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Preface
A Parallel History – The Independent Art Arenas of Skåne 1968-2008
It is often claimed that Skåne – Sweden’s southernmost province – is the region with the most exciting art scene in the country. A unique combination of interesting artists, important art arenas, vital art education strong public art institutions and successful commercial galleries has projected an image of Malmö and Lund as singular and vibrant art centres. From an early era, the region has housed people with a probing interest in keeping up with and being part of the new currents in art and of establishing international contacts and exchanges. The geographical position of Skåne with its proximity to the rest of Europe, as well as the fact that the region does not contain the country’s capital has also attracted people who have not been afraid of going their own way, even though they have often had to contend with strong opposition.
In other words, an interesting art scene emerges when a variety of art arenas with varied interests converge; and it is this diversity that provides the art scene with its vitality and strength. However, when the history of art comes to be written this dynamic is often neglected in favour of individual artists and major art institutions. In this book we have, therefore, chosen to focus on an aspect of the art scene, which, in the history of art, has been consigned to a parallel and unnoticed existence, namely the independent art arenas, which operate the “independent art scene”, as it is called in Sweden. There are various definitions of the “independent art scene”. Since the term includes the word “independent”, with its connotations of “freedom” and “autonomy”, many people will associate it with artistic freedom and individual, independent artists. In this book, however, we take a different view and examine the independent art scene from the position of organisers. We adopt the cultural policy usage of the term to describe a field that extends beyond the framework of the individual artist and includes independent, self-initiated art arenas – in contrast to public art institutions and commercial galleries.
The independent art arenas comprise an extensive and variegated range of initiatives with widely differing modes of operation and motive forces. They all represent an important and self-evident part of every dynamic art scene but are not normally documented to any great extent and thus not included in history. Thus, one of the aims of this book is to create a work of reference that collects and preserves a part of Skåne’s art history which, until now, has risked being forgotten as arenas close down and people fade away.
A Parallel History – The Independent Art Arenas of Skåne 1968-2008 consists of two parts. The first part is devoted to a timeline of Skåne’s art scene, focusing on the independent art arenas. The second part consists of five commissioned essays and a letter, all of which pertain to the independent art arenas. Topics discussed include: the emergence and the need for an independent art scene; different attitudes to artistic work; reflections on the relationship between the local and the international art scene; the development of Malmö and the region of Skåne; the changing role of the artist and the arrival of the freelance curator on the art scene; changes in the approach to exhibition production; and art’s relationship with society.
Carolina Söderholm brings the timeline to life by portraying a selection of the art arenas and the people who participated in and formed the Skåne art scene. A prologue has been added to the period under review, stretching back to the beginning of the 20 th century and tracing the early signs of what may still be said to characterise the art scene in Skåne: the provincial alongside the international, and the traditional alongside the experimental; opposites that from time to time lead to conflicts, not least between art practitioners and local politicians.
1968 to 2008 represents a time span of four decades and a great deal has naturally changed during this period. However, certain notions and models for cultural policy have not developed to the same extent. Tracing the traditions, myths and political interests that shape the guidelines for today’s policy with regard to the visual arts, we have, in our own essay, searched for the roots of the independent art scene in order to also find out what it is that motivates the arenas themselves and why there does not seem to be space for co-creative producers within the field. The essay concludes with a flowchart that outlines the opportunities for development that exist for the independent art arenas.
In her essay, Kim Einarsson emphasises the importance of the art arenas that base their operations on knowledge production and a critical approach. The essay is constructed around two parallel narratives which link past and present; the history of Galerie S:t Petri, an experimental laboratory of ideas which operated in Lund from 1971 to 1982 is related to contemporary examples of operations in a similar tradition in Sweden and elsewhere. Einarsson also points to the fact that if you want a place in history, you have to write yourself into it.
The difficulty of finding material about art arenas, both past and present, creates a gap in the official history, which leads to a collective loss of memory. Addressing this very problem, Leif Eriksson’s 1998 letter to his younger colleague, Elin Wikström, is a history lesson about the entry of conceptual art in Sweden. However, annoyance with a younger generation’s scant historical knowledge may produce positive side effects – such as that history actually gets recorded.
Even when aspects of history are documented and preserved for posterity one cannot always complete the puzzle to one’s satisfaction. Carl Lindh and Terje Östling travelled widely in Skåne with a view to clarifying how the international art collective Drakabygget was transformed from a place for radical ideas about society, revolution and art into an enamel workshop with an expressionist artistic production. What happened to the revolution and how did it turn into brightly coloured enamel art? The travelogue demonstrates how investigating the past often teaches us more about ourselves and our personal search than about what actually took place in former times.
Today, every city and region is keen to build a strong brand and one of the best tools for this is cultural planning. Annelie Nilsson browses the documents and a picture emerges of a shift from the idea of the city as a resource for the citizens to the present notion of the citizens as a resource for the city’s own brand. In Malmö and in the wider context of Skåne, every human activity – even entirely spontaneous leisure interests – is now regarded as a cultural resource the principal aim of which is to attract investors and tax revenue. In the construction of new, shared narratives, certain historical events are blotted out when the current success story is to be told: the tale of the transition from a gloomy run-down industrial city to a regional high-tech centre with twisted skyscrapers and exclusive residential areas.
History can be written and presented in numerous ways and there are many often quoted-sayings that stress the importance of being familiar with one’s own history in order to be able to shape and influence one’s future. With this project of documenting an untold segment of Swedish art history, we wish to strike a blow for the future of the independent art arenas.
The independent art scene is characterised by the notion of taking matters into one’s own hands and we hope that the present volume will inspire further explorations of the subject.
Sources and Acknowledgements
The information included in the timeline, which also constitutes source material for a number of the book’s essays, is collated from the 200 or so tips that people have kindly sent in to Signal, and from the interviews, round-table discussions and telephone conversations that took place in the autumn of 2008 and the spring of 2009. All omissions, errors and misinterpretations are entirely ours.
We would like to express our sincere thanks to Mette Aarre, Bengt Adlers, Gertrud Alfredsson, Marie Sjöberg Altemani, Fred Andersson, Marianne Andersson, Camilla Backman, Åsa Maria Bengtsson, Ottmar Bergmann, Anna Brag, Göran Christenson, Peter Dacke, Elisabet Haglund, Anna Holmbom, Ella Holmstedt, Måns Holst-Ekström, Lars Embäck, Marthe Aune Eriksen, Gunilla Falck, Aron Flemming, Roger Forslund, Bengt Frostmo, Göran Green, Ola Gustafsson, Alexander Gutke, Oskar Hallberg, Trond Hugo Haugen, Mathias Holmberg, Sture Johannesson, Anna Kindvall, Cindy Lee, Torbjörn Limé, Marit Lindberg, Jonas Liveröd, Elin Lundgren, Christina Lång, Carl Magnus, Thomas Millroth, Gertie Månsson, Åsa Nacking, Anna Norberg, Sune Nordgren, Lisa Nyberg, Gert Petersson, Marika Reuterswärd, Bengt Rooke, Björn Ross, Morgan Schagerberg, Gunnar Sandin, Gertrud Sandqvist, Jean Sellem, Mats Stjernstedt, Inger Hägglund Tornberg, Lars Vilks, Charlotte Walentin, Magnus Wallin, Birgitta Westberg, Lis Zwick, Magnus Åklundh and all the other people who have helped us in producing this book. We are particularly indebted to Leif Eriksson, not least for the information taken from The Swedish Archive of Artists’ Books and Gert-Olle Göransson for access to all of the issues of the periodical Beckerell as well as other inspiring material.
We would like to offer sincere thanks to the book’s graphic designer, Matilda Plöjel, who, with undaunted spirit, has collaborated with us and miraculously transformed and visualised the copious amount of information included in the book. We would also like to convey our heartfelt thanks to the authors who have contributed inspirational essays to the book: Kim Einarsson, Leif Eriksson, Annelie Nilsson, Carolina Söderholm and Terje Östling.
Last, but by no means least, we would like to thank Karin Askagården, Kami Petersen and Magnus Thierfelder for all their help.
The Editors
Carl Lindh, Emma Reichert and Elena Tzotzi
Malmö, 29 June 2009