Anders Bergman

Anders Bergman's new exhibition Glory will open at Oksasenkatu11 on Friday 12th of April in Helsinki. The show will remain open until April 28th.

Read the exhbition text bellow.

“At Easter time last year, I travelled to Ethiopia to do some research work that was in some ways connected with a tradition of folklore painting from my home region of Dalarna, Sweden. Expectations are always creating images in our heads, but then reality – or what we refer to as reality – always provides us with so much more. I was thrilled to experience the Ethiopian Orthodox Easter celebration, the singing pilgrims and the rock churches of Lalibella. This experience, together with other influences and reflections during a number of years form the base of this exhibition.” – Anders Bergman

If one enters an Anders Bergman exhibition with any expectation at all of discovering a tidy, logical synopsis of, well, anything – they will soon find themselves required to seriously regroup and rethink.

Bergman’s art can partly be seen as an exploration of processes of organic transformation. Through his various journeys, discoveries and observations he asserts connections – “common laws” – between artforms, sub-cultures and folk traditions as seemingly disparate as Ethiopian storytelling, Swedish woodcarving, and half-forgotten Finnish colonies in the heart of the Amazon.

By placing his focus on these organic, ever-evolving processes (both large and small) of our universe – and their innate interconnectedness, Bergman encourages his audiences to join him in his subtle yet potentially profound journeys of linking and fresh thinking.

Swedish-born yet profoundly global in his richly life-affirmative insights, Bergman is a provocatively evocative, relentlessly experimental artist. In his incredibly diverse explorations of our universe over decades of serious investigations, the one common denominator is his astonishment and well-earned delight at finding himself here.

It’s been pointed out elsewhere that we humans are tasked with two essential, mutually conflicting challenges as we attempt to fruitfully live our lives and find value in them. On one hand, to live a life with any chance for true richness, it’s crucial to embrace the myriad profound and unexpected connections between seemingly disparate aspects of reality. On the other hand, the pragmatic demands of our daily survival often tempt us to willfully deny the vast majority of these same connections – in the name of earning the rent money, avoiding fast-moving car bumpers, and basic sanity.

Bergman’s insight, his bold, big-hearted commitment as a thinker and artistic adventurer, is to push back against the narrow, fear-driven mindsets of such limited thinking – while mapping the way ever forward into our shared, infinitely astounding mess of a fully interconnected universe.

Mark Maher Helsinki, April 2019

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