A description of an artist’s career in the last hundred years has often taken two different directions: either it is a movement away from the center towards the periphery, or the opposite, a person makes way through his or her creative activity towards the centre and away from being an outsider. Both cases deal with the fact that on the borders of the periphery, or even right outside of it, there is that Galilean point of view from which you can, if not move the entire world, then at least budge it a little bit.
Marie-Louise Ekman has scattered fragments of her life’s story around her over the years. Pieces of it has surfaced as a result of her being a summer host on Swedish national radio; most recently this summer. A few years ago she was invited to hold a formal speech at the annual gathering of the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts. The account she gave of her life - a chaotic upbringing, rebellious youth and a headstrong artistry, leading up to the post as head of The Royal University College of Fine Arts and a member of the Swedish Academy - was quite different from what is usually included in the agenda on such occasions. The most remarkable thing about her story was the objective manner she told it in. There was not an inch of self pity or pleading for help and protection. On the podium stood a person telling us of a life ruled by completely different laws than what is considered normative and common in the center. The remarkable lied in her way of telling; the bizarre and tragic parts seemed completely normal. The same goes for her art - whether painted, written or filmed - it does not matter. The unreasonable seems completely normal.
One can ask whether this objective relationship with the surroundings allowed any space for revolting. A revolution is a romantic action, self centered and rejective. The young lady from 1971, sitting in a dodgy toilette with her pants down by the ankles, reading “Aftonsnabeln” is busy trying to get in to that other world and figuring out what makes it go around. Glimpses of the ordinary and normal printed in “Aftonsnabeln” must have seemed very strange and freaky to her, which is also the way she presented it in her painting during the following years.
One way of dealing with the lack of logic circumstances and some sort of underlying sense of reason is to erase the borders between humans and animals. The humans act as animals and the animals act as humans. Zoophilia is common in this sexually completely inhibited painting, which in turn helps erasing the borders. Never is this more evident than in the painting Striptease from 1973: the prudent lady with her hand bag and hat is not quite finished even when she is completely naked - the strip tease goes on to reveal first a monkey, then a well-hung man and at last a white bird flying away in the second last frame, leaving an empty blue sky. The story could have ended there: Exit Marie-Louise Fuchs De Geer Bergenstråhle Ekman, disappearing away in to the blue infinity, carried by her own wings.
But that solution would have been far too simple. She actually remained in front of the easel holding the brush, autocratically giving herself the role of the artist. A role that must be explored and go through an art determination. With a child’s unaffected curiosity and irreverence she sat out on a journey to different artists who fascinated her. Those to whom she paid a visit were amongst others Dalí, Mondrian, Picasso, Leonardo and Olle Baertling, the latter of which reaction I have a personal recollection from. With his fondness of beautiful girls on one hand and his absolutistic ambition within his own painting on the other hand, he got himself into an unsolvable conflict of interests which shuck him by his very foundations. He hesitated for a long time before going to the gallery to see the paintings in which he was apostrophized.
Olle Baertling’s fears should have been unfounded since Marie-Louise Ekman never saw herself as the little child in the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’. She was far too busy trying to understand these other outsiders. She had embarked on a long and winding journey where she little by little began to realize that the feeling of being left out and isolated was quite common and that the ordinary itself could just as well be a form of isolation. She soon saw the possibilities of that.
In her radio program this summer she talked about the poems she wrote and published in the tabloids a few years ago, implying that she took possession of people she knew and turned them into her property. This was both a candid and ruthless description of one of the aspect of being an artist. She mentioned not of people getting hurt but of those coming to her, wanting to be owned. There is a concordance between the images of the artistries and these poems, and in both cases the objectivity is spiced with both tenderness and humor, preventing any violation. Olle Baertling up in his heaven can remain calm.
In the current exhibition there is a new large painting that can be read as a résumé of most of what she has done and told us about. The image is divided into three different horizontal fields. In the first one we are at home with the lonely woman, whose role has been that of the protagonist from the very beginning. She lives in everyday chaos in shades of pink and light blue and where body secretes come from furniture and the interiors. Solitude and fear seem to be her lot in life, as she stands between the bed and the dressing table, like another Edvard Munch. The middle field belongs to the father. It is more peaceful, he is no longer falling down the alcohol, as you say in Eklöfish, and he has found the terminal black hole at a cemetery. The third field belongs to the artist herself, where the struggle continues. The shadows of the past refuse to let go and the empty canvas on the easel is waiting for reports from the long journey towards the centre of normality. A centre which Marie-Louise Ekman is more and more aware that it does not exist.
Even in her latest painting, the message is that the world is not to be trusted. Things refuse to behave the way they should, in other words continue to be just things. Lamps and door cases suddenly get trunk-like excrescences that bleed and make obscene gestures. The ordinary is sabotaged by repetition, harmless enough when a lamp or an armchair becomes three, but when the constant female protagonist gets two or even eight heads - things become more serious. The woman’s face is repeated thirty one times without features, only with a bleeding wound, bandage and sutures. It is not until the thirty second version that it has eyes, a nose and a mouth. Fragments of bodies are lined up in a serial manner on the canvases, sometimes like shadows, as in the bottom field in the big painting. The entirety can be understood by looking at the parts, but even the fragments can turn away like a shadow against a wall in a cave. There is reconciliation in the humor but it can’t make the worrying go away. Marie-Louise gravitates towards a centre she knows does not exist. There are just more and more fragments and more and more repetition. It is not difficult to understand this as years and experiences are added one after the other. Someone said that Hell is repetition and that it is never far away. It must be a liberation being able to catch this hell of everyday on the canvas and then move on with a wink at the world.
If someone would have said thirty seven years ago, that the girl on the toilette trying to find her way in the world with the help of ”Aftonsnabeln”, that she one day would become a professor, head of the Royal University College of Fine Arts, and the artistic director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre, that person would probably have earned the disbelief of his surroundings. The lesson here is that it is not always necessary to stare into the eyes of the hydra, as things can go according to the myth; you get paralyzed. Holding a (laughing)-mirror between oneself and that terrifying gaze gives you more space for the seriousness within. Few have handled that mirror with greater wisdom than Marie-Louise Ekman.
Olle Granath
Marie-Louise Ekman has scattered fragments of her life’s story around her over the years. Pieces of it has surfaced as a result of her being a summer host on Swedish national radio; most recently this summer. A few years ago she was invited to hold a formal speech at the annual gathering of the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts. The account she gave of her life - a chaotic upbringing, rebellious youth and a headstrong artistry, leading up to the post as head of The Royal University College of Fine Arts and a member of the Swedish Academy - was quite different from what is usually included in the agenda on such occasions. The most remarkable thing about her story was the objective manner she told it in. There was not an inch of self pity or pleading for help and protection. On the podium stood a person telling us of a life ruled by completely different laws than what is considered normative and common in the center. The remarkable lied in her way of telling; the bizarre and tragic parts seemed completely normal. The same goes for her art - whether painted, written or filmed - it does not matter. The unreasonable seems completely normal.
One can ask whether this objective relationship with the surroundings allowed any space for revolting. A revolution is a romantic action, self centered and rejective. The young lady from 1971, sitting in a dodgy toilette with her pants down by the ankles, reading “Aftonsnabeln” is busy trying to get in to that other world and figuring out what makes it go around. Glimpses of the ordinary and normal printed in “Aftonsnabeln” must have seemed very strange and freaky to her, which is also the way she presented it in her painting during the following years.
One way of dealing with the lack of logic circumstances and some sort of underlying sense of reason is to erase the borders between humans and animals. The humans act as animals and the animals act as humans. Zoophilia is common in this sexually completely inhibited painting, which in turn helps erasing the borders. Never is this more evident than in the painting Striptease from 1973: the prudent lady with her hand bag and hat is not quite finished even when she is completely naked - the strip tease goes on to reveal first a monkey, then a well-hung man and at last a white bird flying away in the second last frame, leaving an empty blue sky. The story could have ended there: Exit Marie-Louise Fuchs De Geer Bergenstråhle Ekman, disappearing away in to the blue infinity, carried by her own wings.
But that solution would have been far too simple. She actually remained in front of the easel holding the brush, autocratically giving herself the role of the artist. A role that must be explored and go through an art determination. With a child’s unaffected curiosity and irreverence she sat out on a journey to different artists who fascinated her. Those to whom she paid a visit were amongst others Dalí, Mondrian, Picasso, Leonardo and Olle Baertling, the latter of which reaction I have a personal recollection from. With his fondness of beautiful girls on one hand and his absolutistic ambition within his own painting on the other hand, he got himself into an unsolvable conflict of interests which shuck him by his very foundations. He hesitated for a long time before going to the gallery to see the paintings in which he was apostrophized.
Olle Baertling’s fears should have been unfounded since Marie-Louise Ekman never saw herself as the little child in the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’. She was far too busy trying to understand these other outsiders. She had embarked on a long and winding journey where she little by little began to realize that the feeling of being left out and isolated was quite common and that the ordinary itself could just as well be a form of isolation. She soon saw the possibilities of that.
In her radio program this summer she talked about the poems she wrote and published in the tabloids a few years ago, implying that she took possession of people she knew and turned them into her property. This was both a candid and ruthless description of one of the aspect of being an artist. She mentioned not of people getting hurt but of those coming to her, wanting to be owned. There is a concordance between the images of the artistries and these poems, and in both cases the objectivity is spiced with both tenderness and humor, preventing any violation. Olle Baertling up in his heaven can remain calm.
In the current exhibition there is a new large painting that can be read as a résumé of most of what she has done and told us about. The image is divided into three different horizontal fields. In the first one we are at home with the lonely woman, whose role has been that of the protagonist from the very beginning. She lives in everyday chaos in shades of pink and light blue and where body secretes come from furniture and the interiors. Solitude and fear seem to be her lot in life, as she stands between the bed and the dressing table, like another Edvard Munch. The middle field belongs to the father. It is more peaceful, he is no longer falling down the alcohol, as you say in Eklöfish, and he has found the terminal black hole at a cemetery. The third field belongs to the artist herself, where the struggle continues. The shadows of the past refuse to let go and the empty canvas on the easel is waiting for reports from the long journey towards the centre of normality. A centre which Marie-Louise Ekman is more and more aware that it does not exist.
Even in her latest painting, the message is that the world is not to be trusted. Things refuse to behave the way they should, in other words continue to be just things. Lamps and door cases suddenly get trunk-like excrescences that bleed and make obscene gestures. The ordinary is sabotaged by repetition, harmless enough when a lamp or an armchair becomes three, but when the constant female protagonist gets two or even eight heads - things become more serious. The woman’s face is repeated thirty one times without features, only with a bleeding wound, bandage and sutures. It is not until the thirty second version that it has eyes, a nose and a mouth. Fragments of bodies are lined up in a serial manner on the canvases, sometimes like shadows, as in the bottom field in the big painting. The entirety can be understood by looking at the parts, but even the fragments can turn away like a shadow against a wall in a cave. There is reconciliation in the humor but it can’t make the worrying go away. Marie-Louise gravitates towards a centre she knows does not exist. There are just more and more fragments and more and more repetition. It is not difficult to understand this as years and experiences are added one after the other. Someone said that Hell is repetition and that it is never far away. It must be a liberation being able to catch this hell of everyday on the canvas and then move on with a wink at the world.
If someone would have said thirty seven years ago, that the girl on the toilette trying to find her way in the world with the help of ”Aftonsnabeln”, that she one day would become a professor, head of the Royal University College of Fine Arts, and the artistic director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre, that person would probably have earned the disbelief of his surroundings. The lesson here is that it is not always necessary to stare into the eyes of the hydra, as things can go according to the myth; you get paralyzed. Holding a (laughing)-mirror between oneself and that terrifying gaze gives you more space for the seriousness within. Few have handled that mirror with greater wisdom than Marie-Louise Ekman.
Olle Granath