Sunday 5 September 2010

Curator's Stuff - Stockholm

Colder, cosier, and more expensive.

That is how I would describe Stockholm at the first impact, compared to jolly old London. I have just spent five days there, setting foot in Sweden for the first time to accompany a certain Cardiologist to the annual ESC Congress. Work for him, leisure for me: I have discovered that wandering around on your own in a new city is not the end of the world after all*. But it is very, very harmful for your pockets, because you're more inclined to give in to the impulse buy.

Five days are not enough to understand another culture of course, but I could try and sum it up this way:

The Swedish like: 
- Tall and narrow spiral staircases (pictured);
- Walking on the cycling path;
- Keeping bar's customers in line (see below).


The Swedish don't like:
- To give directions;
- To use the word "pineapple" instead of "ananas";
- To apologise when they bump into someone. Unless "grunt" meant "sorry".

Speaking of cycling paths, I must admit that I have started to rate my liking or not of a city based a bit too much on how good the bikes facilities are. This way, poor Rome would occupy the last place on the chart.
In Stockholm there is the same bike scheme just launched in London, with the fundamental difference of being able to keep the bike for free for three hours, rather than just half an hour.
I guess the Stockholmers made this very clever reasoning: "There's no way a tourist will get the names of our streets straight: we must allow plenty of time for them to get lost, find their bearings, and try again." I would like to thank them for having thought of me. On two wheels, the whole city is at hand: the paths along the canals, with highways running right above your head, are very enjoyable, and even the worst sense of orientation has a chance of redemption.

Another thing I very much liked about Stockholm: I didn't get a Huh? as a reply when I said that I am a Curator.

For my visit, the main targets were, of course, museums and galleries. Let me say that the end of August is not really the best time for this, because most of the places are closed and busy preparing for the autumn season, like for example Magasin 3: THIS FALL A GREAT STORY BEGINS a lot of banners shouted around town. Shame I will only be able to follow their promising next show through the Internet.

Luckily, not only the Moderna Museet was open, but it had on the Ed Ruscha retrospective that I had missed when it was at the Hayward Gallery here in London. That's what made me think of the "Curator's Stuff": sometimes, on Facebook and in my language, I see some square messages appearing as links on people's status. For example: "Being happy about having put the eyeliner perfectly on one eye, forgetting that the same thing should happen on the other: Women's Stuff". Or another one, more specific for working roles: "To separate form from content: Designer's Stuff". And so on and so forth. There are the most embarrassing (and truthful!) features for Psychologists, Architects, Teachers, Singles, Students, Art Historians...but no Curators.
I can give you one now, the first of a long series in this blog:

> Missing a traveling exhibition in your hometown and going to see it in another country: Curator's Stuff.



The Moderna Museet knew its golden age in 1960 with the curator Pontus Hulten, who managed to create a bridge between Europe and America by hosting shows of young American painters, among which were Jasper Jones and Robert Rauschenberg. Later, in the 90s, he started to emphasise the direct participation of the audience to the shows by proposing broader themes like poetry or utopian societies.

> Spending four hours in a Museum, making sure you have read all the labels: Curator's Stuff.

The permanent collection has some real flagships, divided in chronological periods: for example, the Cow Wallpaper by Andy Warhol, in which the museum was wrapped up in 1968, Martha Rosler's Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975 (embedded below: I found it illuminating) and a Surrealist woman I didn't know anything of: Dorothea Tanning.

> Getting annoyed because you have confused Eva Hesse with a relatively unknown Swedish artist: Curator's Stuff.

The day after was a Monday, vacation day for most of the exhibition spaces. The only arty place open was the Thielska Galleriet, at the far end of Djurgarden. No bike station was available down there, so my unfortunate travel companion (another lonely doctor's wife) and I parked the penny-farthing and embarked in what we thought was a 20 minutes walk to reach the spot. After 45 minutes, a rain shower, countryside landscapes and some moaning, we arrived at this lovely house from the beginning of XX century, owned by the banker Thiel, art patron of his times. The collection comprises remarkable examples of Nordic art from late XIX and beginning of XX century, not to mention the outstanding furniture and the poignant, decadent atmosphere of the place.


> Walking 4 kilometers to get to a remote public gallery just to see Edvard Munch's paintings in the flesh: Curator's Stuff.

* I am Italian: compulsive sociability is deeply rooted in my genes. We hate eating on our own, traveling on our own, and even talking on our own.




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