Publications

Björn Lövin -The Surrounding Reality

  • 2022, First Edition, 264 pages, Softcover, Offset, 24,0 x 32,0 cm, Swedish and English
  • ISBN 978-91-89312-02-9
  •  15
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  • Moderna Museet exhibition catalogue no. 416:

    Björn Lövin -The Surrounding Reality

    Texts: Gitte Ørskou, Matilda Olof-Ors, Rasmus Fleischer, Maria Lind & Helena Mattsson.
    Curator: Matilda Olof-Ors
    Concept and Editorial Work: Matilda Olof-Ors, Jonas Williamsson & Peo Olsson
    Design: Jonas Williamsson
    Photography: Albin Dahlström, Mats B, Ayao Yamazaki.
    Co-publishers: Moderna Museet & Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König
    Print: Narayana Press.

    About the exhibition:

    Björn Lövin -The Surrounding Reality
    Moderna Museet
    2.4 – 18.9 2022
    Stockholm

    With carefully chosen details, Björn Lövin (1937–2009) built up fictional worlds, like film sets, which the visitor could step into. In the exhibition “The Surrounding Reality”, three of Björn Lövin’s extensive environments have been reconstructed. Then, as now, visitors can enter the environments themselves and experience the art from up close.
    None of Björn Lövin’s original environments were preserved after being presented in their respective exhibitions in the 1970s and 1980s. The environments that you can see now in the exhibition are thus reconstructions interpreting and recreating a similar atmosphere as when the works were first shown.
    Extensive and winding research has been required to build up the environments. Based on photographs, films and archive documents, objects have been identified. These are the three environments that you will encounter in the exhibition:
    Consumer in Infinity and “Mr P’s hoard”, L’image and C – The struggle for reality.

    Curator: Matilda Olof-Ors

    (Read more)

    About Björn Lövin

    Björn Lövin expanded traditional art genres and was one of the first Swedish artists in the late 1960s to make spatial installations, called environments at the time.
    He was born in Falun in 1937. In his youth Lövin studied in Barcelona, later attending Stockholm University and Uppsala University to study education, scientific theory and information technology.
    Despite his lack of formal artistic training, he had his first exhibition at Galleri Mejan in 1970, an early version of the more comprehensive exhibition Consumer in Infinity and “Mr P’s Hoard” – two environments by Björn Lövin that was presented at Moderna Museet the following year.
    His large scale works were critical to totalitarian systems, ranging from the People’s Home (Folkhemmet) to the consumption society, which includes some and excludes others and attract by offering an image of safety, but at the cost of individual freedom. His first solo show at Moderna Museet was curated by Pontus Hultén and later included solo shows at Centre Pompidou in Paris, Liljevalchs and Kulturhuset in Stockholm and at Malmö Konsthall amongst others. (Read less)

Andréas Hagström (writer and editor)

Göteborgs Konsthall -en hundraårig konsthistoria

  • 2021. First edition. 532 pages. Hardcover. Offset. 21,0 x 27,0 cm. Swedish.
  • ISBN 978-91-89312-01-2.
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  • For about 100 years Göteborgs Konsthall has exhibited art at Götaplatsen in Gothenburg, Sweden. The book, Göteborgs Konsthall – en 100-årig konsthistoria is a celebration of its century-long existence.

    Göteborgs Konsthall – en hundraårig konsthistoria begins in 18th century Europe, when art exhibitions for the public were established, continues to the Jubileum Exhibition (Jubileumsutställningen) in Gothenburg in 1923 when the exhibition space was opened, and on to the present, the year of the Pandemic, 2020.

    The book describes how various artistic, societal and political movements have affected the Konsthall, and how in turn the Konsthall has affected art, society and politics. This reciprocal relationship encompasses not only artists, artworks and people who worked at the Konsthall, but it also reveals how art is viewed in general. Additional aspects include Konsthall visitors and pedagogical work, national and regional cultural policies and the growth of the city of Gothenburg. All this illuminates the significance of Göteborgs Konsthall during its first 100 years. (Read more)

    A unique writing of history

    Göteborgs Konsthall – en hundraårig konsthistoria is written by Andréas Hagström together with a number of invited writers. During his 20 years working at Göteborgs Konsthall Andréas Hagström has built up a physical and digital archive of its history. This material has now been further developed with a unique historical survey which also includes several different writers’ voices that add in-depth studies, analyses and perspectives.

    Maria Görts describes the emergence of art associations and art galleries in Europe during the 18th century; Louise Wolthers writes about the first large scale international photographic exhibition in Gothenburg in 1929; Kajsa Widegren writes about gender and representation based on the history of the konsthall and Martin Gustavsson shows us the material conditions via Baumol´s dilemma and organizational amnesia. Lisa Rosendahl has invited a number of artists from different generations to share their views on Göteborgs Konsthall, and the artistic director Stina Edblom and curator Liv Stoltz reflect on the activities of the konsthall today and in the future.

     

    Graphic design: Jonas Williamsson

    Photography and image editing: Peo Olsson

    Printed at Narayana Press. (Read less)

Jonas Williamsson

The MDT Poster

  • 2021. First edition. 832 pages. Softcover. Offset. 11,6 x 17,6 cm. English. Published by Grafisk Fyrkant/Null & Void Books.
  • ISBN 978-91-89312-00-5
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  • This book contains a selection of about 700 poster variations made for MDT, Moderna Dansteatern (the Modern Dance Theatre), during a period of ten years. Situated in central Stockholm on the Skeppsholmen island, MDT presents and co-produces dance, choreography and performance, festivals, talks and seminars. The work was commissioned by Danjel Andersson (director 2010–2019) as part of an overall system for the graphic design and communications.

    The world around the posters has changed since the first one was made, while the poster remained the same for almost a decade. Regardless of everything in motion, the image of MDT became an unaffected fixture. A benefit of leaving things unchanged is that it can function as an anchor in time, perhaps establishing a position where even a subtle difference is made visible?

    (Read more)

    This is the first release of the publishing project Grafisk Fyrkant [Graphic Square], an imprint of Null & Void Books, inspired by the Danish association and publisher Grafisk Cirkel [Graphic Circle] (1936 –1979) whose books were often printed in small formats and limited editions by and for graphic designers. Similarly, Grafisk Fyrkant is interested in how ideas are transformed via printed matter.

    Jonas Williamsson (Umeå, 1973) grew up in a prospering counterculture environment in the peripheral north. In 1999 he graduated from Konstfack and same year co-founded the graphic design studio Reala with classmate Samuel Nyholm and Swiss colleague Laurent Benner. They worked together on commissions until 2007, developing their signature pong-pong aesthetics, while teaching and exhibiting in Sweden and abroad. Since 2008 he is running his own practice focusing on graphic design for artists and institutions. He designed the graphic identities for After Shopping, with Reala (2001); Konst2, with Reala and Andreas och Fredrika (2004); Tensta Konsthall, with Reala and Karl Holmqvist (2004); Iaspis Forum for Design and Critical Practice, with Martin Frostner (2009); MDT (2011); the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, with Rikard Heberling (2020). The MDT project has been acknowledged twice in the Association of Swedish Illustrators and Graphic Designers’ Kolla! award (2012 ⁄ 2020). Williamsson’s book work has been awarded with Swedish Book Art awards, Kolla!, and the Best Books of the Year by the Danish Association of Book Crafts.

    Included in the book is an essay; Dancing Modules -Stripes in Motion by Frida Sandström who is a writer and critic based in Copenhagen.

    Printed by Printon Trükikoda, Tallinn. (Read less)

Erik Betshammar

Men i allt det diffusa, får vi ändå ett säkert grepp om omgivningens karaktär.

  • 2019. Edition 510. 200 pages. Softcover. Offset. 16,5 cm x 22 cm, Swedish (title) and English.
  • ISBN 978-91-981854-4-7
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  • HOWEVER, DESPITE THE HAZE YOU CAN STILL GET A CONCRETE FEELING FOR THE SURROUNDINGS is a book that is composed of one photograph. In the book, Erik Betshammar and designer Jonas Williamsson present and represent this photograph, in multiple ways. From the double nature of the insert to the cover and the ambiguous title, all is interlinked.

    Erik Betshammar (b. 1985) is a Swedish artist and photographer, based in Gothenburg, Sweden. Betshammar works in the borderland between digital and analogue photographic technology. His work often consists of photographs, installations and texts, and his sometimes long titles provide an existential entry to his world of thought. He graduated in 2012 with an MFA in photography from the Högskolan för Fotografi (School of Photography) at the University of Gothenburg and has received multiple art grants. He has exhibited his work mainly in Scandinavia.

    (Read more)

    MEN I ALLT DET DIFFUSA, FÅR VI ÄNDÅ ETT SÄKERT GREPP OM OMGIVNINGENS KARAKTÄR.

    The photograph in the book is reproduced in two versions: one closer to its analogue origin and one where the image has remained longer in the digital materiality – an additional digital space, created by the artist. The silver grains in the film base of the photograph can easily be experienced on the outside of the pages, as the traces of the digital ones and zeroes in the hyper-digital version are almost inaccessible on the inside of the folded pages. To form a third layer, these two images are impossible to see in their complete state, the pages show only cuts. What is visible is a 100% reproduction, cropped by the size of the book page.

    By showing two different representations of the same photograph in this way, the artist wants to match his working process and the experiences from engaging with the book as medium. It is in the tension between either or and both that the book is formed, a space where Betshammar likes to work.

    HOWEVER, DESPITE THE HAZE YOU CAN STILL GET A CONCRETE FEELING FOR THE SURROUNDINGS is a book that wants to encourage resistance and raise questions about the idea of the photobook itself – what and who creates it, and how readers respond. The book includes a short text by Kirsti Taylor Bye, and an even shorter one by Erik Betshammar.

    Kirsti Taylor Bye is a Norwegian artist and photographer.

    Jonas Williamsson is a Swedish graphic designer based in Stockholm.

    Printed at Narayana Press. (Read less)

Olsson, Sjögren & Williamsson

Sorteras Under: Le Travail / Björn Lövin

  • 2019. Edition 500. 416 pages. Hardcover. Offset. 21.5 x 29,7 cm. Swedish and English.
  • ISBN 978-91-981854-3-0
  •  49
  • Out of stock

  • Concept and Editorial Work: Peo Olsson, Katarina Sjögren, Jonas Williamsson

    Image: Peo Olsson. Curatorial Work: Katarina Sjögren. Design: Jonas Williamsson. Texts: Lisa Rosendahl, Emily Segal, Katarina Sjögren. Print: Tallinna Raamatutrükikoda. Released on March 9th 2019, Stockholm, Sweden.

    The book contains a walkthrough from an unrealised ”total exhibition” based on Björn Lövin´s oeuvre.

    In the book there are also essays by Lisa Rosendahl och Emily Segal.

    Björn Lövin (1937–2009) was one of the first Swedish installation artists and his large scale works was critical to totalitarian systems, ranging from the People’s Home (Folkhemmet) to the consumption society, which includes some and excludes others and attract by offering safety, but at the cost of individual freedom. His career started with a solo show at Moderna Museet curated by Pontus Hultén and included solo shows at Centre Pompidou in Paris, Liljevalchs and Kulturhuset in Stockholm and at Malmö Konsthall amongst others.

    (Read more)

    In two sketches, one in english and one in swedish, the idea of the ”total exhibition” is presented and this were to include most of his works, mostly large installation pieces and his films, come together as a concluding gesamtkunstwerk. The pieces were meant to be seen through each other to create an ”effect of depth” that would make the relationships between the installations more complex. It is unsure if the sketch were to be realised, as it demands a lot from the size and shape of the room and also that Mr Lövin was not very careful in saving his artworks. The pieces that were part of the installations were treated as props and have not always been saved for posterity.

    In the book we have recreated his idea of the total exhibition ”The Work” by digitally visualising in 3D, the technology behind a vast part of the contemporary commercial imagery. We have used a production method that is common today, where a lot of the detailed work has been created through different communities and services on the internet. The work is based on archive material and the photographic documentation that is available in private and public archives and in books and films. We have created a digital spatiality that simulate a physical one, another form of reality, from  Lövin´s idea. The form has traces of the digital creation, a tone of hyperrealism. In the attempt we have instead created a new exhibition, a new reality that is based on the work of Lövin, but not as a direct translation.

    In the texts curator Lisa Rosendahl deals with Lövin´s work from the perspective of hers and todays general commercial environment and relates his work to contemporary artists. Writer Emily Segal closes in on Lövin´s works from a closer look at Lövin´s alter ego, Mr P´s paintings of the Konsum logotype.

    PEO OLSSON is a Swedish photographer. He focuses his work on processes of change and the human condition. The archive or collection is often a point of departure in his works, examining time, memory and the self. Educated at ICP in New York, and he also holds an MFA from School of Photography at the University
    of Gothenburg. He exhibits his work on a regular basis in Sweden and internationally. He has also worked as guest teacher and works as freelance since the mid 1990s. He published his first book Umbra Hominis in 2014.

    KATARINA SJÖGREN ran the gallery Crystal in Stockholm with Jun-Hi Wennergren Nordling. Katarina worked as a project manager and administrative director at Tensta Konsthall, and at Konstfack University of Art, Crafts and Design as a guest teacher and head of department. She is a member of the board at Tensta Konsthall and has been a member of the board of the Swedish Gallery Association. She has written texts to artists’ monographs and about many of the works in the Absolute Art Collection. She has curated exhibitions and taught at Art and Design Schools. Today she is active as director at the gallery Belenius in Stockholm. Katarina Sjögren holds a bachelor in Art History and is approved as senior lecturer in curatorial practices. 

    JONAS WILLIAMSSON is a graphic designer working in the field of culture. Often with a strategy of using what is at stake outside of its expression, Williamsson’s design could be understood as a design for its non-expression. He graduated with MFA from Konstfack in 1999 and same year co-founded the graphic design and illustration collective REALA. Since 2007 he’s running his own studio in Stockholm focusing on graphic design articulated through programs and publications for commissioners within the fields of visual and performing arts. His work has been awarded by Svensk bokkonst, Kolla!, The New York Art Directors Club and Årets bedste Bogarbejde 2018. (Read less)

Sagovolvo (Bella Rune & Jonas Nobel)

Restaurang Allehensrätten

  • 2017, Edition 500, 112 Pages, Coil binding, 24 x 17 cm, Swedish.
  • ISBN 978-91-981854-2-3
  •  29
  • Out of stock

  • RESTAURANG ALLEHENSRÄTTEN by Sagovolvo (Bella Rune & Jonas Nobel) was a performance piece where the audience was brought on a hike through a forest area on Djurgården in Stockholm. During the walk small dishes of food was served, inspired by the things you can find and pick in nature. In all the laid out scenes the dishes that was served, the ingredients and the characters that served them was given different political meanings. For example, the blueberries of childhood was served at the same time as giant blueberries showed up in the forest, accompanied by a monotonous voice about labour rights playing from loudspeakers in the trees.

    (Read more)

    Sagovolvo called the performance ”a training camp for the imagination” hoping that the audience would get a chance to reflect on habitual structures and preconceptions, and to together imagine new and different realities. The idea of the meal as the perhaps most important social gathering for political discourse, was of course also an important part of Sagovolvos interest in involving the act of eating in the piece. The texts that was found in the script was, for instance, a mix of their own texts and material from different blogs and the Wikipedia.

    Is it possible to create new realities before dreaming how this new reality should be designed and organized? This book uses the cookery book as metaphore for its setup. The market for cookery books in Sweden is growing at the same time as the hours the average swede is cooking at home decline. This means that the cookery book mostly function as food for dreams. The script of the performance combined with documentary photographs, by the artist Jenny Källman, creates an image of the piece. Interspersed amongst the photographs and the pages of the free sheet, that was handed out in one of the performance scenes, you find the recipies that made Restaurant Allehensrätten possible; instructions for action and change, from raw to finished product. Recipies are seldom rights managed, on the contrary, they function more in the sense of the open source-principle. They are easy to copy and a good recipe has alchemical qualities; it can transform a simple raw product to gold. A hard and indigestible potato becomes, if you follow the instructions, a soft, nutritious and enjoyable experience. A recipe is a description and a call for reorganizing reality for the better. In order to change the existing, one has to imagine and to dream something else. This something exists in the beginning, as a thought or a dream. Reactionary forces always called the progressive movements dreamers with a bad connection to reality. A multitude of institutions and concepts in todays society is a result of this kind of dreams. Women´s voting rights, paid vacation or the abolishment of slavery have all been seen as impossible reforms by some, but persistant dreamers, often risking their lives, have made these become a reality. Dreams and ideas that were seen as odd at the time of conception, has lead the way for cultural expressions and social conventions that are looked upon as natural today.

    Restaurang Allehensrätten was produced by Mossutställningar in cooperation with Parkteatern.

    Photography: Jenny Källman.

    Graphic design: Jonas Williamsson. Print: Printon.

    Released April 12th 2017 at Woodstockholm, Stockholm; Sweden. (Read less)

Samuel Nyholm & Peo Olsson

Umbra Hominis

  • 2014. Edition 300. 200 Pages. Offset. 21,5 x 28,5 cm. English.
  • ISBN 978-91-981854-1-6
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  • Framework: An archive holds an inherent duality. It organizes and categorizes to immortalize, at the same time as it internalizes and hides. A museum is dismantled and finds its terminal storage. A view of the world and its conventional figure is dissolved. The power over our history, and hence our future, lies in how we handle and make use of communal archive systems. An explosive force, created by rearrangements of these archive materials, can displace courses of events, unobtrusive as well as decisive. Consequently, certain collations alter our collective memories, affecting the writing of history as well as power relations.

    The book features two essays: “Posthuman. Shadows of Modernity.” by Arno Böhler and “Mal d´Archive. To Mythologize the Past.” by Mattias Winslow.

    (Read more)

    Participants:

    Samuel Nyholm is a Swedish graphic designer and illustrator. Formerly part of the Swedish graphic design studio Reala. Selection of clients and collaborators include Tate Etc., Cornel Windlin, Kunsthalle St Gallen, Eric Steinbrecher, Svenska Filminstitute, Vitra, Absolut Vodka, Cneai, Tensta Konsthall, Svenska Dagbladet, Die Zeit, der Spiegel and others. As an illustrator, his works have been exhibited in Kunsthalle St Gallen, Kino Babylon in Berlin, Nieves/Corner College in Zürich, MoMA PS1 in New York, Art Basel, Copenhagen Art Fair and the Brno Biennale.

    In 2012 he was appointed Professor of Illustration in HfK, Bremen. He is a frequent guest tutor and critic at various art schools, such as Konstfack and The Royal University of Fine Arts in Stockholm, HDK in Gothenburg, ECAL in Lausanne, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam and Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem.

    Peo Olsson is a Swedish artist and photographer. With Malmö as a base he focuses his work on processes of change and the human condition. The archive or collection is often a point of departure in his works.

    Educated at ICP in New York, he also holds an MFA from School of Photography at the University of Gothenburg.

    He has participated in photo festivals in New York and Copenhagen and also exhibited his work at Skanbul Connection in Istanbul, Göteborgs Konsthall, Röda Sten Konsthall and Galleri Box in Gothenburg; Martin Bryder Gallery and Fotogalleriet Format in Lund and Malmö respectively. Fotografins Hus in Stockholm and Immigration Office in Bremen.

    Arno Böhler works at the Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna, Austria.

    Mattias Winslow is a librarian at the Nynäshamn Municipal Library, Sweden.

    Graphic Design: Jonas Williamsson. Print: Narayana Press.

    Released September 12th 2014 at Immigration Office, Bremen, Germany. (Read less)

Fredrik Værslev

It Girl

  • 2014. Edition 700. 100 Pages. Offset. 21 x 29,7 cm. English.
  • ISBN 978-91-981854-0-9
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  • The first title from Null & Void is “It Girl” by the Norwegian artist Fredrik Værslev (b.1979). “It Girl” is a celebration of Tærtitta, a dog who belonged to Fredrik and his mother and who passed away 2013.

    The book shares its form with the coloring book, and consists of repetitive drawings and reproductions of Terrazzo paintings. It is, like the exhibition it draws on, a catwalk in abstraction.

    (Read more)

    Fredrik Værslev’s work often consists of series of paintings with a collaborative quality, with another artist, person, nature or temperature.  He was born in 1979 in Moss, Norway. He studied at Staatliche Hochschule fur Bildende Künste, Städelschule, Frankfurt and Malmö Art Academy, Sweden. He currently lives and works in Drøbak and Vestfossen. As well as being an internationally exhibited artist, he is Director and founder of Landings Project Space, Vestfossen, Norway. Solo shows include: Museo Marino Marini, Firenze, Italy and CAC – Passerelle, Brest, France, (2015): East Bound and Down, The Power Station, Dallas, TX; Luminar Cité, Lisbon, Portugal (2014). His work has been recently presented in group shows such as Lé Almanach -14, Lé Consortium, Dijon, France (2014); Flex-Sil Reloaded, Kunsthalle St.Gallen; Backa in i framtiden, Lunds Konsthall, Lund: Lies About Painting, Moderna Museet, Malmö, Sweden (2013).

    Graphic Design: Jonas Williamsson. Print: CA Andersson.

    Released July 11th 2014 at Johan Berggren Gallery, Malmö; Sweden. (Read less)