This study examines the work of art in the underground station Kungsträdgården in Stockholm and discusses the observers interpretation of the art in the station. When the artist Ulrik Samuelson got his commission to shape the station he was influenced by Marcel Duchamp and the concept art. Two themes were integrated in the work of art, the actual culture life and the palace called Makalös, which was situated just above the currant station, three hundred years ago. The station was built in two stages.

The first part was opened in 1977 and the second part in 1987. Panofsky´s iconographic working method has been used in this essay. Accurate observations of the work of art and relevant literature studies are described in the study. Samuelson’s work has a lot of references to currant culture, social and political life of the time as well as so called ready-mades from Stockholm and artefacts from Makalös.

The observers understanding of the work of art is dependent on for example the observers age and knowledge. The parts that were present thirty years ago were known by people at that time but are hardly known by anybody nowadays. The modern young observers may not interpret every part of the numerous things and symbols although this will probably not prevent them to enjoy the work of art as a highly artistic production.

This essay explores how artwork in the public space can be analysed, conceptualized and described by bringing attention to site. Through an analysis of artworks in the yearly art exhibition of Fittja Open 2011, the essay draws attention to site-specific art and structures of power. The principal aim is to present not only the exhibition of Fittja Open 2011 but also other artwork in the public sphere in Fittja, a suburb to Stockholm. From this point of departure other interests evolve that concerns the "image" of Fittja. The analysis, based on research in art history, architecture, ethnology and philosophy as well as qualitative interviews, also focuses on understanding the role of site and the relations between art practice, institutions and site.

The result shows that there are problems with a ruptured interface between the artwork and site. The claim made throughout the thesis is that artwork in the public sphere of Fittja need to be sensitive to the conflicted issue of public space in order not to reproduce stereotypes. Despite the knowledge and insight about its local art situation, the study also points out certain insensibility on behalf of Botkyrka konsthall as regards social status and class.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the project Knitting House using art and architectural theories to question the forms of the project as well as the town planning in the area of Husby, a suburb to Stockholm. In order to stress the architectural issues in the area of Husby, the thesis examines the aim and intention of the project Knitting House. The project explores the standardized architectural form that was used and built under the Miljonprogrammet, through the years of 1960-1970 in the neighborhoods of Järvafältet. The thesis will also investigate some of the problems that arise when attempting to discuss knitting as a method used to perform Knitting House.

 This paper explores the relationships between public and private spaces, the areas in between them and how they interact. The claim made throughout the thesis is that Knitting House can function as a political catalyst by presenting a combined perspective of art, architecture and politics to address the social and ethnic segregation in suburbs like Husby. 

In this essay, an interdisciplinary group of researchers sets out to address the period 1780–1840 in Sweden in a new way, by placing nature at its centre. With the help of ecocritical and transcultural theory, combined with renewed attention to the Swedish fine arts, learned discourses, and practices, we suggest a new approach to these revolutionary decades. The perceived dissonance, the interplay between climatic conditions and cultural template in early modern and modern Sweden, has not been fully addressed in current research, despite the fact that the relationship between humankind and the environment is a central issue in contemporary society and scholarship. Representations of nature situate the nation, they negotiate the relationship between a sensed reality and an ideal, between human and more-than-human beings. We suggest a focus on the unpredictable space created by negotiations of nature in Swedish representations during this crucial period, and, furthermore, on the ways in which this creative space is charged with utopian possibilities in the early Anthropocene. This is the background and the driving force of the planned research project ‘Cool Nature: Utopian Landscapes in Sweden 1780–1840’. 

In my paper I adress the question of what happens in the relationship between the beholder, the artwork and the artist when they meet in the era of Web 2.0. The new smartphone based medium that I write about is Instagram. The artist i write about is the Swedish illustrator Jesper Waldersten. My purpose with this paper was to explore how the the beholder, pictures and artist relate to one another i relation to Instagram and how the interface of the smartphone and the app affect the beholder in these relationships. I also seek out to understand the difference between how Instagrams interface affect the beholder in comparison to the interface of the artists web page and his book. I use the method of qualitative empiricism to study Walderstens account. I do this study by counting number of pictures, comments, changes, descriptions and overall alterations over a set period of time. What I found out is that Instagram without a doubt is an important cornerstone of our Web 2.0 participatory-culture and that it have created a space in which we can behold art in a new kind of way. This is partly thanks to how the interface affects the picture and the beholder, but most of all because of how the different Instagram users affect each other.

This essay examines how the critical reception of French nouveaux réaliste-artist Raymond Hains 1961 exhibition La France déchirée has been articulated at two historically separate occasions.

In her 2010 book Nouveau Réalisme, 1960’s France and the Neo-avant-garde, art historian Jill Carrick examines the fundamental impact the founder of nouveau réalisme – French art critic and theorist Pierre Restany – has had on the movement’s historical reception. According to Carrick Restanys writing established an interpretive framework that remained more or less intact for several decades. In addition to a closer analysis of the movement’s critical reception during the 1960s’, Carrick provides a set of new, alternative readings of a number of nouveaux réaliste artworks, which all originates from a position outside of Restanys interpretive framework. However, at no occasion does Carrick show in what way, or to what extent, her theories about the movements reception history applies to artist Raymond Hains or his practise of décollage. Nor has the historical reception of La France déchirée been examined.

The overall purpose of this essay is to examine whether or not the nature of the critical reception of Raymond Hains 1961 exhibition La France déchirée can be said to fit into the image of the historical reception of nouveau réalisme provided by Carrick. This is done through an analysis of Restanys theorisation of nouveau réalism as provided in the movement’s manifestos. Thereafter follows an examination of in which way and to what extent the critical reception of La France déchirée at two historically separate moments relates to this theorisation. The critical reception of these two moments in time is also compared to each other.

An analysis of the exhibitions historical reception showed that Carrick’s theory of the movement’s reception history could not entirely account for the different aspects of La France déchirées critical reception. By introducing the exhibitions political context into the examination of its historical reception, a new and valuable perspective became clear. Unlike other nouveax réaliste-artworks, La France déchirée had a distinct political character, which situated its historical reception not only within a cultural context, but more importantly within a political one.

Samtidigt som das unheimliche tycks ha fått ett genombrott inom såväl det litteraturvetenskapliga som det filmvetenskapliga fältet har det förblivit ett marginaliserat område inom konstvetenskapen. Motiveringen till detta tycks vara att dess undanglidande natur gör det svårt att slå fast dess visuella uttryck samtidigt som upplevelsen är för nära knutet till det uppfattande subjektets personlig historia och psykologiska disposition för att tillskrivas någon allmän giltighet. Denna uppsats har ämnat undersöka om das unheimliche endast är en rent subjektiv upplevelse eller om det är en upplevelse som kan frammanas genom en estetisk kvalitet och ett estetiskt förfarande. Med utgångspunkt i två svenska konstnärers verk har syftet med denna studie varit att genom semiotisk analys undersöka om de kan sägas bidra till att skapa en unheimlich upplevelse genom en kombination av visuella tekniker.  

Resultaten visar att det är möjligt att koppla den kusliga upplevelsen tillbaka till visuella tekniker såsom kombinationen av separata och motstridiga bildspråk samt genom att introducera främmande element i en bekantgjord miljö. Dessa tekniker arbetar för att förlänga varseblivningen av bilden genom att de skapar en känsla av ovisshet inför det betraktade. Den kusliga upplevelsen kan alltså hävdas ha mindre att göra med personlig historia och psykologisk mottaglighet och mer att göra med socialt, kulturellt och historiskt delade referenser som ligger till grund för den upplevda krocken mellan det välkända och det främmande.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how work by Swedish artist Ylva Ogland (born in 1974) function as an eye-opener for the social marginalisation of people identified with homosexuality, prostitution and drug addiction. Although highly present in reality, these phenomena were historically, and are still today, hidden from view in public discourse. I have focused on the installations Rapture and Silence and Things Seen, and the still-life painting called Xenia. I argue that these artworks carefully represent the above-mentioned marginalised groups, by way of references to comparable motives in the history of art, from neoclassicism in France, to realism and romanticism.

The aim of this thesis is to expand the understanding of 16th century Flemish art by approaching paintings by artists Pieter Aertsen (1508-1575), Joachim Beuckelaer (1533-1574) and Pieter Bruegel (c. 1525-1569) from a different perspective. This is done by extending the discourse of art history, into a discourse of literary history and primarily 16th century novels by authors such as François Rabelais and Miguel de Cervantes. The paintings are studied in relation to these 16th century novels, by comparison and as a testament of this specific time period. A widening contextualization is also constructed in which a connection to the expression of the carnivals ambivalent form, as well as the notion of lower classes is explored.       These alternative readings utilize a theoretical basis in Michail Bachtin, Svetlana Alpers and Walter Gibson, among others. The thesis also sets out from a hermeneutic point of view as well as a critical analysis of the discourse of art history. The general understanding of these paintings, formed through the discourse of art history, is questioned and revaluated in the meeting and clash between art and literature. The thesis concludes that the ways these paintings have been viewed and understood, in studies of art history, have been too narrow to produce a full understanding of these diverse expressions of an equally diverse period in time. A foundation for a new conception of the renaissance is thereby formed; a conception that promotes further studies.The aim of this thesis is to expand the understanding of 16th century Flemish art by approaching paintings by artists Pieter Aertsen (1508-1575), Joachim Beuckelaer (1533-1574) and Pieter Bruegel (c. 1525-1569) from a different perspective. This is done by extending the discourse of art history, into a discourse of literary history and primarily 16th century novels by authors such as François Rabelais and Miguel de Cervantes. The paintings are studied in relation to these 16th century novels, by comparison and as a testament of this specific time period. A widening contextualization is also constructed in which a connection to the expression of the carnivals ambivalent form, as well as the notion of lower classes is explored.       These alternative readings utilize a theoretical basis in Michail Bachtin, Svetlana Alpers and Walter Gibson, among others. The thesis also sets out from a hermeneutic point of view as well as a critical analysis of the discourse of art history. The general understanding of these paintings, formed through the discourse of art history, is questioned and revaluated in the meeting and clash between art and literature. The thesis concludes that the ways these paintings have been viewed and understood, in studies of art history, have been too narrow to produce a full understanding of these diverse expressions of an equally diverse period in time. A foundation for a new conception of the renaissance is thereby formed; a conception that promotes further studies.

The focus of this essay is to investigate if there lies a difference between graffiti art that is placed in the public spaces and graffiti art that is sited in an institutional art setting; in this essay exemplified in a gallery space. My thesis is that graffiti art derives a great deal of its meaning and substance from its situation consequently making a change of cultural context also a change of connotation and understanding of the graffiti art itself.  Meaning that graffiti art situated in a communal space is different from graffiti art situated in the gallery space. They share aesthetic expression but their connotations differ; i.e. one being illegal and the other permissible making their meanings dissimilar. I have used a comparison between site-specific art and graffiti art to further strengthen my thesis concerning the importance of understanding how a change of context critically changes the substance of graffiti art.

The paper discusses the problems contemporary Swedish art criticism faces when judging performance art and interactive art. Problems include among others that performance art is collectively ignored in Swedish newspaper art criticism. This prevents art critics from fair contextualising of contemporary performance art. Down in the rabbit hole, performance by Tris Vonna-Michell and its reception exemplifies these problems. Performance and interactive art seems to be disturbing art critics. Works of art which demands the viewer to take active part in its realisation makes it hard – not to say impossible - to maintain an objective point of wiew. Objectivity has been a condition to be able to judge a work of art since Kant’s theories 1791. In order to isolate all the problems concerning performance art and interactive art, the conditions of contemporary Swedish newspaper art criticism are described. To show that the general conditions and its problems have been discussed earlier, the paper also includes the latest big debate about Swedish art criticism. The paper shows that the problem for art critics to remain objective and independent from the work of art presented is not exclusive for performance and interactive art. It is an emblematic problem for Swedish art criticism 2006. This problem includes economic and careerist opportunities witch makes it hard for Swedish art critics to remain independent.

The monumental sculpture group The Fantastic Paradise (Le Paradis Fantastique, 1967), a collaboration between the artists Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely, was donated to Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden and installed by the water on the island Skeppsholmen in 1971. This was followed by a conflict that lasted 16 years centered around the relationship between the sculptures and the surroundings, in which The Fantastic Paradise was perceived by some as both grotesque and obscene, as well as highly unsuitable in relation to the historical environment. As a result, the sculpture group was moved to a less visible location in 1987.

This thesis aims firstly to examine the historical context of the donation of The Fantastic Paradise to Moderna Museet. The study shows that the donation was the lucky result of a series of events shaped by circumstances such as personal relationships. The artists were life-long friends of the director of the museum at the time, Pontus Hultén, who aimed to incorporate avantgardist ideas into the museum's activities in the 1960’s. The Fantastic Paradise, located in front of the entrance of the museum, continues to function as a reminder of that era, which has come to be seen as the institution's formative years.

Secondly, this thesis aims to contextualise and interpret the meaning of the art work through the use of semiotic theory and the concept of the implicit beholder. This interpretive part of the study is divided into two chapters, in accordance with the dualistic structure of the sculpture group itself. It follows two separate but linked theoretical directions: movement in Jean Tinguely’s machines, and corporeality and femininity in the Nanas, fantasy creatures and vegetation motifs of Niki de Saint Phalle. The interpretation shows that The Fantastic Paradise through both of these aspects can be read as an anti-classicistic comment in an art historical perspective. The concept of movement can be found not only in the actual movements of the kinetic sculptures, but also, in the case of The Fantastic Paradise, implies an idea of an activated, embodied beholder that is constructed as a political subject.

Rapporten ämnar ge en grundläggande översikt över hur konstnärers personarkiv hanteras i det svenska arkivväsendet. Den är tänkt att utgöra ett underlag för vidare studier, där frågorna kan fördjupas och undersökas vidare. Rapporten utreder vart personarkiv efter svenska bildkonstnärer kan doneras, hur beslutsprocessen ser ur samt vilka problem som kan uppstå specifikt för konstnärers personarkiv. Med utgångspunkt i en kvalitativ fallstudie har material samlats in från åtta konst- och arkivinstitutioner. 

Jag har studerat grunden till Föreningen Svenska Konstnärinnors bildande för att undersöka ifall antagandet att föreningen instiftades som en reaktion mot den manliga konstnärsgruppen De unga och deras första utställning på Hallins konsthandel 1909 stämmer. Jag har vidare undersökt ifall det finns något samband mellan grundandet av föreningen och de kvinnliga Matisseelevernas uteslutande ur De unga. Genom en historiografisk undersökning samt Griselda Pollocks genusteori har jag med kvantitativa studier kommit fram till att Föreningen Svenska Konstnärinnor grundades då enskilda kvinnor inte hade rätten att ställa ut sin konst. Föreningens bildande grundar sig i de kvinnliga konstnärernas önskan om förbättrade juridiska rättigheter. Genom den statistik jag fört fram i detta arbete kan jag också konstatera att det inte finns något samband mellan föreningens bildande och de kvinnliga Matisseelevernas uteslutande ur De unga, detta då de kvinnliga Matisseelevernas deltagande i Föreningen Svenska Konstnärinnors utställningar är allt för lågt för att kunna ha haft någon påverkan. 

The text discusses the folk-tale princess as a good role model for both children and adults, from a feminist debate concerning this issue. Also an iconographic study, it compares women in folk-tale illustrations with women represented in fin-de-Siècle art concentrating on the Great mother goddess and the femme fatale, finding similarities between folk-tale illustrations and other art. Besides that, the text look at the interest for Swedish folk-tales in the 1890´s, the connection between women as illustrators of children’s books and ideas about nature and womanhood that might have had influence on the Swedish artist Elsa Beskow at the time.

This study is about the artist Monica Sjoo’s (1938-2005) painting God giving birth (1968) that was accused of being blasphemous and obscene in the early 1970s. God giving birth could have had much in common with Niki de Saint-Phalle’s She – a cathedral (1966), both works suggesting a mother goddess image. The main difference however can be found in the fact that Monica Sjoo’s painting had connection to the women’s movement in the 1970s. Monica Sjoo’s artwork responded to other feminist artwork of that period. Among several feminist artists during the period about 1968-1985, an iconography was in use that focused on vulvar imagery, experience of childbirth and goddess images. In particulary the mother goddess was embraced. The female body in art was re-sacred and invested with meaning connected with women’s cycles of birth-death and rebirth and the earth as a mother goddess.

This study is concerned with portraiture as a roleplay and a strategy to communicate the sitter´s identity to affect the viewer. Focusing on the sitter´s pose and the depiction of dress, the study examines three portraits between 1624 and the 1630s, representing Herman Wrangel (1584–1643), Field Marshal and Councilor of the Realm. The analysis is based on the concept, the fiction of the pose, developed by Harry Berger Jr. The idea of Theatricality discussed by Hanneke H Grootenboer´s is also used. The results show that dress, details of dress and the pose which are significant for the identity of the sitter are depicted with emphasis. Therefore, the dress and the pose have a key role in the depiction of the sitter acting his identity. The sitter acts before the artist and in the long run before the beholder. The portrait of the nobleman becomes a monologue for the beholder who can confirm the nobility´s role in society.

Chile’s democratically elected Socialist president Salvador Allende came to power in 1970. Then came the dictatorship that began with Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’état in 1973. It was perhaps logical that the European art world came to the aid of its Chilean colleagues in a great wave of solidarity. 

The long 1970s has been connected to solidarity movements. Vietnam, Chile, South Africa, Palestine were among the countries supported by solidarity activists. Several so-called museums-in-exile were created. In particular, one source of inspiration was the Museo de la Resistencia Salvador Allende in Chile. This became a model also for the much older Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) Unified Information Office that organised the International Art Exhibition for Palestine. 

This booklet documents the Witness seminar that was held 19 February 2017 at Tensta Konsthall, where people met to discuss their involvement in the solidarity movements for Chile and Palestine.