I asked the curator, Elisabeth Wikenhed if she could notice if the audience- i.e. - the observers had become participants. This was out intention- to make this show somewhat in to an echo of the Baroque era’s idea the total art work, stimulating as-many senses as possible. That way- touching the form of sculptures and the sound of the crickets in the video could offer the blind an experience. Deaf could see. If tired and old, one could sit in ‘Cezanne’s ‘armchair. Ideally, there would have been the smell and taste of coffee, even the scent of old fashioned peonies. All senses answering to not only look closer- but feel closer.
Elisabeth wrote that she could notice that people are slowing down and that they sit to rest , for a while. We did then , create a room for many. I am starting to believe that the image could also be a theatre. magical usefulness has become a delicate spectacle, a theatre in whispers. Also- this- is a way forward.

We tried to stay true to the idea of creating a room of the ‘other’, and after three days placing images, sculptures and prints alongside with a velvet armchair and sofas, the blinds came down and the magic was switched on.

Emir’s video installation played a looped film from Greece. It showed the sea on a hot day, and a freight boat going nowhere to the sound of zikadas. Stefano’s embryonic figures, both menacing and fragile glimmered in the glass cases. My oversize woodcut peonies stretched alongside the wall, each bathing in light. The portable temple swayed to the movement of people walking in the room, and Cezanne’s armchair sat waiting, empty in front of images and sculptures.

I had, in the end, a distinct sense that this had become a room for being. As members of the public began to stream in, they sat down in the sofas , sometimes silent , sometimes talking- but what was most noticable was how their speed changed. They began to look, and if one aspect of art is to make us look closer, I could see this happen in the room of Gallery Valfisken.

Emir’s small cast iron , hand held sculptures echoed the forms of his larger stone work. One journalist was surprised when encouraged to touch the sculptures. - ‘Is that allowed?’ , she asked. It is important to touch, we answered.

In that way - sculpture is more democratic than images, because it can be ’seen’ by the visually impaired through touch, just as the room could be experienced in sound as well as through sight. Thus, the room became more of a total art work, drawing on the Baroque era’s idea of the arts. Paintings, sculptures, sound, scent and theatre should all come together in a magnificent spectacle - in a ‘total artwork’. Such a room can still be experienced in an Italian or Spanish catholic church, where the insence scent the air and rise in smoky lines to music while the priest officiates in grand gestures to a backdrop of hope and damnation in pictures and sculptures. It is a grand idea- the ‘Total Art Work.’

“Fika” is a Swedish word filled with the “suchness” drinking coffee together. ” Fika” happens in mid-morning, and in mid-afternoon. It happens between friends when serious issues need to be resolved, and when frayed ends of relationships call to be mended. In the workplace, the Swedes organize the “fika” moments- and assign cake rotas and collective contributions to the coffee fund. In UK offices, most keep their own coffee in their desk and drink in silence in front of the computer screen. That carries non of ‘coffee-suchness’.

The ‘fika-paus’ print series is a tribute to the best of Swedish collective behaviour. The prints will show a coffee cup and a slice of cake and will be priced to what the image shows. If it is a print of a cappucino, a magazine, carrot cake and lover ( the lover is not included in the price) add up the items and that’s how much the print costs. Ordinary pleasures, but moments that can encourage dialogue and resolve concerns.

To me, these are Swedish bitter sweet moments that I recapture, and try to hold in a city , this London , which hardly permits something so frivolous as a break in striving. To some extent, through these pictures I draw my own return to Sweden, and what they show is nothing extra-ordinary nor tormented, but a sense of that in the end- all we have is daily life and moments together, and that is what needs to be made magical.

Also, the iconography of the ‘fika-paus’ print series begin to plays with the term ” paridigmatic particularity”, a term designated to making the intimate and ordinary universal, and act of looking closer at the easily missable. Therefore the ‘fika-paus’ print series are socially engaged, hwover trivial their subject matter.
The American printmaker / artist Robert Gwathmey who developed his work during the renaissance of American Printmaking- the WPA Graphic Arts projects- answered when ‘ asked if he was a “social artist” ? - “I’m a social being and I don’t see how you can be an artist and be separate…Artists have eyes…You go home. You see things that are almost forgotten. It’s always shocking.” ( http://www.artsconnected.org/artsnetmn/identity/gwath.html accessed 8 May 2009)

But why does life through the eyes of socially engaged artist have to be shocking? Or is it shocking that we don’t see life in front of us- unfolding, breathing, and dreaming? Why can’t the things we see, when looking closer, be captivating, because it is soothing simplicity and simply shared? These are our moments to be in , when we stop, look and listen closely - to each other.

The ‘fika-paus’ print series are dedicated to my childhood friend Petra Thorell who I found again after a long silence, to Anna Bergbom, my comrade in prints and for all the moments over a cup of coffee and carrot cake. The ‘fika-paus’ - red armchair’ print is for my mother, being together - really talking at Konditori Hollandia in Malmo.

The show’s central point is a ‘pillar’ made from large prints. The pillar is to function as the central axis, which around the rest of the images, sculptures, paintings and prints turn. Some of the work can only be experienced as the video installation by Emir, while other pieces- such as Stefano’s ‘ Black Water’ sculpture groups and my ‘Fika-Paus’ ( coffee moment prints) can be bought. Emir, Stefano and I ask: Where does the role of art fit - experiencing it publically- or owning it to then experience it privately? What do you do with art?

We just make it. Making ‘it’, the art- is in our bones.

Emir’s pillar. Now there will be prints standing- and hanging- all off and away from the wall!

I watched an elderly man strolling in to the gallery. It was empty, and peaceful with the mid-afternoon sun streaming down from the skylites.He was alone, looking here and there at things but seemed only half-interested, then made a few rounds and left after five minutes. A family followed, and again, made a circle or two - and left. Too much visual stuff in this world, I thought, and in the gallery, the silence of drawings compete with the image-noise in people’s heads.

How to help people stop pause and truly see what is around them? Perhaps to re-enact the essence of a Japanese tea-ceremony, where the art in the alcove, with its flower arrangement is to be truly seen, as is the mist rising from the boiling water in a room with minimal parts. The plain walls, the floor devoid of tables and chairs encloses each sound, each movement - to become a contemplation.

I re-build the tea-room as I complete the ‘ collapsible temple’ to hang suspended in three sheets forming an alcove, a room for one only, from the ceiling. It’s a print which can be stepped into, and be stayed still in. Would the older man do that- step in to my ‘collapsible temple’ which is also physical manifestation of my own search and relation to the visceral print?

As it is in Sweden, I will offer the man an armchair, a table as well to sit down by,to rest, and to see what surrounds him in the gallery which has now become a laboratory for the senses.

The gallery is a highly accessible space, filled with light and calm.

The library next door is filled with a low level humming of focussed readers.

Outside, daily life moves on. There are errands to run, coffee to drink and the dog needs a walk. Why would anyone care to stop and walk in to the gallery, just to see?

Paper and can be ethereal. The pilgrim robe, suspended inside the collapsible temple is will be printed on the thinnest Japanese paper possible. Both the feather weight collapsible temple, and the pilgrim robe can be folded away in a suitcase.

This suitcase of images and searching that I carry with me from continent to continent.

Cezanne, the painter said, that art should be like one’s favourite armchair. A place to rest and sink in to a welcoming softness after a long, hard day. I don’t quite agree, as I believe that art is also a method to wake up an audience to be enagaged in a thought, or a provocation which shakes away the notion of passively consuming culture. Yet, in parts, I like Cezanne’s idea, that at times- art can also provide respite, a moment to let a thoughful gaze simply rest in colour, and form.

The show ” Magical Usefulness” aims to present both notions- from rest to provocation, and so there is an armchair featured on the poster.

What really happens in that armchair? Forgetting or remembering? Deciding to stay in love- or to leave, taking the armchair upon departure.

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Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish film director said of his fellow creative Tarkovksy, that Tarkovsky opened up other rooms. While most artists bang on their own doors of angst and limitations, Tarkovsky had the ability to transcend the introverted pounding of the self and recreate stories that opened not only doors of experiences for the audience, but also invited the viewer to enter other rooms that offered a space for the visitor to feel , and to experience life through his vision. These spaces then became shared, for both the director and the viewer.

On reading Bergman’s comment, I decided to build, in prints, such a room. It will be a collapsible temple made form 2.4 meters woodcuts printed on Korean paper. Inside this fragile and wafer thin space, I will hang a three-dimensional pilgrim robe, stamped with 33 woodcuts that represent key moments in my life.

My way to the print- to my art- has at times felt like a pilgrimage, that I had to test my commitment, focus and the strength of my vision moving through life, moving from country to country to keep on making images and refine my techniques under the tutelage of other printmakers in collective print studios. My collapsible temple, like the rooms of Tarkovsky, is built from the made and awaiting prints. I invite the viewer to enter to a meditation on a puzzling journey across continents and inwards to a raw heart.

Stefano Beccari is coming closer to assembling his ‘Black River’. The work is edgy, equally playful as threatening. These are embryonic figures that appear to the lost children of inner city, or figures from a wild ride down a mythical river.

Stefano’s work continues to grow. The space will soon be over-run with these figures.