Visiting the Art Museum

Yesterday I decided to visit the Art Museum. The distance is probably about the same for me as to the Textile Museum (about ½ hour walk), but it feels longer (partly perhaps because the last bit is uphill...) The museum is located in the same building as our town library and theatre; and since they changed the bus lines (not much use to me now), I've rarely been there.

 Our "Culture Center" - Art Museum, Library, Theatre (and a café).

The main entrance; across a square from this church (the largest in town, from ~1900):

The sculpture outside the church is one of the works included in the Art Biennial.

I went inside for a short touristy visit (although I've been there many times before).

Have to say that most of the current exhibitions within the Art Museum were of the kind I find it rather hard to relate to. My brochure tells me that the artist behind the video installation above is Hicham Berrada, from France, and the title is Présage (Omen) - set in "an aquatic world" with a "mineral flora" of "chemical substances reacting to an electric current in the water". ("Is this what it might have looked like at the beginnng of time, an event spanning millions of years?")

This (above), also a video installation, may have been by the same artist, but I'm not sure. The theme seemed very similar, anyway. (Creation, beginning of time, whatever...)

This (above) made even less "sense" to me. There was a long row of photos of hour glasses on the opposite wall though, so probably still something to do with time (?)

In one room they were showing various portraits from the museum's collections. The only ones I can say I was really interested to see again were some exquisite 18th century miniature portraits by Peter Adolf Hall - born 1739 in Borås, and died 1793 in Liège, France. They used to be in a separate exhibition in a room of their own, but that was changed a number of years ago. So I've seen them before, but not recently.

I included my own hand in one of the photos , just to give you an idea of the size of them.

I do also quite like this little figurine of a woman vacuuming. (To compare with classic ballerinas and shepardesses or whatnot...) I remember this one from some earlier exhibition as well. ("Live as usual" by Gittan Jönsson, 2009)

Walking back downtown from the art museum, I went through an underpass that has been getting a new mural in connection with this year's art biennial. It turned out to consist of a number of separate panels rather than being painted directly on the wall, though. Won't end up on my list of favourites - but of course a big improvment on grey concrete and random amateur graffiti, which is usually all that most such places have to offer...!

Weekend Reflections

On my way to the Textile Museum on Tuesday, I also (again)* passed by these works of art currently on display in/on the river for this year's Art Biennial (in Borås, Sweden).

Cf two previous posts from June: Adrift  /  Optical Illusions

 

 The Wind is Turning Towards the East by Heli Ryhänen, Finland

 

 

Disrupting Ebb and Flow, 2023 by Elin Stampe, Stockholm

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 Weekend Street/Reflections #183

Visiting the Textile Museum

On Tuesday the weather here turned out better than expected, and after lunch at home I decided to venture out on a walk stretching a bit further than my immediate neighbourhood. I was not quite sure of my goal until I was half way there... But I ended up visiting the Textile Museum to have a look at their current exhibitions. 

This installation meets you at the entance just now and I think it is part of a new permanent exhibition called Reboot Fashion, which "explores the path towards a circular textile future through innovative production methods, while also inviting individuals to engage and influence change". The sign below was on display nearby:

This huge textile sculpture by artist Diana Orving, which stretches over two floors in the museum, is entitled What could be touched and that beyond (2023). It fits in with the theme above but is also part of this summers Art Biennial.

"In this particular case, her choice of textile is one that hardly ever is associated with the glamour of the fashion world: jute. The material is brown and has coarse structure; it is cheap and durable and has been used for centuries to package all kinds of things that are necessary to life, such as grain, turnips and beans. The woven, thich fabric is used and reused and might travel around the world several times. [---] Orving reminds us of the global nature of the textile industry..."

A temporary exhibition upstairs is entitled Printed Positions.  

"Since the turn of the millennium, pattern design has undergone a technical and aesthetic revolution, to a great extent spurred on by the development of digital technology. In Printed Positions, contemporary textile-pattern design is explored through works by 14 Nordic designers and artists."

This installation in the middle of the huge exhibition hall gives the impression of a ship, and there were also other textiles in the background to underline the marine theme.

As for the rest, I soon gave up on trying to "interpret"...!

In the smaller room on the same floor was an exhibition showing works by this year's graduates from the Swedish School of Textiles at the local University.

This is the building from outside.

I bought an ice cream at the café before I started on my walk back. (This is their outdoors terrace by the main entrance, but I ate my ice cream sitting in a comfortable high back armchair indoors...) 
 

Jaume Plensa's sculpture House of Knowledge has been sitting outside our Textile Fashion Center for 10 years now. I blogged about the installation of it back in May 2014. And there have been more photos of it now and then over the years since then as well... I can hardly ever resist snapping one whenever I pass it, even though I know I have plenty before! (In this one, you can see a couple of people sitting inside it, there is a bench there.)

On the other side of the road, there is this mural on the wall of the University to look at.

 

I also have some photos from an older permanent exhibition of machinery etc + some more photos from my walk there and back, but will save those for other posts.

The Finished Mural

A day without rain today, so I went for a walk downtown to see if they had managed to finish the mural in between all the rainshowers lately. It seems they had!

On the artists website https://monacaron.com/ you can see more of her work, and there is also a video of her painting other "giant weeds" (and sharing her thoughts about it).

The one that she has now painted here in Borås is on the wall of a hotel, and facing the town park on the other side of the river.

Let's Play

 

In the main square, they have put up a giant chess game for the summer.

And there are also these rows of images of people. While there, I was not able to figure out the purpose of those; but later, I found hints online: It seems one can use them to play "twenty questions". I.e. one person chooses an image and the other person has to try and guess whom, by asking yes/no questions. So I guess also an exercise in describing people, fitting in rather nicely with the Art Biennial going on this summer.

Linking to Weekend Street/Reflections #179

Mural Progress

 

A very hot day here today (~ 30'C / 86'F). I went for an "early" walk (around 10 am) down to the park to check on the progress of the big mural (cf my Monday post). Even that early it really felt a bit too hot for me already. The walk back home took longer than the way there because I needed to sit down and rest for a while now and then (whenever I found a bench in the shadow!)... Phew!

I noticed that the artists at work on the mural had now added parasols to their equipment. One of them even had two - just like me, on my balcony back home!

I had brought my separate camera this time so I could zoom them in a bit better.

 

I was back home again around 11:15. The rest of the day I've stayed in, with fans going, and trying to keep the heat out... Putting in this post late in the evening: 10:40 pm, still 25'C on my balcony, and still not dark, but twilight turning to dusk now. I just noticed my solar lamp turning itself on... I'll go out and sit there for a few minutes to "cool off" before I go to bed.

(Likely to turn to thunder and rain during the night or early morning. Tomorrow will probably be somewhat cooler.)

Optical Illusions

 (Continued from previous two posts.)

Further on along the river, I found this art installation. I was thinking that it was probably a perfect day to view it - the sky so blue, and the water still like a mirror... But on the other hand, I should probably go back in some other kind of weather as well, to see what it looks like then!

Text from the online brochure:

Disrupting Ebb and Flow, 2023
by Elin Stampe (b.1992), Stockholm

A silvery veil spreads reflected
light above the Viskan river and the
Posttorget plaza. Optical illusions
appear on the water, like a flickering
archway that changes with the wind
and movement.

On approaching, you will discover that the
glittering consists of squares of mirror foil on
wires, forming triangles. The history of Viskan is
intimately entwined with Borås; it still character-
ises the city and brings its inhabitants close to
the entire aquatic habitat. To this day, fragments
from the textile mills are found in its vicinity.  

The artist, Elin Stampe, has obvious roots in the realm
of textiles, with its associations to protection,
flexibility and its potential to both enfold and
build volumes. With her monumental installation
Disrupting Ebb and Flow, Stampe connects with
the history of places in a tangible and tender
way. The title also reminds us of another force
– the gravitational pull generated in the mutual
relationship between Earth and the moon. The
eye is bewildered by the flashes of light. 

A version of the work was shown in
a completely different setting in the summer of
2023: Sergels torg plaza in central Stockholm. 

The brochure also mentions the installation being accompanied by "a suggestive sound loop" - but I did not hear that, so the sound must have been off when I was there.

In the background in the photo above is a church tower, which also seems to have some work of art on it. So I went to have a closer look at that, too.

 

 Fiete Stolte (b. 1979) lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

Outdoors, works from Stolte’s
photographic series Roots
(2019) are exhibited, which,
at first glance, look like tree
roots. In reality, what we see is
the branches of a leafless tree
top. The title, Roots, leads us to
believe that it is the earthy part
of the tree we are looking at, but when we realise
what it is, we become aware of the tree’s biolog-
ical symmetry. The images are also inverted, like
photo negatives, the historical analogue forerun-
ner of today’s digital photography.

I have so far only seen this one, but perhaps there are more to be found around town.