”The only decent novel” that was written about the Swedish 1980s was Lars Tunbjörk's photo book ”Landet utom sig” (1993) – this is emphasized by Göran Greider in a newly written preface to the book, which is now being published again after being sold out for a long time.
It feels like the pictures haven't aged a bit, like they were taken yesterday, they reveal something in Sweden that was then in its beginning, says Greider, who has a strong memory of his first encounter with Tunbjörk's photographs spread out on a billiard table in the early 1990s.
I was so happy, no novelist had managed to depict the neoliberal commercial revolution, but in Tunbjörk's pictures it shone through.
Surrealism
The Cultural Center Stadsteatern's major venture in Stockholm began with choreographer Anna Vnuk's idea of creating a dance and theater exhibition, a kind of dream play, based on the now classic ”Tunbjörks” – colorful small-town surrealism from Skara Sommarland, Midsummer in Rättvik, Swedish shopping centers, campsites, and parking lots.
His gaze at people is often tender. To the extent that Lars Tunbjörk laughed, it was not at those he photographed, but at a time and humanity that he himself was a part of, emphasizes his former wife, documentary filmmaker Maud Nycander, who, after his death, is one of many who have built up Lars Tunbjörk's archive.
He himself did not want to verbalize what he was after.
It was a lot about leisure time, vacations, how we consume. There is a kind of theme where things become more commercial, but he didn't want to write on the nose. He didn't want to become a spokesperson for any ideology at the same time as he was critical of this change.
In ninth grade
At Kulturhuset Stadsteatern, all the pictures in ”Landet utom sig” are being shown for the first time since the 1990s, along with others that have never been exhibited before. Perhaps the most remarkable are the photographs from a group project in ninth grade that were found in the spring on his mother's attic. The theme was the changes in the hometown of Borås, where newly built department stores knocked out small shops in the city center.
It's about the small-scale versus the modern, about how you built residential areas. Here was a tremendous social critique and pictures that were taken a bit in the same way as later. It's fantastic how shaped he was by his environment, he said that he photographed Borås his whole life.
On 9/18, the exhibition ”Lars Tunbjörk: Landet utom sig” opens at Kulturhuset Stadsteatern in Stockholm with all the pictures from the book plus pictures that have never been exhibited before. The exhibition also includes Jacob Frössén's new film about Lars Tunbjörk.
On 9/18, this year's Tunbjörk Prize will be awarded.
On 10/2, the children's book ”The photographer who couldn't wait” by Åsa Lind will be released, which is about seeing and reading photographs from a child's perspective, but also about how Lars Tunbjörk worked.
On 12/12, Anna Vnuk's new production ”Landet utom sig” will have its premiere. There, some of the people in his pictures will be portrayed.
