Market Art Fair is pleased to present the exhibition Splendid Silent Sun in collaboration with NREP and curators Elias Kautsky and Anne Vigeland.
Until the early 1950s, Vällingby was rather unknown to the world. A few farms and cottages lay scattered here, inhabited by a modest population. Early settlements gave rise to the name as we know it – they were “the people on the hill” (“folket på vallen”), which then became “Vällingarnas by”. When Vällingby Centrum opened in 1954 it became a world-famous destination due to the utopic and celebrated urban model of the “ABC city”. Vällingby’s transformation, and the ways it can be understood as a specific place within a vast universe, serves as the starting point for the exhibition Splendid Silent Sun, whose title is taken from a poem by American poet Walt Whitman. Originally published in 1865, Give me the Splendid Silent Sun demonstrates a contradictory relationship to nature common to the aftermaths of the industrial revolution. The sun is celebrated for its life-giving forces, but also portrayed as indifferent to the advancements of humankind. This view on the sun’s silent splendidness is perhaps even more telling of our current times, as the sun’s ignorance towards our actions threatens to extinct us.
The indifference of the sun and sky towards earthly life is rarely mutual. Since prehistoric times, people have directed their attention towards celestial bodies, even if the relationship to them has varied depending on geographic, religious, scientific, and cultural conditions and beliefs. In Lisa Tan’s video My Pictures of You, images of Mars are seen as a death mask of earth, and as such become an afterimage of our current times. Karolina Brobäck is interested in the limits and specificities of perception, explored through spherical forms that at the same time resemble immense planets and microscopic particles. Berenike Corcuera takes on a more personal relationship to heaven and earth in four textile works inspired by astrological readings of sites and geographic routes collected from her own history and upbringing.
The connections between the sun and Vällingby become concrete in Sven Holmström and Ole Berg’s gigantic Sundial which has been included in a geographic extension of the exhibition. In certain ways, the windows in Johan Thurfjell’s varnish paintings function as sundials too, but with an added poetic dimension connected to the home and everyday life. The repetitive slowness of everyday life is present also in A K Dolven’s video work from the empty sky – unexpectedly cut off by subtle shifts in mood and landscape.
In parallel to Thurfjell’s charcoal drawings Findlinge/Foundlings – which considers the very early impulses to create art – Tilda Lovell’s public artwork Flora and Fauna returns to a Christian idea of origin. The work, which is permanently installed in Solursgaraget, is inspired by parts of Hieronymous Bosch’s depiction of the Garden of Eden, prior to the Fall. The decisive moment – the temptation to bite the apple – makes itself known in Paul- Robin Sjöström’s ceramic sculpture Just One Bite. Despite the worrying facets of several of Sjöström’s works, it is possible to find comfort in the thought that Nothing Lasts Forever, Not Even Stars.
Splendid Silent Sun is an invitation to be in Vällingby and for a moment think of it as the centre of the universe, in order to reconsider our surroundings and presence on earth. Existential thoughts concerning the passing of time and the premises of life are juxtaposed with personal contemplation and barely noticeable shifts of spirit. The exhibition gallery is situated in the middle of Vällingby centrum, merging together with the surrounding bustle of everyday life, which began with the decision of “Vällingarna” to settle here and hence become the people on the hill.
Left to right: “Neues Leben”, 2022, 151 x 97 cm (59 1/2 x 38 1/4 in), Cotton, Polycotton, Polyester, digital print with sublimation on polyester satin, embroidered lace ribbon, Cotton Ribbon
“La Patria”, 2022, 197 x 134 cm (77 1/2 x 52 3/4 in), Cotton, linen, polycotton, digital print with sublimation with pigment inks/reactive dyes on cotton satin, digital print with sublimation on polyester twill
“Sundance”, 2022, 200 x 151 cm (78 3/4 x 59 1/2 in), Cotton, linen, polycotton, polyester, digital print with with reactive dyes/pigment inks on cotton satin
“La Volonté”, 2022, 159 x 98 cm (62 5/8 x 38 5/8 in), Cotton, linen, digital print with reactive dyes/pigment inks on cotton linen