Encounter with Hill. Selections from the Malmö Art Museum

Torsten Andersson, Helene Billgren, Johanna Billing, Carl Boutard, Ann Böttcher, Erik Dietman, Nathalie Djurberg, Cecilia Edefalk, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Olafur Eliasson, Elis Eriksson, Carl Fredrik Hill, Lisa Jeannin and Rolf Schuurmans, Lena Johansson, Runo Lagomarsino, Matts Leiderstam, Sivert Lindblom, Eva Löfdahl, Ann-Sofi Sidén, Annika Ström, Superflex, Astrid Svangren, Johan Tirén, Marianna Uutinen, Thale Vangen

12 November 2011 – 22 January 2012

Lunds konsthall is very pleased to be able to show a substantial selection of works from the outstanding collection of the Malmö Art Museum. The starting point is Carl Fredrik Hill, an artist from Lund whose death in 1911, exactly one hundred years ago, is now commemorated in a number of exhibitions. Malmö Art Museum has the largest collection of his work anywhere, mostly drawings from his period of mental illness.

Hill’s idiosyncratic visual universe has been an important inspiration to several generations of Nordic artists. In the exhibition we encounter his drawings along with works by 25 latter-day artist colleagues. They are all concerned with classical problems in art: image and imagination, critique and compassion, belonging and exclusion. Language and the artists’ own narratives are awarded a place of honour in the exhibition. We have not primarily chosen artists who explicitly state influences from Hill, but rather artists we would have wanted to show anyway. There could have been many more of them.

The Malmö Art Museum has one of the largest art collections in Sweden. It spans several centuries and comprises different parts. The collection of contemporary Nordic art was started 25 years ago and is being continuously expanded with works by new young artists. Another comprehensive collection is the Herman Gotthardt donation of Nordic art from 1910–1940, made in 1943. The collection of Russian art from the late 19th and early 20th centuries is the most comprehensive of its kind outside Russia. It is a rest from the Baltic Exhibition in Malmö in 1914. The 30 paintings and 2,600 drawings by Carl Fredrik Hill (1849–1911) form another important collection, which was donated by his family and the Friends of the Malmö Art Museum.

Through generous support from many sources, not least such donations by artists and private individuals, the collection of the Malmö Art Museum has become one of the finest of its kind. Yet it is largely kept in storage, because of limited exhibition facilities. Many of the works have never been shown. A new museum building has been discussed for years, and there is still no decision.

Meanwhile the Art Museum generously lends from its collection to other institutions in Sweden and abroad. The exhibition at Lunds konsthall is a unique opportunity for art audiences in southern Sweden to see a selection from this fantastic collection!