A little news from my studio...

Early April morning in Hyde Park, London. Sun rays through early mist. Before the foliage you can better enjoy the sculptural shapes of trees.

A simple picture? Yes, it is a simple picture but I've worked on this more than most.

Normally, lots of joggers and people walking their dogs this time of the day; enigmatically, none were in focus when I shot this picture.

I've deleted the Royal Albert Hall and the awful colonial monument at the end of the left path; a picture can also be about what you don't see!
Both paths now end in - well, nowhere. And the sky is slightly pink.

To the left and right I made the trees stop well before the edge; in reality they continue, of course.

I felt the motif itself invited me to experiment with essentials such as depth, space and time (lessness) and simplicity. So during the process, this field with these trees became a stage with actors in an un-arranged tableau vivant.

Visitors to my gallery mainly see the fork in the road or point to not knowing where the journey ends - kind of existential perspectives. Or they simply love trees, morning sun and simplicity. I'm happy if my images causes many different associations in the viewer's mind.

I took the picture while visiting London to see David Hockney's exhibition at The Royal Academy. I wonder what he could make out of this as a painting. You know, he doesn't like photography. Or so he says.

I am working on this image in a few different editions, one among them will be black-grey-white, perhaps one inverted - or working with the light to become late afternoon. I feel there is more to explore, the light in particular.

I invite you to tell me what you think.

"Hyde Park Tableu Vivant" 2012
Inkjet print on Canson fine arts paper or on canvas
Formats & prices (excl postage):
A5 (148 × 210 mm) - Edition unlimited, 20 US$
A4 (210 × 297 mm) - Edition 50, US$ 115
A3+ (329 x 483 mm) - Edition 25, US$ 225
A1 (610 x 910 mm) - Edition 10, US$ 750
Signed and numbered.
Comes with print authenticity documentation.
Information/Order: janoberg@mac.com
Mob +46 738 525200.
© Jan Oberg

Best
Jan Öberg

Lund, Sweden May 14, 2012

I want to share the article below from Financial Times with you - about art collecting by business schools.

The examples here are all from the United States; so are there similar collections at business schools around the world? Furthermore, I would expand it and ask: What about science parks, high-tech research facilities, universities and other institutions for higher education?

One, this is great in and of itself - synergy, creativity, mutual benefit and good for artists to find that sort of clients And good for that type of clients to host pieces from another of society's creativity fields and giving their staff, visitors and partners a unique experience.

Two, to be honest - like every other artist, I'd like my works to be shown - exhibited by or owned - by such institutions, being seen by young people and older research and teaching staff every day.

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This is a brilliantly ironic commentary on all the bullshit surrounding - some - art discussions. I just love it...
On a more serious not: Art is so fascinating because we really cannot define what it is. In the best of cases we know it when we see og hear or feel it.

Venice, Italy is a treasure for photographers. It's always been considered 'picturesque' and over the years several fine photo art books have been published. I am seriously considering creating one, based on my two visits in 2011-2012. This post is about my work photo work there and what is likely to come out of it - beyond the Venezia Suite, I created last year (see below).

Naked in Venice 2012
© Jan Oberg

 

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Via this blog, Linkedin, Facebook and a mail service, I try to reach various categories of art lovers - photo art lovers in particular -  who cannot visit my gallery in Lund, Sweden.

It's one of the joys of technological innovation that I have written about earlier on this blog - that we can now reach people across the globe and overcome travel costs and geographical distances. With this 50-second video I try to reach out in a personal way. 

This said, the qualities of the personal meeting and the direct contact with art works can never be substituted by technology. So, I hope you will anyhow come to my gallery one day.

 

 

I feel more hopeful about the future with Mozart than with Merkel. I get more happy with Satie than with Sarkozy. Bob Dylan's poetry seems to me to have more lasting value than Obama's rhetoric. Indeed, I wonder whether all museums and galleries in the world will not still stand when Pentagon has become irrelevant and converted into the UN World Culture Centre. And I get the sense that Robert Rauschenberg was more creative in his field than my prime minister is in his.

Natalia # 20 (In front of Gerhard Richter)
© Jan Oberg 2011

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I've written about Natalia in another blog post here, now you can see a few of the portraits I have made of her uploaded on my photo homepage. You'll have to scroll a little down to the bottom.

"Natalia #1"
© Jan Oberg 2011

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To follow-up the preceding blog post: What are the comparative advantages of all this? Aren't we just obsessed with newness and becoming techno freaks hunting down the latest versions of some manipulative tool? Yes, that is a risk - but!

You are still the one to decide what kind of image you want to produce and why. You are still choosing how much you are prepared to let technology rule you, or you rule technology. You can still decide that this particular picture should not be touched but printed rightaway as raw as it's been shot.

Here are some reasons why I like these recent tecnologies and their potentials:

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A series of rather recent technical developments permit photography to go in new directions. I think we should welcome them and explore them - but without letting technology or perfection take over. Photography will always be a matter of shooting the right motive at the right place at the right time - and what that means will never be defined once and for all - and a lousy picture won't become great just because you put it through Photoshop.

Look at the photo below of a pair of pears. Under them is a plate with some coffee beans with a napkin on top and then those two beautiful shapes, almost making a couple, signifying autumn and juicy delight. I did it in no time in a private kitchen between carrying things out and in and it was only a raw picture, and I tell you it all looked very commonplace, trivial...outright boring; exactly as something just put there in a hurry in a kitchen - although I took advantage of the structure of the beans to let them stand up on their ends rather than lying on the napkin. But that is all I did.

The result you see is all thanks to technology, an iPhone with some "app" used in a late evening in a kitchen corner with too little light and then worked on just a little in Photoshop. It could have appeared in literally thousands of other ways; this is just one example.

This article offers some of my thoughts on this, not the least stimulated by people coming to my gallery and often questioning the use of "all these new things" and "why can't a picture just be a good picture anymore"? They are very legitimate and I respect those who stick the their last day with good old films (as long as you can buy them) and lock themselves up in a darkroom. Fine - but I don't.

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November 27 is the last day, so you've got a month to go there. And it's well worth it. The connoiseurs may have their sophisticated views of what is really happening now, what the significant trends are, etc. I'd say instead: Go there without any preconceived ideas, take in as much as you can. There is so much inspiration in so many directions that you can hardly return home without feeling it was worth the time, energy and costs (on the latter, Venice hotels and restaurants charge at least double rates while the Biennale is on, so...).

It is simply impossible to write about it, so sorry for this short attempt to defy the impossible! There are the official, enormous Biennale spaces at Giardini and the Arsenale. But then - without much co-operation or even communication with the Biennale management, it seems - there are art events all over town at museums galleries, art institutions, in abandoned flats, backyards and in the streets. My wife and I spent about 8 hours per day for a week and we probably saw only a fraction.

© Jan Oberg 2011

That's Venice and the Biennale* - enormous, weird, overwhelming, frustrating, enigmatic, and simultaneously an incredible positive documentation of multi-cultural creation in a globalizing world. In the midst of wars, environmental decay, deep economic crisis and all the rest, it simply gives me hope to walk around at the Venice Biennale and in the rest of town.

I believe it should be OK to write about it in a totally subjectve but positive manner and with an emphasis on what attracted me in general and as a photographer in particular. So I'll simply tell you what made a lasting impression on me - lasting because it is more than a month ago I visited Venice and I find that some things have stayed with me while others are now more or less forgotten. If you've been there, can we compare notes?

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