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Art meets the Sea at Artipelag

On April 30, 2013, in Sweden, by Ambassador Brzezinski
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A respect for the land and a genuine sense of harmony between man and nature are two elements I’ve noticed to be strongly present in Sweden. A sense of balance and connectivity with the earth can be seen in architecture, art, education, family life and urban planning.

Artipelag— a one-year-old art gallery located just outside of Stockholm— is a living example of these values. The sweeping structure can barely be spotted from the seafront. This was done by design so as not to disturb the seamless coastline, according to owner and one of Sweden’s most successful entrepreneurs, Baby Björn founder Björn Jakobson.

In essence, the clean lines of the building both  accommodate and celebrate the rocky archipelago, dense pine forests and slinky birch trees encasing the eclectic exhibits of both contemporary and traditional international art. Even the capricious Baltic Sea, which last year nearly froze over parts of the dock where boats can come right up to the gallery’s waterfront, plays a role as a permanent exhibit overseeing what goes on inside through the scores of towering, floor-to-ceiling windows facing the water.

The name of the gallery, “Artipelag”, is a play on Sweden’s famed rocky archipelago, one of the largest in the world. This rocky topography is interwoven literally into the gallery. A huge rock sits square in the center of the café with lean, porcelain candles buttressing the back so little climbing children don’t fall off! The owners were so attached to this massive stone that they essentially built part of the gallery around the ancient rock.

Attention to detail and raw enthusiasm for the art that lives in nature as well as in man is personified by the owner of the gallery, Björn Jakobson and his wife Lillemor. We were met by the couple, and later their daughter Josefin, who passionately described the inspiration for the gallery as a place for children and parents to come together to appreciate a diverse array of art, go for a walk along the boardwalk which is wheel-chair accessible, attend a concert in the massive auditorium or eat in the restaurant which boasts fresh local fare and a chef who won an award on the culinary team for the Olympics.

The gallery is designed to pique all the senses. In additions to the eyes, the acoustics have been adjusted to near-perfection to the point that an 800-person dinner was convened there recently and no one had to shout over the din at their respective tables, Mr. Jakobson informed us. Even the nose is scintillated by the combination of tar—in homage to the way sailors and boat-makers would protect their boats by painting them with tar— to the cinnamon floating from the café where warm kanelbulle and fresh confections are made on-site.

Almost every aspect of the art process has been attended to and can be accommodated on the grounds, including acclimatized storage and a facility that can support the weight of a huge truck hauling in sculptures or rock. A graceful flow and movement is incorporated into the exhibition rooms that currently showcase artists Paul Gernes and Cosima von Bonin. The vision of the gallery is to have a flexible model that displays a variety of genres and styles of art and appeals to families, the 55-plus age group and those who may or may not be art connoisseurs. In May, Artipelag will feature American photographer William Wegman and his collection “Hello Nature”. Mark and I are especially excited about that since Mr. Wegman’s work is largely inspired by the Maine woods. My husband has been spending summers in the northernmost part of Maine for nearly 40 years, sailing, hiking, fishing and reveling in nature. Some of our fondest family memories are hiking through Acadia National Park with our newborn daughter strapped to Mark’s chest in a Baby Björn!

In this way, our worlds of family life, art and nature collide in Artipelag and we cannot wait to explore further exhibitions and bring our family there again!

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Bringing people together around Swedish Art

On March 5, 2012, in Natalia, by Ambassador Brzezinski
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Dimitri Keiski, Natalia and Ambassador Brzezinski

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Friday, we opened up our residence to showcase art from some of the most exciting, rising young artists in Stockholm’s vibrant cultural scene. Our goal was to create an all-encompassing experience that appealed to all the senses from the moment a guest stepped through the door.

 

In addition to exhibiting art of all mediums—digital, visual, performing arts and arts created through year-long experiments and life experience— we also had two musical performances that beautifully contrasted off of each other. One was Dimitri Kieski, the 2011 True Talent winner and a product of modern society’s reality television obsession, and the second was Ad Hoc, an all-male A cappella group who dressed in 16th-century traditional Swedish garb and sang Latin hymnals as well as “Barber Shop” ditties.  The result was a dynamic evening that brought people from all ages and professions, both Swedes and Americans, together around art.

 
Well before we even set foot on a plane to fly to Stockholm, my husband and I were exploring ways to relate with Swedes in a genuine way—a way that transcended both generational and cultural bounds. One obvious answer was art. Although we are not trained art connoisseurs or collectors, Mark and I have a strong personal connection to the values most tied to art: creativity and free expression.

 
As a young boy, my husband discovered a deep-seated love for nature and the environment because of art. His mother, Emelie Benes Brzezinski, is a sculptor who works with wood and whose work has a strong ecological connection. Mark spent many afternoons as a boy watching her carve into the splintered wood with her chainsaw and listening to stories of what the wood was saying to her as an artist. Each of Emelie’s pieces has its own distinct personality based on the rough nature of the bark or the smooth curves and lines of the tree.

 
For me, the opportunity to express myself as a competitive ice skater, to lose myself in the music and movement, gave me a sense of identity and confidence as a young girl. I can still remember the liberating rush I felt throwing myself into the air for a double axel and the loss of inhibition and insecurities that came with every spiral and glide. Ice skating very much formed who I am today. For both of us, art and expression is a theme running through our respective coming-of-age narratives.

 
In this exhibit, we focused on the role of the artist and whether this often enigmatic identity evolves over time or remains universal. By examining one of the most influential and catalytic inventions of the modern century—television — one conclusion for me was that the portrayal of the artist through the lens of mass media has many constants.

 
The need for human expression is timeless. This is a universal value shared by America and Sweden. Today all over the world, young people are increasingly mobilizing around this value. For these reasons, we are exceedingly proud to display the work of some of Stockholm’s brightest young contemporary artists, and most importantly to understand their identities and what colors their view of society through their work.

 
More photos of the event are on the U.S. Embassy Flickr photostream

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Motherhood through an artist’s lens

On January 18, 2012, in Natalia, by Ambassador Brzezinski
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Mrs. Brzezinski with daughter

A woman holding her naked daughter possessively to her breast—physically shielding her from an unseen ghost, yet with a look of forlorn detachment on her face; the same woman, looking like she is barely transcending her own girlhood, sitting on an operating table, holding her burgeoning belly, and preparing for the unknown.
These are just two descriptions of the evocative photographs being presented by American-Israeli artist Elinor Carucci at the Fotografins Hus this week here in Stockholm, in an exhibition entitled “Kin and Self”. The exhibition centers on her family, placing a substantive focus on the all-encompassing role of motherhood, and the raw, messy and utterly awe-inspiring journey of having a child.

I saw some of Ms. Carucci’s photographs several weeks ago and was plunged into a reflective process on my own identity as a mother.

Having my daughter two years ago was the most transformative and emotionally complicated experience of my life. I felt blissful and transfixed by this wondrous being, yet at times viscerally confused. One expects motherhood to be organic, yet no one talks about the guilt-ridden nights you will lay awake wondering if you’re a bad mother.

I realized that with the birth of a child, a new self is also born. I’m still redefining who I am as a woman, but it’s an empowering journey of self-awareness and part of who I am will forever belong entirely to my daughter.

Seeing Ms. Carucci’s photographs at the Fotografins Hus this week in Stockholm made me feel part of something bigger. Her raw honesty captures so finely and precisely many of the emotions mothers feel, but never reveal.

This desire to dissect the role of the artist within their cultural norms is a recurring theme I’ve observed while combing through museums across town. Artists such as Cecilia Edefalk, who currently has a striking exhibit entitled “Moment” at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, are turning the lens onto themselves in order to make provocative statements on social responsibility, countering conventional gender roles and female empowerment. There is nothing more inspiring than strong females finally rising in the art world and displaying their stories of growth and introspection as women in modern society.

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