The aim of this essay is to debate the narrow contextualization of the works of Swedish artist Maria Friberg, in which she is interpreted as a female, feminist artist engaged in masculinity studies. Art reviews and exhibition catalogues regarding a great part of Friberg’s work have formed the core body of information in this study, selecting the more recent works entitled Still lives (2003- ) as the main focus. These show a change in Friberg’s artistic expression.

Subjects concerning group belonging, identity and existential questions have always been present in Maria Friberg’s art, but they are more clearly expressed in her latest works. Art critics have acknowledged the change of motifs in Still lives as a negative development and have expressed disappointment in the absence of Friberg’s renown portrayals of men in business suits. This attire and the gendered motif man have ascribed Friberg to an agenda surrounding masculinity and feminism, leaving little room for other interpretations.

The subordinate aim of the study is to suggest alternative readings of Friberg’s art in general and of the Still lives-series in particular. The great majority of art critics are accentuating Friberg’s interest in men, overlooking reasons for her supposed fascination of them. This creates a need for further examination of the depths of Friberg’s photographs. Hence, the last chapter presents a theory of the artists’ use of men as carriers of non-gender related meanings in which the human being is a small part of the impressive machinery composed of nature, culture and the industrialised world which absolutely devours humans.