Stefan Lundgren(S)- midsommarstången-> Biografie

  Die Wunschumsetzung von “midsommarstången” -> Bilder

  Wunsch

  midsommarstången - ein Fertilitätstanz

midsummer musings

One of the more appalling trends in the history of western culture was to me the patronizing treatment of ethnic culture during the romantic era. In the process the music lost all of its inherited profundity and rhythm. This is an effort to reverse engineer some of those qualities. I wish to thank John Oswald for his plunderphonics.

henrik frisk

The Midsummer Pole

One of the most traditional Swedish festivals has always been the celebration of midsummer. In an age when we go in search of the social, I take this manifestation of the festive spirit on tour. Similar things have been done in the past with variable results. I am therefore exposing myself to risk. Someone else who dared to confront such risk was Zwinger. By turning a festival or celebration into a theatrical event, characteristics of the participants also become assimilated and interpreted. At the same time a collective expectation always builds up around events to which many people are invited. Moreover, in my project a number of cultural codes make themselves felt, and my view of truth risks transformation to illusion. An illusion that hangs between reality, fiction and the quotidian \'96 a veritable experiment.

The Swedish midsummer festival is a celebration with song and dance \'96 a thanksgiving for the longest and brightest day of the year. It is a complex event in which we are individually affected on a variety of levels. Song and dance \'96 ecstatic, sexual, virile and distinctive. Accordingly, it employs a number of significant attributes, symbols and associations. At the centre of our attention stands an erect meeting point, the decorative midsummer pole. It is a ceremonial epicentre from which energy emanates. The way the pole is decorated varies from one geographical region to another and my endeavour has been to synthesise and balance a variety of elements. Moreover, anything specific is effectively neutralised via the combination of the \'91DIY\'92 midsummer pole with one
of our most popular national motives, the Dala horse, and a highly individual midsummer song by the composer Henrik Frisk. I invite all and sundry to come along and help bring the provided elements together. I wish to initiate a Swedish midsummer festival in Dresden, but also to allow the unique occasion to transform the codes of the celebration \'96 to find a new truth between reality and fiction. Something which is at one and the same time both open and illusionistically seductive \'96 a Zwingerian illusion.}}

I have 2 editions(2 x 1/100). 2 prints and each of them is 10 DM, signed!!!