10 October 2015 – 10 January 2016

Truls Melin. Tal pænt

We have the great pleasure to present Truls Melin, one of the most prominent Swedish contemporary sculptors. Many viewers will recognise his monochrome yet many-faceted visuality.

The exhibition at Lunds konsthall focuses on recent work, some of them have been produced for this occasion, but some older works are also included to enhance the understanding of Melin's development as an artist. He found his own voice quite early in his career and represented Sweden at the Venice Biennale in 1993.

In Melin’s work dream meets wakefulness; submarine and subterranean enviroments are invoked alongside higher levels of consciousness. This could be self-contradictory but instead it is saturated with meaning. Various elements encounter each other in unexpected ways: a building, a steam engine, a ship or a bicycle wheel may well be combined with pieces of furniture or other details from everyday life.

In this exhibition Melin’s audiences face a mature and experienced artist who knows how to get their attention. The new works produced for Lunds konsthall appear to illuminate his entire oeuvre. New impressions have enriched a long process of inward searching and processing of his experienced reality. The seriousness and critique embedded in Melin's work is increasingly difficult to gloss over. As he himself puts it:

My work may appear unthreatening. Let’s not address the topic straight on, let’s “speak nicely”, so that things become less troublesome.

Lunds konsthall warmly thanks the artist for his extraordinary work and our excellent collaboration. We also thank all the lenders who have so generously contributed to the exhibition, among them the Norrköping Art Museum, Galleri Arnstedt in Östra Karup, Magnus Åklundh in Malmö and Åmells in Stockholm.

Truls Melin, born in Malmö 1958, lives and works in Copenhagen. Educated at the Forum Art School in Malmö in 1978–79 and at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 1979–84.

Curator: Åsa Nacking

Photographer: Emil Nilsson