Women’s world: a Swedish perspective
The Museum of Kyiv’s History is hosting exhibition “Different Distances”
This creative project was created in collaboration with the Embassy of Sweden in Ukraine and the Swedish Institute. Visitors can see the women’s world through the prism of famous photo artists Denise Gruenstein, Julia Hetta, Martina Hoogland Ivanow, Julia Peirone and Elisabeth Toll.
Almost unknown to us, the contemporary Swedish art is revealing its unexpected features, since all works on display are focused on the inner world of women, for the organizers’ intent is for us to get to see an alternate universe inhabited by mysterious and omniscient beings. These masterpieces were created by the new generation of Swedish photographers whose works are printed in international art and fashion publications.
Portraits occupy two rooms of the museum. Every photographer tells her purely subjective story about women employing her own language, with the whole looking like a kaleidoscope of different “studies.” For example, works of Gruenstein show a very feminine harmony with nature, Hoogland’s photos create a sense of amazing real and poetic presence, while Hetta prefers romantic images... Other artists deal with existential experiences: Peirone records fleeting moments that are beyond our control, while Toll draws inspiration from personal memories, stories, experiences, and feelings, as she works in the style of surrealism.
Curator of the “Different Distances” exhibition Greger Ulf Nilson maintains that “the photographers explore and shift the boundaries of reality. They create new and exciting environments. The concept of reality is overestimated to some extent, because there is no such thing as the single reality...”
It is hard to say if parallels can be drawn between the women’s reality in Sweden and our own. From the philosophical and ethical point of view, it does not matter where one lives, because the eternal values are universal, so, why would Ukrainian women refuse to identify with subjects of these pictures? Incidentally, the borders of the modern world are rather arbitrary, as our young people are well-traveled and know society, everyday life, culture and even subculture of the Western world well. Therefore, the aim of the exhibition is not to let our people see another country, but rather to let us see another individual’s world, listen to the language of silent pictures... and make our own conclusions.
Some photos are rather understandable to adolescents, because the photos taken by Peirone show their gum-chewing peers, and one cannot even be sure that the pictures’ subjects come from the far-off kingdom of Sweden... since Ukraine has identical young ladies inhabiting it. Toll’s works are photo connoisseurs’ dreams come true, for her black-and-white photos are multilingual and ironic, really deserving to be exhibited alongside masterpieces of world photography. Hoogland Ivanow seeks to create a female portrait image located amid the turmoil of everyday life, while Hetta speaks to her spectator using the language of the Dutch Golden Age art with its exquisite paintings.
The exhibition works on many levels of perception, being a holistic universal proposition welcoming all tastes, so our audience, no doubt, will be satisfied with it. It should be added that the exhibition was successfully held in Stockholm (Sweden), Paris (France), Berlin (Germany), Washington (the US), and Belgrade (Serbia). We have to recognize the great effort by the entire team of Ukrainian museum staff and foreign curators who have presented us with a wonderful tour of the contemporary Swedish art.
The exhibition will run until December 4.
