Fotografiska in the Rain and Meatballs for the People

Tuesday October 3 was a cool, rainy day with a high of only 13C.  It was the first very rainy day we have had since the afternoon of our first full day in Oslo.  

We started the day by getting some cardamon buns at Lillebrors bageri, the excellent bakery not too far from our apartment.

So good and freshly made

Making the pastries- beautiful, clean bakery

We took the Metro to Södermalm (where we had visited the City Museum) and then walked to Fotografiska, the Swedish Museum of Photography.  Fotografiska is housed in a massive (5500 sq m) industrial art-nouveau brick structure designed by Ferdinand Boberg (1860-1946) and built in 1906.  It was originally a customs hall and underwent a 250kr million renovation to transform the interior for the museum before opening in 2010.  The museum does not have a permanent collection, but instead features a large number of temporary exhibits throughout the year.

Outside of Forografiska

The five exhibits currently showing

The first was an exhibit of the influential fashion photographer, Peter Lindbergh (1944-2019).  Entitled: Lightness of Being, it featured over 100 works by Lindbergh and was the first major exhibit of his work in Sweden.  Peter Lindbergh grew up in Germany before moving to Paris to pursue a photographic career.  Originally trained in fine arts, he turned to photography in the late 1970s and developed his own unique aesthetics.  He was a master of black and white photography.  The exhibit is a collaboration with the Peter Lindbergh Foundation, led by the photographer's son, Benjamin Lindbergh.

Milla Jovovich Poster from the exhibit

Natalia Vodianova, Maharashtra Beach, India, 2003

Lindbergh became very well known for portraying women truthfully-without artifice or superficial filter.

Kate Moss, 1994

There were a number of cabinets with his negatives and notes.  Choosing the right shot was important.

On the eve of the new decade, British Vogue's editor-in-chief, Liz Tilberis, commissioned Lindbergh to capture the idea of the face of the 1990s.  For the now emblematic January 1990 cover, the photographer chose not one, but five young models to represent the women of a new era.  The five models were depicted as a group comprised of diverse personalities, confidently facing the viewer.  This image launched the Supermodels phenomenon.  Shortly after seeing the issue, singer George Michael hired the same group of five to star in the video of his upcoming single Freedom! '90, spurring the Supermodels movement into global popular culture.

The negative sheet

The chosen shot

Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford,
New York, 1989

Cate Blanchett, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, 2003

Lindbergh wanted to: "move away from the rather formal, quite perfectly styled woman who was very artificial.  I was more concerned about a more outspoke, adventurous woman in control of her life and not too mindful about her social status or emancipated by masculine protection".  

In January 1988, challenged by Alexander Libermann, then American Vogue Editorial Director, to showcase his vision of femininity, Lindbergh took a group of models to the beach at Santa Monica.  He had specifically asked fashion editor Carlyne Nerf de Dudzeele to bring only white shirts, a "blank" garment not linked to trends and commonly associated with masculine business wear, that soon become one of Lindbergh's signatures.  Hair is undone, and clothes wrinkled.  While Libermann discarded the images, Anna Wintour commissioned Lindbergh a few months later, upon discovering the shelved "White Shirts" story, to photograph her November 1988 inaugural cover as Vogue's editor-in-chief with Michaela Bercu wearing haute couture mixed with regular denim jeans. 

Estelle Lefébure, Karen Alexander, Rachel Williams, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz and Christy Turlington, Santa Monica, California, 1988

Peter Lindbergh often created a group of images as a story.  The group of six images below all belong to the same story titled The Heist, conceived for Italian Vogue in 2015.  It became one of his personal favourites.  He often prepared his sessions by sketching frames on paper and adding detailed notes.  His approach was like a movie director.  Lindbergh was deeply influenced by cinema.

The Heist, Brooklyn, 2015

Sasha Pivovarova, Steffy Argelich, Kristen Owen and Guinevere van Seemus, Brooklyn, 2015

Linda Evanlgelista, Brooklyn, 1990

Kate Moss, Paris, 2014

Peter Lindbergh often said that had he grown up in another place, his vision and aesthetic would have been completely different.  His homeland in Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia region, was an industrial and foggy land with lots of metal and factories.  He said: "Ruhr is an incredible graphic school".

Michaela Bercu, Linda Evangelista & Kristen Owen, Pont-à- Mousson, France, 1988

Angelina Jolie, London, 2015

At the turn of the millennium, Lindbergh was determined to go back to storytelling by depicting concepts that fascinated him.

Milla Jovovich, Los Angeles, 2000; Fred Ward and Guinevere Van Seemus, El Mirage, California 2000 (left side); Amber Valletta, Paramount Studios, Hollywood,1999; Ron Devon, Karen Elson, Sheridan Tyler & Willie Herath, Los Angeles, 2000 (right side)

It was an excellent exhibit, and very timely given the recent release of the four part series The Super Models (about the careers of Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington  on Apple TV.

The second exhibit focussed on the work of AdeY, whose identity is unknown.  No one really knows who AdeY is.  The Swedish-British artist's real name, age and place of residence are still unknown.  AdeY left a career as a professional dancer, something evident in the photographs which combine photography, choreography and performance.  The exhibit is entitled Uncensored and AdeY is the second artist in Fotografiska's Emerging Artists initiative.  

The exhibition began to take shape in 2015-2016, when AdeY was struck by the sexualization of bodies in advertising images.  AdeY wanted to show the body just as "only" a body, without reducing it into a sexualised symbol.  The works study subjects such as the human body's balance, strength and physics.  The images in the exhibit are playful and experimental.

Battle of the Exes, Sweden, 2017

Testing the Waters, Sweden, 2016

You to Me, Australia 2019

The third exhibit was entitled: Erik Johansson, The Echo Chamber.  Erik Johansson is an acclaimed Swedish-born artist based in Prague, who creates images by combining photographic elements and other materials into surrealistic scenes.  In this exhibit, he explores such phenomena as filter bubbles and echo chambers.  In one of the works, echo chambers are examined: the phenomena that occurs when a group of similarly minded individuals only share information and ideas with each other and in this way amplify their own opinions instead of taking in new perspectives.  The second work highlights filter bubbles, both those created by social media and algorithms and those created by ourselves. 

Filter Bubbles, 2023

In front of the bubbles

The Echo Chamber

Model- part of the exhibit

Part of the Echo Chamber exhibit in a separate room

The fourth exhibit we saw was Bruno Ehrs (1953) & Tom Wolgers (1959-2020): Stockholm-Pieces of a City.  In the 1980s, photographer Bruno Ehrs joined forces with musician Tom Wolgers in Stockholm.  Together they headed out into the sleeping city's early mornings, where Ehrs photographed and Wolgers recorded the urban soundscape.  Their work resulted in two exhibitions and just over 30 years later, these works are being combined.  There are 52 curated photographs by Ehrs and 23 musical tracks by Wolgers.

Sturebadet, July 19, 1986

Klara Östra kyrkogata, August 28, 1985

Unknown, in the park of Centralbadet, 1982

Per, bank clerk. Sergelarkaden, 1982

Madeleine, stage manager, Drottninggatan 86, 1982

The final exhibit was The Fury, an exhibition of new works by Shirin Neshat (b. 1957).  The exhibit includes a double-channel video installation and a series of black and white photographs with hand-inscribed calligraphy of poems by Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad (1934-1967).  The works continue Neshat's art practice that focusses on the female body as both a battleground for ideology and a source of strength.

Shirin Neshat is an Iranian-born artist and filmmaker living in New York

 The video installation addresses the sexual exploitation of females prisoners.  It was very powerful.

All photographs are from The Fury series, 2023. 

After the wonderful exhibits, we went for a bite to eat in the wonderful Fotografsika bistro on the top floor.  The bistro serves sustainable, vegetable-focused fare along with fantastic views across the water looking towards Stockholm's Old Town. 

Fabulous design- we sat at the bar facing the window with a fabulous view

Fabulous panoramic view from our window-facing bar seats (too bad it was grey and pouring rain)

A plate of delicious Brussel sprouts with xo sauce, celeriac confit, and chilli and puffed buckwheat

A poster of Lindbergh's photo of Mick Jagger, London, 1995

We saw five excellent exhibits.  All different, but wonderfully displayed in the Fotografiska building.

We walked in the pouring rain for an early dinner at Meatballs for the People, which has built its entire menu around the famous Swedish meatballs.  The restaurant, which opened in 2013,  is also on Södermalm island.  It offers at least 14 different kinds of meatballs made of ingredients such as reindeer, boar, lamb, beef and there is even a vegan meatball.   Meatballs for the People served a lactose-free version of the mashed potatoes and they have carefully-sourced organic ingredients.

Buzzy resto-- we sat at the bar (the coloured plaques on the wall showed the different types of meatballs)

The restaurant has a cookbook.  

Preparing the meatballs

Another view of the restaurant

Plating the classic meal

We both had the Classic Swedish plate, which had six meatballs, mashed potatoes with creamy veal gravy, pickled cucumber and preserved lingonberries.  We both had a glass of Wisby Lager (Swedish).  One chose the type of meatball one wanted.  I had boar and Allan had veal.

                                                              Classic Meatballs for us -yum! 

It was a very tasty dinner.  We weren't too far from a Metro stop and we headed back to the apartment and out of the rain.  We heard most of the disastrous Blue Jays loss to the Twins.

Wednesday October 4 is our last full day in Stockholm. Luckily sun is in the forecast.  We fly to London on October 5 and will be there for a week.  Stay tuned....