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Strange Images in Stockholm

wintergreen206

(Kaput, Catellan)

Although I have a healthy appreciation for art, I have always considered most modern art to be bullshit. Jackson Pollock? I can make my own scribbles at home, thanks. Picasso? I preferred the early years. Rothko? Ugh, don’t even speak to me about Rothko. 


I love the Tate Museum and V&A Museum in London, but found myself disgusted by the Tate Modern. I scoffed at each new room I entered there, and lamented that a space the size of an airplane hangar was wasted for such a pointless museum.


So when I visited the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, my expectations were low. I took the metro to Gamla Stan station, then walked through the historic city centre. I crossed two bridges to reach the tiny island where the modern museum is located. It was a scenic walk, and the crisp ocean air was refreshing, so I was feeling open-minded. 


The first exhibit I saw at the Moderna Museet was the German Expressionism exhibit. I’m not the biggest fan of Expressionism, but I ended up being seduced by the emerald greens and hallucinogenic compositions of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Having recently travelled to Berlin, I appreciated his depictions of Berlin nightlife. The exhibit was designed around the timeline of the artists’ careers, and it was interesting to see how their work was influenced by the breakout of war in Europe. 


(Five Women on the Street, Kirchner)

Upon entering the Surrealism exhibit, titled “The Subterranean Sky,” I immediately encountered a giant vat of bubbling sludge. The sludge was an art piece titled “Mud Muse” by Rauschenberg. It was supposedly a commentary on humanity’s relationship with technology, but I wasn’t convinced.    


I am interested in the ethos behind Surrealism though, and I found some trippy paintings I liked. I also saw a silent film in which a woman is so overcome by lust that she starts sucking on the toes of a marble statue. I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, but it was definitely surreal. 


The final exhibit was titled “The Third Hand,” by Maurizio Cattelan, an artist I’d never heard

of before. There were a few pigeons perched on top of the emergency exit outside the exhibit. It took me a few moments to realize they were taxidermy, and were placed deliberately to blend the lines between art and reality. The pigeons were the first sign that I was in for something different.


Outside the exhibit entrance, I found a lifelike mannequin of the pope, lying on his side after being hit by a small meteor. The piece was titled “The Ninth Hour,” referring to the moment in the Bible when Jesus cries to God, “why have you forsaken me?” before he dies. 


I found this piece both amusing and interesting. It appears to be a transgressive commentary on the authority of the Catholic church, but its precise message is open for interpretation. This sculpture became infamous when it was exhibited in Poland, as two conservative members of parliament broke into the exhibit to remove the meteor and attempted to stand the pope upright. 


Without expressing any particular political stances of his own, Catellan has apparently been considered something of a transgressive, smart-ass personality in the art world.


Upon entering the exhibit, I passed through a crowd of faceless mannequins in Vatican robes, gathered outside a miniature replica of the Sistine chapel. I could see how miniaturizing the Sistine chapel and depicting members of the clergy this way could be interpreted as diminishing the church and defying its claim to heavenly-ordained power…or something. I didn’t think about it too hard, I was distracted by the immersive and visually impressive design of the exhibit. (Him, Catellan)

I followed a trail of taxidermy pigeons into the next room. It was a large room with a skylight. In the center was a sculpture of a giant hand flipping the bird to the sky. I assumed the symbolism of this one was something to do with art defying the powers that be, whether put in place by God or man. 


It only got weirder from there. I walked into a small, bright red room with a school boy kneeling on the floor before an image of a pointing finger. I circled around the room to see the figure’s face, and realized that the school boy had the all-too recognizable features of Adolf Hitler. 

Of course, any depiction of the Nazi dictator is bound to be provocative. I interpreted this piece as stripping the power from his image by

exposing him as an ignorant child.


Finally, I encountered a row of real, taxidermy horses dangling in the air with their heads buried in the wall. I had no idea how to interpret this one. At this point, I had to remind myself that there needn’t be a point to art. Certainly, there was no need for anyone to dangle dead horses from a wall. But for better or worse, Maurizio Cattelan did it. 


I was exhilerated upon leaving the exhibit, and felt as if I had finally seen some contemporary art that was truly brilliant and original. I left the museum and went to meet my friend Antonia for lunch. We met at a hole in the wall hot dog place to try some authentic Swedish wieners and sauerkraut. 


I showed Antonia my pictures and told her about the exhibit. The curators’ interpretation of the exhibit explained that Cattelan had faith in the power of art alone, but not in societal institutions (like the catholic church). Cattelan’s famous quote is “Power, whatever power, has an expiration date, just like milk.” 


Antonia is even more skeptical of art than I am. She pointed out the contradiction in the exhibit description. If all power has an expiration date, then the power of art must have one too. I hadn’t thought about it yet, but she was right. One day, maybe no one will be impressed anymore by the strange images I saw at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. 






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