"Stadens monument"
Signed and dated M.L De Geer Bergenstråhle and dated 1977. Gouache on silk, 56 x 86 cm. Including the artist’s original frame, 68 x 98.5 cm.
Provenance
Gunilla Lindberg Collection
More information
Ekman draws on familiar everyday settings and situations, transforming them into something uniquely her own. Through an experimental approach, she combines the absurd and the surreal with recognisable environments. Her visual world incorporates references to art history alongside elements of popular culture.
The auction painting, Stadens monument (Monuments of the City), is signed Marie-Louise De Geer Bergenstråhle, the name she used on all her works during the 1970s. This was an exceptionally productive period in her career, and the subject matter is characteristic of her work at the time. She explored the same idea of a street, with absurd views through windows, in her films Hallo Baby (1975) and Mamma, pappa, barn (1978), as well as in numerous paintings.
The sculptures lining the street are also highly characteristic of her work from the 1970s. With their absurdist anti-aesthetic, they playfully subvert established cultural conventions. Ekman refers to them as monuments, and they recur in many of her paintings. Around 1980, she began combining them with details inspired by existing works of art, including those by Olle Baertling and Pablo Picasso.
Here, Ekman elevates a few everyday figures to the status of heroes: the weary older woman struggling with heavy shopping bags and the young mother with a child nestled in the folds of her skirt. They are strategically positioned in front of a delicatessen window and a display of colourful dresses, enticing them with the promise of another kind of life – one filled with greater luxury, pleasure and celebration.
More about Marie-Louise Ekman
Marie-Louise Ekman is without a doubt one of Sweden's most eccentric artists. The consistency in her expression is striking, with a distinctive language that is unmistakably her own.
Ekman's artistry is timeless and continuously relevent. She is a leading and influential artist who often depicts everyday environments, but does not align herself with the absurdist and surrealist art forms. She travels unhindered over artistic buondaries and often ustilises art historical references, incorporating them with pop-culture references. Ekmans konstnärskap har i mycket präglats av hennes anarkistiska och klarsynta angrepp på normalitet som ständigt har manifesterats i en spännvidd som låtit henne ingå i kretsen kring den inflytelserika undergroundtidningen "Puss" och med separatutställningar på Galerie Aronowitsch.
When looking closer at her multifaceted artisty one discovers that she is a recycler. There is barely a motif that is not repeated in more than one context, not a figure that does not stir up déjà vu. One first encounters these elements in objects or paintins, then in movies, tv-seris and radio programmes. Although the media sources vary in theme and tone over the decades, Ekman continues to reference media through her art, and it is thanks to this that Ekman feels forever young.
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The artworks in this database are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without the permission of the rights holders. The artworks are reproduced in this database with a license from Bildupphovsrätt.
