Short Meetings — Stig T Karlsson
22 September—11 November 2012
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22 September—11 November 2012
The photographer Stig T Karlsson (1930—2015) powerfully portrays how the world looks in black and white images. Not true, not fair, but with the will to say something about people's different realities. In Sweden, and around the world; Italy, India, China and Japan.
The theme for the exhibtion revolves around the title – Short Meetings – and where an exhibition that Stig T Karlsson presented at Malmö Konsthall in 1983. The images reflect connections, belonging and class, and creates a connection across the earth.
The mounted vintage images give the photographs a special appeal through the rhythm created by the images' different formats. Pointing image titles that speak of where in the world we are, with whom, a place, professions, dates, sometimes times of day. Here are the iconic photographs on floats from 1957. The year in Sicily 1959 which shows the “face of the proletarian” that Stig T Karlsson urges us to see and a face he finds in the places he visits.
In Sweden we have very few documentary photographers who have the significance of Stig T Karlsson. His life's work depicts the transformation that has taken place from the 60s to the present. He invites the viewer to meet the gaze that looks at us in the photographs, he does so through the irresistible beauty of the images and the magical sharpness of the light to claim us and engage in a discussion with us.
In 1986, he and his wife Kerstin traveled through our country in a caravan from May 12 to August 30. And photographed "Without any particular purpose. Just straight up and down where we stopped… and then a pattern gradually emerges. Reality!” states Stig T Karlsson in the book Sverigeresan.
Stig T Karlsson travels back to places and to those he has met. Often together with writers such as Folke Isaksson and Lasse Berg. Over the years, there have been many books and reports.
In this exhibition at Sven-Harrys Konstmuseum works by textile artist, and likewise his daughter, Lisa Karlsson is shown together with his photographs. Becoming a meeting.
Guest curator: Iréne Berggren
