"Sailor Compositions" at Sven-Harry's Art Museum

When I was composing my recent list of upcoming art exhibitions, I noticed that there was an exhibition at Sven-Harry's Konstmuseum that I had missed this summer but is still showing until September 29th: GAN - Sailor Compositions: The Dramatics of Color and the Dynamics of the City. So, I hurried down to see it! And, as there is over a month left of the exhibit, I thought a blog article about the exhibit was still a good idea.

The artist is Gösta Adrian-Nilsson (also known as GAN) and this is actually a reshowing of an exhibition first shown in Stockholm way back in 1918. One detail that adds another interesting dimension to this exhibition is that the original showing was not well received. In fact, it was a bit of a scandal in art circles. Not only was Adrian-Nilsson ahead of his time with his mix of Cubism, Futurism and Expressionism, but his paintings were considered homoerotic... a big no-no in 1918. By today's standards, they are very tame but, I guess, depicting sailors in tight uniforms (even in Cubist form) was shocking back then. Tom of Finland meets Pablo Picasso came to mind.

The paintings are beautiful with bold colors and strong, geographic shapes. In addition, GAN's apparent obsession with sailors (and other men in uniform) is a fun camp element to the paintings. In some of the paintings, the sailor(s) are clear subjects, while in others it is more of a Where is Waldo exercise to find the sailor in the painting. A few of the paintings also gave me a feel of Soviet propaganda posters from the same era... just switch the walking sailors for marching workers. It was also nice to see how GAN depicted certain Stockholm landmarks and vistas, like Katarinahissen, Gröna Lund and the piers at Skeppsholmen (a good place to find sailors).

All in all, another great exhibition at Sven-Harry's. This museum is actually one of my favorites in Stockholm when it comes to the category of smaller art museums... located in a shiny gold building, right on the beautiful and vibrant Vasa park, away from the bustle of the downtown and Gamla Stan districts. To get there from the Hotel Rival, take a subway from nearby Slussen (green line) to the station Odenplan and then exit to Dalagatan. Otherwise it is a about a 10-12 minute taxi ride.