Sweden
The Swedish artist Petter Hellsing trained as a sculptor at Konstfack, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, arrived at weaving via an interest in computerise embroidery. The artist likes to create a tension between the safe and the distressing. Through dislocations and relocations of motifs and shapes, domestic textiles turn into a mysterious map of memories and social rituals. In a number of exhibitions and public works, Hellsing has also explored the relationship between manual work and digital technology, as well as the possibilities of artistic work to collect and pass on stories.
Textiles Royal Art Institute Mejan Arc Stockholm 2011/12; National College of Art and design Stockholm 1983/89; Social Antropologi Ghotenburg University 1980/81. Solo Exhibitions: 2015, Patched Up, Galleri PS Göteborg; 2015, Patched Up, Galleri Tegen2 Stockholm; 2014, Patch Up, Nääs Konsthantverk.
Conceptual fatigue has arrived. Practitioners who do not comfortably align themselves with craft as a discipline in the first place, or sit more comfortably between the material disciplines of their practices, have begun to question what was lost in the conceptual gold rush of recent decades. Taken in moderation this momentum towards the conceptual was arguably long overdue. Materials do carry meaning that goes beyond an appreciation of skilled production. The everyday role of textiles in particular infuse them with a wealth of stories – from the mundane to extraordinary – many of which benefit from being conveyed by means other than written or spoken language. Along the way consideration of materials came to be seen as gauche. Conceptual craft became the only sanctioned version of contemporary craft – everything else woefully behind the times. But as Swedish artist Petter Hellsing recently observed, “I am tired of going to exhibitions that are better when read about.”
Hellsing’s past work embraced the potential of storytelling. A Little Cabin in the Woods (2002-2004), for example, drew together the artist’s embroidered responses to his home in Flemingsberg, a suburb of Stockholm, alongside contributions from the local community. Stories of immigration and Sweden’s emerging multicultural identity were central to the project, which grew from Hellsing’s stitches into his facilitation of community projects. More recent work has taken a distinctly different approach to local engagement. While stories remain a motivating element, abstraction has begun to play a far more prominent place. Reflecting on the Saxophone he played as a young man, Hellsing revised his thinking that improvisation belongs to music alone and has brought the strategy into his artistic practice. For someone comfortable to admit that he can get lost in the detail of small stitches, he now creates situations that force a loss of control.
More recent work has grown to combine textiles with materials such as wood sourced during the installation stage of an exhibition. Rather than arriving with finished artwork under his arm, demands of himself an engagement with the local context and community to complete the installation process that pushes the outcome towards the collective rather than the individual. Inspired by the anarchic character of textile found in temporary housing or market places prompted him to build on site – negotiating local realities to solve the practical material challenges at hand.
The final work is less concerned with proving these details of construction – instead trusting the rhythms and contrasts of a less literal, more abstract communication with the local audience. “Is it possible to use the abstract to discuss the political?” he muses. The question is on-going, tempered now by a different relationship with time informing his latest work. “If I don’t finish it, someone else will,” he reflects on a new found acceptance that his artistic production contributes to a much larger continuum. Desire to work with local materials and reflect on the patterns of organisation that surround us bring the readymade, randomness and material reuse to the centre of this work. I’m “not making – I’m combining to make new,” he explains of this scavenging.
Community (excerpt)
About the work and stage curtain of Petter Hellsing
By/Jessica Hemmings
