original state, thus recreating Strömholm's statement. If we have framed those original prints, it is only for reasons of conservation. It is our conviction that this ensemble, in which the obsession with death, the use of the series and the rejection of anecdote are all characteristic of this eminently important exponent of the European documentary tradition, represents an essential, historic moment in European photography. For us, recomposing that exhibition is both a great opportunity and a duty, because Christer Strömholm, who died the day his last exhibition was taken down, remains an outstanding example of what we look for in photography: an art that questions the world without indulgence, that calls it into question, that says it without representing it, that states its deliquescence and its faults and probes its permanent suffering. At the same time, without even trying, he was constructing the image of an uncontrollable author for whom the first person voice comes as naturally as breathing, and who spits in the face of convention. Forty years after its creation, this exhibition — this reconstitution — is more than a homage, it is an affirmation of the artist's indispensable liberty.
From a text by Christian Caujolle,
curator of the exhibition,
catalogue of Les Rencontres d'Arles, 2005
www.jeudepaume.org
Image:
Christer Strömholm
Sans titre
Christer Strömholm / BVS / VU' La Galerie