In No Particular Order at Göteborg Museum of Art
In the exhibition ”In No Particular Order”, Martin Gustavsson carves out a new direction in his art.
A great number of paintings, closely hung together, create a multifaceted system of combinations and reading possibilities. The works merge into a continuum, a simultaneous then and now, with a both urgent presence and elusive absence.
He uses his own artistic history in order to reformulate statements about a Being, a search of his own memory as well as of a collective one. A production of possibilities for a context viewed over time and in several dimensions. The random hanging of the paintings becomes a counter move against the circumstances we call life and the meanings we wish and believe that we can see, and make sense of, in terms of significances. The experiences we gain and exchange in our encounter with his works are a never-ending dialogue without a conclusive answer. Martin Gustavsson invites us to accompany him in his exploration to unfold deeper levels of meaning. The hanging indicates the method: turning and twisting, reversing, inspecting at close range and from a distance, the detailed, the repetitive, the essentially different. And to constantly return to the imagery that reminds us of our vulnerability, the body we revisit, the parts of a body that we see.
Martin Gustavsson is one of Sweden’s most interesting artists, with a powerful integrity and personal iconography. It is with great pleasure that Gothenburg Museum of Art presents one of Sweden’s most prominent contemporary painters for its audience.
