A building from the 1970s in Norrköping houses SMHI, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. Here the Public Art Agency Sweden’s art consultant Hanna Stahle has created a collection in which the works are linked to the organisation with a distinct theme: weather, water and climate. Sculptures, photography and paintings on the topic created by contemporary Swedish artists meet their audience in their daily lives.
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Image 1 of 9.
Bigert & Bergström, In Memory of a Melted Mountain, Kebnekaise, 2097.5 m, measured on 27 Aug, 2014, (2016).
Image 2 of 9.
Johan, Paalzow, Vågen (2019).
Image 3 of 9.
Tonje Bøe Birkeland, Baga Gazryn Chulun 1929 (2012), Yolun Am 1929, (2012).
Image 4 of 9.
Hanna Kanto, Binoculars 2016
Image 5 of 9.
Tommy Strömberg, Ingenting blev sig mera likt 1 (2017)
Image 6 of 9.
Linda Hofvander, Spheres, Box (2011)
Image 7 of 9.
Lennart Alves, Time – Interval and Variation
Image 8 of 9.
Lennart Alves, Time – Interval and Variation
Image 9 of 9.
Anders Cederholm, ACM 170111 2017
Image 1 of 9. Bigert & Bergström, In Memory of a Melted Mountain, Kebnekaise, 2097.5 m, measured on 27 Aug, 2014, (2016).
Image 2 of 9. Johan, Paalzow, Vågen (2019).
Image 3 of 9. Tonje Bøe Birkeland, Baga Gazryn Chulun 1929 (2012), Yolun Am 1929, (2012).
Image 4 of 9. Hanna Kanto, Binoculars 2016
Image 5 of 9. Tommy Strömberg, Ingenting blev sig mera likt 1 (2017)
Image 6 of 9. Linda Hofvander, Spheres, Box (2011)
Image 7 of 9. Lennart Alves, Time – Interval and Variation
Image 8 of 9. Lennart Alves, Time – Interval and Variation
Image 9 of 9. Anders Cederholm, ACM 170111 2017
When a large entrance hall was recently added, a new art collection for the authority was commissioned.
The artist duo Bigert & Bergström’s sculpture In Memory of a Melted Mountain representing Kebnekaise’s peak awaits us in the new lobby. The sculpture is from 2016 and made of mirror-polished stainless steel. The artists themselves describe how during the summer solstice in 2015 they carried out a rescue operation on Sweden’s highest mountain peak, Kebnekaise. The melting glacier was in critical condition, having diminished over the course of the past twenty years. Now only 70 centimetres separated the glacier of the south peak and the mountain of the north peak. The artists wrapped the thawing peak in a large gold-coloured rescue blanket made of greenhouse fabric. It was left there during the summer of 2015 and when the top was measured again at the end of the summer, it had grown by 30 centimetres. The effect was only temporary, however, as the glacier continued to diminish in the following summers. The sculpture was created in memory of the melted peak and has the same height, 70 centimetres, as the difference between the peaks in 2015.
Mats Bigert and Lars Bergström started their collaboration in 1986, during their student years at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. In everything from large-scale sculptures to video and performance works, they have portrayed some of the most burning social, environmental and climate issues of our time, often in a drastic mixture of humour and utmost gravity.
Contemporary Photography Meets the Visitors
Close to the lobby are meeting rooms and lecture halls where, amongst others, municipal employees come for training on climate issues. There is a lot of contemporary photography here. In Search of Wonderland by Ann Eringstam is a series with an uncannily real unreality depicting a dreamlike event. Ann Eringstam primarily works in a studio using models and props combined with environmental images shot in different places in the world. The images are then reworked, and artificial details like plastic flowers or stuffed animals are sometimes added. Recurring themes in this series are the cold as well as barren landscapes. Ann Eringstam was born in Växjö and obtained her master’s degree in photography from the University of Gothenburg in 2006.
Spheres Box by Linda Hovander consists of two photographs based on analogue photography. Linda Hofvander obtained her MFA from the School of Photography, University of Gothenburg and a BFA in photography from London College of Communication.
Another photographic series at SMHI is Hans Jörgen Johansen’s Some Kind of Bushes. At first glance, the photos appear to represent landscaped gardens, but the landscapes are made of mould. The process of creating each photograph can take between one and two months. Hans Jörgen Johansen creates patterns from organic materials such as flour, vegetables and other foodstuffs on a two-square-meter table, waters them and provides the right conditions for the mould to grow. He then captures the process using film and still images. Nothing is manipulated using editing software. What emerges can be compared to a landscape that often references Alvaret on Öland, where the artist grew up. Hans Jörgen Johansen was born in Borgholm and lives and works in Stockholm.
At SMHI there are also 24 photographs by Lennart Alves entitled Time – Interval and Variation. All the photographs show the same view and are taken one hour apart. What differentiates them is their exposure time. Lennart Alves lives in Åsenhöga outside Jönköping. He works as an artist and curator.
Paintings with Enigmatic Motifs
Binoculars is the title of Hanna Kanto’s painting, but what are we seeing? A polar expedition? A photographer with a studio backdrop? The figure is a little blurred and the painting retains its enigmatic quality even when we look closer. Hanna Kanto often depicts arctic environments and details. She was born in 1981 in Tornio and lives in Haparanda and Helsinki.
The indefinite is also present in Tommy Strömberg’s painting Ingenting blev sig mera likt [Nothing Was the Same Anymore]. From an austere building we look out into a barren landscape and see objects on an incomprehensible scale. Is there some small thing in the foreground or is it monumental architecture in the distance? And what kind of object is it? The landscape is timeless and without a definite geographical affiliation. Hanna Stahle says that Tommy Strömberg’s works are often loaded with riddles that arouse curiosity, like the opening scene from a film where the camera slides over the landscape until something happens. Tommy Strömberg lives in Stockholm. He trained at the Royal Institute of Art.
Hanna Stahle has created many collections for various authorities around the country and believes that art adds something unique and should be an identity-creating, thought-provoking and dynamic force. At SMHI, she has used weather, wind and climate as her starting point and prioritised the works that hang in the public parts of the premises.
Developing an art collection for a workplace is different from creating an exhibition. Unlike art audiences at an exhibition, visitors to a public authority often encounter the artworks repeatedly and also in their everyday lives.
“Usually, the first experience is not the same as encountering the work many times over a longer period. Some you get used to, and maybe don’t even see anymore, in the end. Others are only appreciated after many encounters. We engage with art in a variety of ways based on our different frames of reference, associations and memories. Not everyone will like everything, but most people will find something that interests them among the works”, says Hanna Stahle.
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