In the pictures of Henrik Strömberg one encounters the world, remote, removed, almost as if disappeared. Places become difficult to locate, plunged into darkness, dawn, dusk; wastelands, half empty rooms; left-overs, left-behinds. Slight traces of what one knows, emmerge from a tissue of light, colour, plane and space; deserted: the individual does not occur. The indiviual is the spectator.
Decoding these pictures is not simple. Although they are resonating with suggestion and anticipation, the enigmatic moment always remains, disallowing you to disengage. Once you begin to immerse yourself, you become pulled over to the other, the inner side, beyond the effigy. One is on one’s own. The world stands still. Time stands still.
The quality of Henrik Strömberg’s work constitutes itself in the austere composition, from which results in this certain inward-looking nature, a deep and universal self-reflection. His view penetrates the invisible, seizes it, and gives it a shape. A connection is created between the inside and the outside, the true essence of things and the mere sense of things. This becomes obvious in the Forest Series in particular.
Single trees or groups of trees emerge from the one and the same of the forest, from the darkness, plunged into wisps of light. The decided and linger- ing gaze of the photographer reveals the singularity of the tree, makes it an individual, and therefore all trees. This gaze into the forest reveals its soul, and ultimately the soul of every thing, every place.
In Henrik Strömberg’s world, such places can appear anywhere, anytime. There is no map for them. Only the willingness, the translucence of the momentum in which a window, a door opens to the other side. Once having arrived there, it is not the time of directly assessing, of merely depicting the things, it is a time of unprejudiced observation, of marveling, ultimately of recognizing oneself within the things, recognizing oneself being part of everything.
Henrik Strömberg is a photographer, who does not mystify. No bluffs, no sensations. He neither paints us a picture of the romantic, picturesque idea of nature or civilisation, but a picture of the sublime, the unique, which can be found within things. He is a photographer, who photographs nothing, and everything.
Text by Fjodor Donderer
The series Parts from places, 2011, were made from found fragmented topographic maps and photographic negatives.
By piecing together the different parts of the maps approximate locations were unveiled and possible to locate. Henrik Strömberg went on several walks to these locations making photographic record of the journeys in and around the specific places. Rather than presenting a photographic documentation of the journeys and places, the resulting large format negatives were cut up and collaged together with the different fragments of the maps to again obscure their origin and function. The idea of the map and the photograph, as exact mediums to describe the outside world, transforms into camouflage of their own form.
FAMU, Academy of Performing Arts, Prague – MA Photography, 1999
Camberwell College of Art, London Institute – BA Fine Art, 1997
Fondazione Morra, Naples, Italy
Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung, Munich, Germany
Ann Wolff Foundation, Sweden
Christine Symchych Collection, USA
Kultur Hässleholm, Sweden
Mecklenburgisches Künstlerhaus, Schloss Plüschow, Germany
Region Skane, Sweden
La Luxembourgeoise SA, Luxemburg
Fondazione Morra, Residency, Naples, Italy 2019
AArtist in Residency, The Federal Foreign Office, Berlin, Germany 2017
Art Prize of the Ann Wolff Foundation, Sweden 2017
Berlin Senat Research Grant for project Statues, Germany 2016
Sitterwerk Foundation, Residency, St. Gallen, Switzerland 2010
Tree Project, Award from Save The Children Foundation, London, UK
Grant for project Source, Konstnärsnämnden, Sweden 2007
Konstnärsnämnden, “Source”, Project Grant, Malmö, Sweden 2007
Cité Internationale des Arts, Residency, Paris, France 2007
Mecklenburgisches Künstlerhaus, Residency, Schloss Plüschow, Germany 2006
Texte zur Kunst, “bildstrecke”, sketches for the compost, 2019
Das Treffen dreier Punkte, Interiors to Being, Berlin, 2019
DOC! Photo Magazine – selected works in reference to Man Ray 2018
VERK. Magazine – feature with text by Linda Bergman 2018
Artipoeus, podcast by Susie Kahlich – “echoes in dust” 2017
Object Amnesic, The Compost, artist “fanzine”, together with writer Jens Soneryd 2016
Mashti, monograph, published by Neumeister Bar-Am, Berlin 2016
39 Null Magazine, feature / text by Felix Fiedler, Spring issue, 2016
Blind Spot Magazine, 20 year anniversary issue, 2014
LOFT Bookazine, feature / text by Saskia Neuman, 2013
Source, Fanzine, design by Adi Ehrat, 2007
Source, Artist Book, 2007
Einladung, catalogue, published by Schloss Plüschow, 2006
7 Scenes, catalogue, 2003
Places To Go People To See, book, Ed. Gestalten Verlag, Berlin, 2001
Refraction of lightness, Palazzo Spinelli Tarsia, Fondazione Morra, Napoli, Italy 2019
Vertical Matter, Dorothée Nilsson Gallery, Berlin, Germany 2019
Forward multiplications, Ann Wolff prize presentation, Visby, Sweden 2018
Echoes in dust, Åplus, Berlin, Germany 2017
The Compost, The Federal Foreign Office, Berlin, Germany 2017
The door, LOGE, Berlin, Germany 2016
Unseen Art Fair, Grundemark Nilsson Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2016
Times New Roman, Grundemark Nilsson Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden 2016
Object Amnesic, The Ephemeral Collection, Salonistes, Venice, Italy 2016
Mashti, Grundemark Nilsson Gallery, Berlin, Germany 2016
To the letter, Der Würfel, Berlin, Germany 2015
Quarter of a kind, Neumeister Bar-Am, Berlin, Germany 2015
Second life – first place, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Berlin, Germany 2012
Komplexraum #1, (with Ivan Seal) – General Public, Berlin, Germany 2012
Vanishing, Galerie SAKS, Geneva, Switzerland 2011
Hässleholms Konsthall, Sweden 2010
Cirkulations Centralen, Malmö, Sweden 2010
o.T. Raum für aktuelle Kunst (with Barbara Davi), Lucern, Switzerland 2009
Hotel Europa (with Jonas Raam), Galerie Visite Ma Tente, Berlin, Germany 2007
Wartesaal, Perla Mode, Zürich, Switzerland 2007
Galerie Rose-Marie, Malmö, Sweden 2007
Source, Galerie 5213, Berlin, Germany 2007
Remains, Galerie 5213 Berlin, Germany 2005
Mellantider, Installation at Kirseberg Church, Malmö, Sweden 2004
7 Scenes, Skånes Konstförening, Malmö, Sweden 2003
Far away so close, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, Germany 2020
Changwon Sculpture Biennale, Seoul, South Korea 2020
Morph – isolation of (portable) pressure – DAEGU Photo Biennale in Berlin, Germany 2019
Vertikalwinkel, Schau Fenster, Berlin, Germany 2018
Symbopoeisis (with Diether Roth and Nam June Paik, Curated by fontaine B. and Jens Soneryd), Galerie Papillon, Paris, France 2018
Thirdness, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany 2017
AIPAD Photography Show, Grundemark Nilsson Gallery, NYC, USA 2017
Market Art Fair, Grundemark Nilsson Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden 2017
Unseen Photo Fair, Grundemark Nilsson Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2016
Perceptions, Grundemark Nilsson Gallery, Berlin, Germany 2016
Kollision – Im Labyrinth der unheimlichen Zufälle, Bethanien Haus, Berlin, Germany 2016
AIPAD New York, Grundemark Nilsson Gallery, US 2016
Art Brussels, Neumeister Bar-Am, Belgium 2016
Transient Material, HAUS AM LÜTZOWPLATZ, Berlin, Germany 2015
6&6 ES 16 Off Space, Zürich, Switzerland
Drama, Salon 1, Berlin, Germany
Frames, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Scotland
Bodybuilding, Neumeister Bar-Am, Berlin, Germany
SUER GAZ, Zagreus Project, Berlin, Germany
Summershow at Griffins, Uferhalle, Berlin, Germany
L’Age d’Or, General Public Berlin, Germany
DAWN OF THE HERMETICS, Bar Babette, Berlin, Germany
JAHRESGABEN, Lage Egal, Berlin, Germany
17 STEPS DOWN, 8 FLIGHTS UP, St Gallen, Switzerland
Fotografi i Fokus, Malmö Photography Biennal, K3, Malmö, Sweden
Mecklenburgisches Künstlerhaus, Schloss Plüschow, Germany
Wassup, Fotogalerie Wien, Austria
Yoshiki Hishinuma, Concept Tokyo, Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan
Das Kabinett der fiktiven Realitäten, Galerie Visite Ma Tente, Berlin, Germany
Placements, Galerie 5213 Berlin, Germany
Konst i Hessle, Hässleholms Konsthall, Sweden
Potsdamer Strasse 65
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