Artistic creativity and joy of color in the winter darkness

Tired and listless in the winter darkness and cold? Try art therapy. Personally, I got a real boost of energy from two current exhibitions in Stockholm by Mari Rantanen and Jacob Dahlgren. Their creative transformation numbers have several things in common – joy of color, a wealth of patterns and an abstract, geometric design language with roots in art history and everyday life.

Mari Rantanen, born in Finland, lived in New York for a long time, was a professor of painting at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1996 to 2005 and has remained in Stockholm ever since. But there is something unmistakably Finnish about the “Exit to Entrance” exhibition of Rantanen’s colorful paintings in the large halls of the Academy of Fine Arts, skilfully put together by the well-known curator Maaretta Jaukkuri.

There is my first association with Marimekko – even as a Swede, steeped in the Finnish company’s colorful patterns; striped, polka dots and stylized flowers on clothing and home textiles.

Rantanen’s acrylic painting however, has sample constructions that are more advanced upon closer inspection. Rhythmic shapes and bundles of lines partially overlap, creating new colors and pattern effects.

Some of the canvases are also hung in monumental suites up to eleven meters long. Added to this is a delicious color scheme dominated by rich pastel tones: pink, orange, honey yellow, lilac, turquoise and pistachio green. But sometimes deeper reds, greens, yellows and blues as well as bright gold and silver stripes on some canvases.

The oldest and most magnificent work in the exhibition is the “Perfect Sunset” suite from 2007. Here you can feel the inspiration of Islamic architecture, richly decorated with arabesques and a color scheme that suggests a transition from daylight to the fiery sunset.

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In other works returns a stylized flower strikingly similar to the May flower. Plus stars, teardrop shapes and a circle, followed by a long, narrow rectangle with rounded corners.

According to the catalog, it is a further stylization of Edvard Munch’s symbolic full moons, in which the light is reflected in the water.

INHowever, the sources of inspiration are less important, the feeling that arises is even more important. It’s about the interplay of color and form, light and movement – a kind of visual, emotional stories that radiate vitality and joy of life. “Good Vibes,” as a painting is called. “Taste of honey” another. So the opposite of strict and dry minimalism.

The same can also be said about Jacob Dahlgren’s mini-retrospective in Andréhn-Schiptjenko’s almost square gallery space. Here the artist has made a deliberately chaotic presentation that signals a construction site, with protective cardboard on the floor, barrier tape and a mesh wall.

It is also convenient for hanging video screens and the series of small paintings on sandpaper; “Model for understanding the world”.

This is exactly what Dahlgren has been working on for several decades. The exhibition presents some of his idiosyncratic series of methodical explorations of our surrounding reality. The urban space, the home and everyday life are full of mass-produced goods – from canopies to pencils to cheap plastic hangers.

It is most impressive the ingenuity of its production, everything that can be conjured up with simple means. For example, putting together unexpected patterns and shapes of thumbsticks or different colored coat hangers – highly democratic, entertaining and actually stylish objects. Cords that run through every home can also be arranged in decorative patterns.

Of course, his choice of building blocks says something about our consumer society and its demands, such as “Heaven is a place on earth” with a tricky decorative pattern of bathroom scales.

But just like Rantanen, Dahlgren also refers to art historical, preferably modernist, models. He creates readymades in the spirit of Duchamp, but achieves effects using serial repetitions like Warhol. He also introduced systems for reinterpreting and revising old ideas in new forms.

There is something special about Dahlgren Fixation on stripes, like the Frenchman Daniel Burén, but not vertically, but horizontally.

For 25 years, Dahlgren has regularly worn striped T-shirts, a living exhibition that he presents daily on his Instagram account. He also secretly filmed people around the city wearing striped tops, and the patterns on his first 1,000 shirts are looped in the “Neoconcrete Space” video.

Still images of Dahlgren himself from 2009-2022 reappear in the video work “I”. There the artist ages and changes in a magnetic flow – although the stripes never disappear.

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