ULRIK SAMUELSON
TO YOU
30 SEPTEMBER–7 NOVEMBER 2021
REVIEWED BY
DAGENS NYHETER
9 OCTOBER 2021
SVENSKA
Two years ago, Ulrik Samuelson published a book titled Sättarens anmärkning - The Typesetter’s Note - with his collected texts from 1962 to 2016, edited and annotated by Dan Karlholm. These texts are required reading for anyone seeking to understand what has happened in visual art, not only in Sweden, during the past half-century. Ever since the Galerie Burén exhibition in 1963, jointly with Sivert Lindblom, Samuelson has been a clear presence in Swedish art. He has found expression in most possible – and impossible – materials, from an intimate scale to monumental creations, with the Kungsträdgården underground station as the best-known example.
The book ends with a watercolour of the future artist aged only twelve, sitting on the base of an imposing colonnade with his back turned to it, so that, palette and brush in hand, he can paint the surrounding landscape. His career choice was clear: in the picture it says, “In 25 years”.
Ulrik Samuelson did indeed become a landscape painter even if the landscapes were to bear messages that considerably expanded the concept of landscape painting. But even things he turned his back on in the watercolour were to become a clear element in his work over the decades. Pillars and column sections in the most varied materials recur not least in his monumental works.
Reading Samuelson’s texts, one realises that he early realised the insistent seriousness with which Marcel Duchamp placed demands upon the active and creative beholder. Samuelson demonstrated this not only in words but also in his work.
The apostrophising ”Till Eder” – To You - sits well in the Duchamp testimony. The artist invites the beholder to communicate with him. Many years ago, he used this title for an exhibition in an old disused ironworks in Hälsingland. There “eder” (a formal, plural ’you’) suddenly took on a different meaning (curses) when one perceived the conditions under which production here once took place.
When Ulrik Samuelson’s son Sebastian gave up a career as a chef in Stockholm’s taverns, where he found production conditions offensive, and instead started a restaurant business in Hälsingland, he borrowed the title “Till Eder” for the business.
Ulrik Samuelson can, with a single brush stroke, address both himself and the world.
Over everything this gold in thin layers. A gold that tones down rather than emphasises. This gold was once, in older art, the vehicle for a supersensual, spiritual light. There it allowed the beholder a glance into eternity. Here the golden reflex throws the image back into the beholder’s eye. The spirituality exists in the world, in life.
The eight gilded pillars of wisdom stand unsteadily in front of the landscape and deny access to what lies behind. The barrier is executed in the most obstinate and useless of all basic elements.
The simplest picture, the horizontal line separating the dark from the light, is a “maximalistic painting”. There lie the possibilities, all that is unrealised.
Olle Granath
ULRIK SAMUELSON (1935) was born in Norrköping, Sweden. Lives and works in Stockholm. Ulrik Samuelson is educated at Konstfack – University of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm (1953-57) and at the Royal Insitute of Art, Stockholm (1957-62). Ulrik Samuelson is a professor of painting and held a professorship at the Royal Institue of Art, Stockholm (1970-78).
Ulrik Samuelson has previously exhibited both in Sweden and internationally, including The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; The Nordic Pavilion, The Venice Biennale, Venice; Louisiana, Humlebæk; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; National Museum, Stockholm; Liljevalchs, Stockholm and Galerie Aronowitsch, Stockholm.
Ulrik Samuelson's works are represented in several collections, including National Museum, Stockholm; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Norrköping Art Museum and Gustav VI Adolf's collection.
Kungsträdgården metro station, Stockholm is one of many public works by Ulrik Samuelson. Other examples are the stairwell to Guldrummet, Historiska museet, Stockholm; the entrance to Stockholm City Theater; Parabol, Sveavägen, Stockholm; Central Hall's west wall at the Stockholm Central Station; Filmstaden Sergel, Stockholm and Riksbanken, Stockholm.
Ulrik Samuelson has received The Prince Eugene Medal and first prize in Carnegie Art Award.