Geography of Photography: Sweden-Photography and Photographers

University of Zurich, Institute of Art History, Dr. Carlo Fleischmann Lecture Series on Photography, Spring Semester 2020

This spring semester the public lecture series Geography of Photography is focusing on photography in Sweden. Swedish photography and photography-based art in relation to their national and international context will be introduced and investigated. The goal of this series is to identify historical guidelines and contemporary tendencies of the photographic culture and to present current research foci.
Swedish photographers and photography are rather ideal-typical topics for art and culture of the “periphery.” As research on multiple modernities shows, however, inspiration and new narratives came and still come from the periphery with complex connections to the so-called center. Since its beginnings, the new medium of photography was exceptionally popular in the Scandinavian cultural realm. Simultaneously and in contact with trends in Europe and the United States, various image traditions emerged, which, moving in fields of tension between utopia and reality, contributed greatly to the self-image of the country in the 19th and 20th century. After 1950, both “de Unga” (the youth) and the photographers Sune Jonsson and Christer Strömholm helped initiate a breakthrough for humanist photography. In the 1960s Lennart Nilssons photographs of fetuses became famous worldwide, an exceptional achievement in the field of scientific object photography, whereas the next generation critically documented the dark side of the welfare state and the role of woman. Only since the 1990s Swedish photo-based art has received international recognition. With the postmodern and digital revolution, a growing number of artists have shifted the focus of their work to intermedial hybrids, thereby questioning requirements and constructions of the photographic image as well as gender stereotypes. This is carried to the limit in the contemporary works of Arvida Byström with her feminist online self-staging.

In the ongoing lecture series Geography of Photography, art historians, cultural historians, museum experts and artists talk about photographic culture and research in specific countries and regions in and outside of Europe. The objective of this series is to promote culture-comparative photographic research through a historical and theoretical perspective. National narratives are analyzed critically and through a historiographical perspective, whilst claims and legend formation of photography as a “global” medium are critically examined. On the whole, “classics” of the theory and history of the medium will be reevaluated in an international context, and photograpic cultures beyond the canon will be explored.


PROGRAM

Thursday, 12 March 2020, 18:15–19:45
Anna Dahlgren (Stockholms Universitet)
Rethinking photo history writing

Thursday, 26 March 2020, 18:15–19:45
Anna Tellgren (Moderna Museet Stockholm)
Photography at Moderna Museet

Thursday, 02 April 2020, 18:15–19:45
Niclas Östlind (Valand Akademi, Universitet Göteborg)
Photography in Sweden: A battle between institutions, people and cities

Thursday, 07 May 2020, 18:15–19:45
Eva Dahlman (CFF–Centrum för fotografi Stockholm)
State passivity — A threat to Sweden’s photographic heritage


Concept and Organization:
Bettina Gockel and Marc-Joachim Wasmer
Center for the Studies in the Theory and History of Photography,
Institute of Art History, University of Zurich

Contact: marc-joachim.wasmeruzh.ch
See also: www.photographyzurich.ch