Modernautställningen 2010 Moderna Museet Stockholm. by craniv boyd

Modernautställningen 2010 Moderna Museet Stockholm.

There is a sound it is loud and confrontational, it is clearly noise and very disorienting. The noise is coming from black speakers attached to columns under the awning at the entrance of the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the noise cannot simply be random but must be art, art participating in the Moderna Exhibition this fall.

 

This is the second time the Moderna exhibition is taking place. It is a Swedish exhibition about the Swedish art scene. Its intention to take recent developments in the galleries and present the art works and artists who are active in the Swedish scene to a larger public, the public of  a major national modern museum, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

 

The show is a presentation of the works of over two dozen artists of either Swedish decent or active in Sweden. And is occupies the halls and white cube of the Moderna.

 

All works are presented in the best capacity the best lighting the best hanging the best spacing, one wall one artist, roughly three artists per room.  A healthy diverse mix of art beyond art movements, token pieces of minimalism, abstract expressionism, video work, new media installations, interactive sculpture, cartoon painting, and of course political with relational aesthetic execution. It makes for very heady fare, and indicates dominant trend of the art world today is not to have a dominant trend.

 

I see a brushy painting of something that looks like a chocolate bar and i remember it. I turn to the catalogue of the exhibition and the description of the Artist reads „Victor Kopp paints chocolate." Nice and simple.

 

I see a political looking installation work in the hallway and i turn to the catalogue and it says "Fia Backtröm´s art oscillates between different discourses  relating to politics, authorship and the capacity of images to generate meaning." That's kind of simple too.

 

I take a walk into a box like structure that looks like a small Stockholm apartment and I turn to the catalogue and it says „All Axel Lieber´s works originate in ordinary objects such as cardboard boxes, clothes or furniture." Perhaps that is simple as well.

 

An Israeli new media artist once told me art that people could understand quickly without having to see in person first became successful. Works that people could understand quickly. I find that many of the works in the Moderna exhibition could be described in one sentence. Artist x paints y. or Artist w´s work straddles the discourse of x,y and z.

 

Is the art in this show there because the artists are making works that are easy to label? In turn are the viewers and public able to understand the work without really seeing it? That is hard to say.

 

The show feels dry, and very few pieces stand out. Should art be simple and convenient like shopping for the genre of pop music you like in a shopping mall or should it be a sublime uncomfortable experience one that evokes a kind of panic or fear? by craniv boyd ©