(Suecia, 1966)
Una de las fotógrafas más relevantes del panorama actual, nacida en Malmö (Suecia) en 1966, vive y trabaja en Estocolmo. La propia artista explica que su trabajo se desarrolla “en torno a temas de poder, masculinidad y relación del hombre con la naturaleza […] Mis piezas más recientes miran tanto hacia fuera, a los desafíos de la sociedad contemporánea, como hacia dentro, a un estado mental meditativo. En estas fotografías y vídeos, el aislamiento y la soledad de los individuos reflejan los problemas de la sociedad en general.”
Su participación en Confinement Archive supone una aportación muy especial, no sólo porque el discurso de toda su obra alcanza un mayor potencial en la actualidad, sino porque desafortunadamente, la artista ha padecido la enfermedad provocada por el covid-19. Su Painting Series es elaborada en el año 2011, no obstante, la artista le otorga un significado mucho más amplio a raíz del confinamiento: en este trabajo observamos figuras humanas sumergidas en una vorágine de incertidumbre y arrastrados por una fuerza que no pueden controlar. Con claras alusiones pictóricas a Yves Klein y a la gestualidad de Jackson Pollock, la artista nos ofrece imágenes reales que no han sido retocadas digitalmente, una realidad tan pura como nos muestra también en las palabras que comparte con nosotros en relación a su encierro. A partir de ahora, su indagación sobre el aislamiento y la soledad se vuelve mucho más profunda: cuando observamos Painting Series en el Archivo, los espectadores debemos que hacerlo desde una mirada nueva.
Painting series
Maria Friberg examines the themes of the information age’s moral dilemma: how much is too much technology? And how can we continue our ruthless exploitation of earth resources.
The digital revolution equips us with the ability to communicate over vast distances, cheaply and instantly. But we have not yet understood the extent of where this technological development will bring us. At the same time we exploit the earth’s resources, and we surround ourselves with a variety of items that become heaps of everyday materials such as plastic toys, wires or debris.
“Maria Friberg’s color photographs and videos are vivid and lush, yet they are also unsettling and coolly provocative. Reversing centuries of what has often been called a “male gaze,” Friberg’s female gaze often captures smartly attired men in unexpectedly solemn, vulnerable and also sensual contexts, for instance a man in a white suit and black trousers lying atop a pile of crumpled automobiles, a perfect symbol for upended power, from Still Lives, 2003-2007, or somber people partially enveloped by abundant foliage in a botanical garden (Days of Eyes, 2014). Nature figures prominently in Friberg’s art and it seems both sublime and ominous. Friberg’s photographs are also exceptionally painterly, including her remarkable, protean, vibrantly colored The Painting Series, 2011, for which she photographed, from below, people sprawling on a glass pane covered with ink and water.
While subverting codes of masculine authority, Friberg’s exquisitely composed and staged works function as enthralling visual forces that conflate wonderment and bewilderment, grace and ungainliness, reverence and fear.”
Gregory Volk, Art Critic/Freelance Curator, Brooklyn, NY
Testimonio de la Artista
I have been home and ill with covid19 now for 6 weeks, it has been ups and down with many feelings. The Pandemi is scarry since much is unknown and make you think a lot more and appreciate what is good in your life and in the world. That you need to choose more what you do what you eat and how you travel and what you buy.
How much we human beens need each other and need to act on all levels to save our lives, animals lives and Nature.
Nature is bleeding and affect us all.