marie:
I’m from Sollentuna. It’s just 15 minutes from the city, but quite far mentally. When I meet people that are from Stockholm, I’m like, oh, wow, you had access to so much culture. I grew up in a place with huge economical differences which for me creates a culture that’s based on wealth and the lack of it. Which is something I’ve tried to escape from.
Makes sense that you went to the biggest city possible. After living in New York for 13 years, what brought you back to Stockholm?
I really loved living in New York City, it was my life and I had my people there, especially in art. Living in NYC is very difficult in lots of ways as it’s so expensive but I was making it work until I had my daughter. After she was born it didn’t feel sustainable as daycare cost around three-thousand dollars a month at its lowest. The extreme capitalism became apparent, like only rich people are supposed to get children so you can afford insane high cost child care. For me, it became too much and I didn’t want to be living there anymore under those circumstances. So, I decided to apply for my Masters in Fine Art at the Royal Institute of Fine Arts in Stockholm and I got in. This prompted me to move to Stockholm and once here and at the school I had everything that I was lacking in NYC. Not only did I have free daycare for my daughter but I also got a studio and workshops to work on my art within the schools premises. I immediately had all the facilities needed to produce art, it was great! There was a real purpose with my life coming back. It was a luxury after all those years hustling in NYC.
There seems to be a different financial reality to being an artist in New York. Obviously the scene is much bigger and there’s a bigger audience to sell to as a gallery. While in Sweden, there is no real culture for buying art, as a regular person.
Not the type of art that I think is interesting. It’s like some other sort of market that’s not really on a contemporary level. New York was like being at the center of the universe, there’s just so much art, most is horrible but some great art as well. To be involved with artists that live there is very satisfying because you feel you constantly are developing, whether you are having a studio or not doesn’t really matter. The conversations happens at openings, at art-related events etcetera. As an artist it means you’re constantly developing through your peers practices which is why I started the gallery Beau Travail here in Stockholm.
there’s just so much art, most is horrible but some great as well.
How do you go about seeking inspiration in Stockholm? It seems like in New York it sort of comes to you.
Well, I had so many years in New York where I didn’t have a proper studio, as that was such an expensive practice, studio rents are around two-thousand dollars so I would have to make more money than I was making in order to maintain that sort of basic facility. Without a studio, it’s hard to make work, in New York City I managed to make work that required little to no budget. I shot videos with artist friends of mine, writing a quick script of a situation we’d be familiar and had them improvise in front of the camera while I would give them directions. The locations for these shoot in other people’s home, studios, etc and made a series of work around the art world which resulted in 7 films that are about hour long each. In Stockholm I work quite differently, I have been able to work in a studio since I’ve moved here and it has made my work less improvised and more conceptual.
In Stockholm the openings seem like social happenings, but don’t necessarily function as a means to develop the practice or the discourse.
Yes, it was actually what prompted me to want to start my own gallery. The art and artists that I’d got to know in New York had international acclaim and relevance, and were known in other cities like Zurich or Berlin, so the conversation could travel. But the artist practice was different here and felt more insular. A lot of the students at Mejan would rather stay at their studio and work instead of going out to an opening. I sort of get it, when things that are happening are not super exciting but at the same time I’m like how can you develop ideas when you have no social interaction with other art and artists?
Is it that it’s a very local scene and not very interested in what goes on internationally and there’s no tapping into the kind of interplay between the two?
Exactly. Even compared to like Oslo and Copenhagen, it seems they are more interested in showing international artists. It made me question why it’s so isolating here. I’ve now realized that it’s an economical question. Having international artists show works at the gallery is expensive. Travel, accommodation and transportation are extra costs that are avoided when showing local artists. On top of that, Swedish collectors are not interested in buying works by international artists here in Stockholm, they might do it in Basel but here in Stockholm they mostly buy Swedish local artists. So from an economical perspective, showing international artists is an economical failure but from an artistic perspective it’s so enriching to see works by artists that are showing in other places, it’s like a conversation that opens up for us to take part of. In terms of communication, by showing each other it creates this dialogue between us and it sort of limits the artists here to develop if they’re not getting shows in other places.
it’s a good vibe here.
It stops the conversation almost.
There is a sort of dependency as an artist here, with a few people in power. It is limiting in that, you could be making art that they don’t like or that is not intended for large appeal, but that a lot of other people would enjoy. I felt that with a recent show, then I did an exhibition with an artists who I went to school with at Mejan. People that came to the gallery really were so excited about his exhibition. The response was overwhelming, and it made me think, what if I didn’t have the gallery, this exhibition would have never taken place as commercial galleries are not interested in showing this type of work.
In some ways it’s hard to do something different in Stockholm because it’s like you said, there’s no place for it. At the same time there’s like, obviously so much space to be different, but there’s no place for it.
I think it’s a great place right now to actually be an artist here! I started an artist run space and there’s a couple more artists here in Stockholm that started artist run spaces as well. I’m actually kind of overwhelmed with the response I’ve gotten since I started the gallery. It has been great, just people being extremely positive. It’s a good vibe here where we support each other.
How did Beau Travail come about? And tell us how you decided on the name.
Most people that enter the gallery associate the name with Claire Denis film, and I love the film and decided on the name due to the film, but why I choose the name is because it means good or beautiful work, which I think is a fitting name for a gallery. I knew that I wanted to mix the artists that I’ve got to know in New York with people that lived in Sweden, and having established artists with not so established. It was loosely based on my own artistic practice and of how I work. It is important to have these places where artists get together, which is where I get ideas for my own work and by learning from each other. There was a void after leaving New York and not going to openings like I used to and being isolated in a studio. Being in conversations with other artists is so important to my practice. ✈
