puzzling
Many have scratched their heads over Martin Thelander’s art. How should we understand it? Is it serious or a joke? What does he really mean? The works often consist of simple text messages, which are linked in thematic series. The suite "Carolus Linnaeus" includes, for example, serigraphs, with texts like "Princess Madeleine", "Lapland" and "Ten thousand crowns."
–I work around a title. I’ve gotten the most fun results by pulling different works as far apart as possible, so that it gets strange and har to get the pieces to fit together.
Two prints from the series "Carl von Linné"
Martin Thelander says he states something and then leaves the viewer with that statement. So what should the viewer to do with it? What is missing in this context is an agreement on how the work should be interpreted. The tension and the uncertainty created by the lack of communication, becomes an important part of the work.
– I think it should feel a bit like I'm standing behind your back and watching, when you see my works. I do not want it to be an uncomfortable feeling, but something that triggers the imagination.
Martin Thelander meditates a lot on other artists, what they want and what drives them. Therefore, he plays with the role of the artist and his own person, so that the viewer never knows what is true and what is false. The boundary between biography and fiction has been blurred in Martin Thelander’s work ever since his years at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm.
Two prints from the series "Scandinavia"
– I have assumed the role of sexist, feminist, gay, and everything possible. I put up a claim on the wall that suggests that I'm this or that, and then I let the viewer interpret it. All artists claim something, it might be that this particular red color that he or she used is the best one. I think it's more fun to claim otherwise. That I'm asocialdemocrat and love Mona Sahlin, for example
One of Martin Thelander’s latest project was about the very same Mona Sahlin; biographical notes from the starting of the Barbie club to the handover of the mission as party chairman in 2010. Why does an artist devote an entire exhibition to the life of Mona Sahlin?
– I hope your imagination kicks off when you see my pictures. That one becomes pensive, and perhaps a little annoyed, and that it stays and gnaws in you for a long time, perhaps as something that disturbs you or something you're thinking of.
Martin Thelander worked a long time with the word and theme of eroticism.
– There are many parallels between art and eroticism. Erotics is much more interesting than sex, because sex is full on naked, whereas eroticism means trying to hide something. The same applies to the art, where if you conceal parts of reality to make it more interesting.
Martin Thelander paying ed. art a visit