Like so many others I was chocked and saddened by the death of David Bowie. How can he be gone? He's been around like forever... I even blame him, or I should say thank him, for making me an art historian. Among my first childhood memories is when my older brother got Aladdin Sane as a birthday present - and I was totally mesmerised by the album cover. That pale and yet colourful character that leaked plastic! 

More album covers of Bowie's were equally visually intriguing; Diamond Dogs, Pin Ups and there was one with cartoons on it... I sat and watched them carefully over and over again, but was not allowed to listen to them. And my teenaged brother didn't think it was cool to hang around with his baby sister so I hardly ever heard them. The only song I loved by Bowie as a kid was "Laughing gnome", and even if it still warms my heart it isn't really worth remembering. It was only later, when Scary Monsters was released, I got to know more of his music.

So, thank you David Bowie for my first strong visual experiences - and the music! And my brother should of course have some credit for introducing me to Bowie.

Last week to the first snow covered the latest public art work at Umeå university most beautifully. This post will focus on Mandana Moghaddan's Vinden bär oss med sig [The wind carry us with it] inaugurated in early November. 

Is it a sculpture or an installation? Well, it is a furnished room without walls, all made of concrete. It reminds of a student's dorm, but it could be just any room with a desk, a chair and an unmade bed. A hotel room, a single room flat, or a refugee accommodation. Occasionally one can hear recorded phone calls. People speaking in different languages of everyday matters or sending their love to family and friends. 

Mandana Moghaddam (http://mandana-moghaddam.com) have made many sculptural installations, the most famous is a well where people in two different places can talk with each other. For Umeå she was also thinking of communication - more specifically - our need to be in touch with our home. It might be that you left for studies and long for some kind words when you are not getting the results you hoped for, or want to celebrate great grades or receiving grants. Or, like too many people right now,  you are forced to leave home for violent, threatening, catastrophic reasons. Moghaddam did this journey herself, and says she has lived in, and left, many rooms like this one. No matter where she was (or still is) the telephone was the life line to the people dear to her. So necessary when wanting to be a part of their lives and make sure everybody are ok.

Another important aspect of this art work is accessibility. We are supposed to enter this room, listen to the voices speaking, and to sit down by the desk where the light is always shining. Today this creature was placed in the room. Hopefully a sign of how quickly people at campus have accepted and started to examine its potential.

Back from my long summer vacation during which I saw some great exhibitions, but lets start where I finished in June: Havremagasinet in Boden.

Their main event was Entry prohibited to foreigners - a title that caused some discussions among visitors as it was read as a political statement regarding the migrant situation in Europe. To some extent the exhibitions was about the current alarming developments on who is allowed to enter Europe and other more prosperous areas of the world, but it also explored other areas of colonialism and (ethnic) injustice.

The exhibition that I will highlight here, however, was the room dedicated to Eva Zettervall. I have been a fan for more than 20 years, so I guess it was inevitable that her work would get a firm grip on me. The above painting, Tatuerade kvinnor av träd och blod där gryningsljuset tränger sig fram [Tattoed women of trees and blood where the morning light breaks through], is just one example of Zettervall's huge paintings. The vibrant and flooding red colour is vital for almost all of the paintings, as is the female characters standing, fighting, protesting, caressing or taking refuge from violence.  She calls the exhibition Röda rummet [The Red room] and it has a sibling in another summer exhibition of hers, Julie och Jean [Julie and Jean], in Strömstad. Both are connected to the author August Strindberg (1949-1912), but Zetttervall uses his critique of the bourgeoisie society of the late 19th century in her own way. Her inspiration to political change comes from the flux of feminist movements active today, Röda rummet is dedicated to the activities of the Pussy Riot in Russia and Femen in Ukraine. Their activism is made present in images of protest as well as the ones of the everyday private life. See more of her own words from Havremagasinets homepage:http://english.havremagasinet.se/

Eva Zettervall is not the only feminist artist that has been inspired by the writings of Strindberg, even though he is usually blamed for being misogynist. Also Siri Derkert (1888-1973), who gave him credit for liberating women from the bourgeoise cage, used his works for inspiration. She also made a few portraits of him, one is part of her public work Kvinnopelaren [The female pillar], 1958, at one of the platforms of the Central Station of the Stockholm Underground. The image below is borrowed from Instagram - and you can see part of Derkert's art work in this short film on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwXNTKlGB1w

It is quite clear that misogynist are not safe from feminists!

Summer is here and soon my summer vacation will kick in. Besides fighting off mosquitos, reading a lot of novels and watching my sweetheart barbecuing our dinner I will visit some art exhibitions, and I really look forward to whats on at Havremagasinet in Boden (Norrbotten county). Havremagasinet is one of my must do:s of the summer because they always have fantastic exhibitions of international, national and local artists. Find out more here: http://english.havremagasinet.se

Have a great summer (if you are on the northern hemisphere)!

During the weekend a new exhibition opened at Kvinnohistoriskt Museum in Umeå - or more precisely - an art installation. It is called About: Blank Pages, made by EvaMarie Lindahl and Ditte Ejlerskov, and it all began when they realised that women artist were almost totally absent from the well known Taschen's Basic Art Series. Currently the series covers 92 men and 5 women, missing out world famous artists such as Cindy Sherman, Yoko Ono, Jenny Holtzer, and Louise Bourgeois. They contacted Taschen and adressed the problem and gave them a list of 100 names for future issues, but from what I understand they are still waiting for an answer. You can find more information here: http://www.kvinnohistoriskt.se/4.1ba1eb9814afeb38cc9c733.html

So why is this important in 2015 when everybody knows there are famous women artists in Western art history? Because we always tend to find it necessary to rediscover women artists. Why? Because they never make it into the general surveys, the history books or the great exhibitions — oh, sometimes they do, I know, especially when presented in solo exhibitions that illustrates a lifetime achievement (like the Louise Bourgeois-exhibiton I mentioned in an earlier post). But still these events do not seem enough to make women artists part of the canon of art history. When National Gallery in London had a big exhibition on the Impressionists earlier this spring, they kind of forgot to include the women — oops! — and this was brilliantly commented by art historian Griselda Pollock. You can find her article here: https://theconversation.com/the-national-gallery-is-erasing-women-from-the-history-of-art-42505

Another example of continuing rediscovering and rewriting is Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-c.1656) who's Allegory of Painting (1638-39) you can see below. One of the first publications presenting her for a wider audience is art historian Anna Banti's novel Artemisia (1947). Then, more that 30 years later, art historian Mary D. Garrard started publishing studies presenting the artist in late 1980s before the biography Artemisia Gentileschi, with a catalogue of all her known works, was published in 1991. A touring exhibition including works of her father Orazio Gentileschi made ground for new publications discovering Gentileschi during 2001-2004 (often comparing her with her father), and this was also when Susan Vreeland wrote her novel, The Passion of Artemisia (however, I suggest you read Banti). And so it continues with new discoveries and new editions of former publications. I do think Gentileschi is quite well known today even if  there is a tendency to invent her story again and again. She is still often excluded in books and exhibitions on Italian Baroque art — and, of course, Taschen have not included her in their Basic Art Series.

"Digital Navigations, Storytelling and Accessible Art History" was the titel of the paper I presented at Nordik 2015 in Reykjavik two weeks ago. To cut it short I talked on "Why do my students not Google enough?". Generally students seems to have low digital literacy. They do look for texts (Wikipedia, exhibition presentations etc.) as a way to find "real" answers to my questions (and perhaps in hope of not having to read textbooks), but they don't seem to search for reproductions of art works or interact with digitised art collections. I foolishly thought they were more skilled than me, but it can be quite challenging to find things if you don't know how to navigate in different digitised environments. One problem is that museums tend to have their own logic archiving collections and this often organises how the collections gets digitised. So now I am planning new assignments that will help future students explore the Internet for art treasures.

This is the abstract:

Digital navigations, storytelling and accessible art history

Digital art collections have improved dramatically in the past decades. Attempts are made to extend existing collections and interaction with on-line visitors is encouraged by making galleries, tagging images with information outside established art terminology that enables new ways of searching etc. There are also other forums for discussing and exposing art: digital archives like Google Art Project, and archives for digitally born artworks like deviantArt. These digital places attract “nerds”, who both interact and engage themselves in the communities. Unfortunately students often are not part of these interactions. In order to make art students use digital art archives better, more research is to be done on the various tools of interaction and the meaning-makings of art blogs, twitter accounts and Facebook-groups etc. This could make the discipline of art history more relevant to social developments by developing new critical methods and educate new kinds of curators and art critics.

Last week I was at Nordik 2015, an art historical conference arranged every third year. This time we had the great fortune of visiting Reykjavik and Iceland. The conference ended with an excursion to "art and nature", and the photos included in this post is from this four hour long trip. More specifically it is from our first stop at Kópavogur Art Museum dedicated to the sculptor and stained glass artist Gerdur Helgadóttir (1928-1975). 

Though the window you can see the church with on of her more famous stained glass windows. Sadly, it was closed on our visit but we could see some of her drawings of it in the exhibition, Birting (Illumination), also including eight contemporary artists inspired of Helgadòttirs work. You can find more on the museum and the exhibition here: http://english.gerdarsafn.is

I will give you more information on the content of the conference, as well as my paper presentation, in coming posts - promise!