Swedish contemporary art is presented in a large scale in by Moderna Museet every fourth year. Modernautställningen 2010, The Moderna Exhibition 2010, caused a lot of debate in Sweden. The edition shows 54 artists. 28 women and 26 men. The exhibition is accused of being too dry, academic and non-provoking. I found a lot of works with sublime, intimate and intrinsic power, not so grandiose in expression, but nevertheless thought-provoking. It takes courage to let the exhibition be so introvert and unobtrusive in parts. There are some great works. At the same time the totality of the exhibition makes you wonder why it is so very quiet in here when the world outside is burning in civil wars, terrorism, natural disasters and death in a never-ending news feed.

Some of the works have been seen earlier in art galleries in other parts of Sweden, which is not a big deal, since few people take their time to travel to exhibitions outside Stockholm.

In the magnificent installation by Kajsa Dahlberg stories are told, re-told and re-interpreted. Kajsa Dahlberg borrowed every available copy of Virginia Woolf’s classic “A room of one’s own” from libraries all over Sweden. (Published 1929, the Swedish version 1958). She took care of the underlining and comments by readers from the fifties and onwards by copying and transcribing all the writings into a new version. “A room of one’s own. One Thousand Libraries” is the title of her installation where she shares her artists’ book with us. We can read personal notes and preferences on what’s important for the anonymous writers, sometimes incomprehensible for anybody else than the writer, but still open up for other interpretations from several decades.

More stories are heard in the film installation “Sound Machine” by Esther Shalev-Gerz. Memories of a specific sound. Memories of the textile workers in Norrköping, from a factory which do not exist today. The mothers who worked there - and their daughters. Two women at a time, side by side, and face to face with us, share their history. Do the two generations of women remember the repetitive sound of the machines in the factory? Their daughters were still unborn when the factory was up running, waiting in their mothers’ wombs.

There is silence.

We can’t hear the machines.

Only the memory is heard.

To take part of the long horseback-trip through Sweden can be done over and over again. The film-installation “My country (Somewhere in Sweden)” by Ann-Sofi Sidén is a versatile, slow-motion story, describing the winding countryside. It is already a classic film-installation - but feels like a melancholic song.

You can climb up on the small Gibraltar-mountain made by Goldin + Senneby. Am I the monkey on top and being looked upon by other visitors, or have I shrunk to be a figure in a model railway landscape?  Am I suddenly a part of the installation? I read from their book “Looking for Headless”, which is a part of their semi-fiction story about a mysterious off-shore company and a secret society. Dr. Angus Cameron from Leicester's University at the Geography Department is their spokesperson since they never appear in the spotlights themselves.

2010 Cameron held a speech about the author Georges Bataille at London Zoo, where the cliff of Gibraltar stands model for the monkey-mountain. Bataille wrote about various subjects, for instance philosophy, and some texts were published under pseudonym. He founded a society called more or less “Headless” talking about his interest in human sacrifice. Sounds complicated? Do you have to know the entire story? What if you don’t want to spend hours to read the book sitting on the mountain? Then, think of how the work opens up for new stories, plots and fantasies of your own.

Was the speech a decoy declamation?

Disturbance?

Disappearance.

Dissolving.

To be continued…

“Arena” is an installation by Leif Holmstrand. He has arranged chairs with fabric seats to stand in two opposite straight lines, in order.

The table is missing.

Something is growing out of them.

Parts of clothes.

Textile outgrowths.

Interior design is transforming.

People and their furniture is becoming one.

People have disappeared, only their style is left.

Is the yarn connecting something? Does it draw the furniture closer to one another or create chaos?

Bringing objects to life?

All things will survive us.

The installation is accompanied by the text”But voices” and a performance.

The furniture is waiting for something to happen.

The stage is set.

How to upholster a chair with life?

There is more. Christine Ödlund and Leif Elggren share a special room…and…

For the next edition I have a wish-list and a dream. It would be great if the artists will be given time (and money) to produce brand new works.