Master's degree #2 and the exhibition

We had the most excellent time with Patti & Maggie last weekend. It was like a girls' weekend (+Stu, but he fits in nicely with the girls) with lots of eating and drinking and time outside. It was so great to have them visit before we move, and celebrate a little early about being done with school.

But this week was a big one. Thursday, I woke Stu up with the sweet sounds of me wretching in the toilet...I guess the whole morning sickness thing comes back when you feel stress? Because Thursday morning was my thesis defense, which I had to survive to graduate that afternoon! Aside from the sickness and then my class mate's alarm malfunctioning and thus us beginning an hour late, it all went very well. I now have a few edits to make before turning it in to the department for grades and archiving. And, most importantly, I now have a SECOND master's degree under my belt. Woot! Now the bigger question, am I employable?!?

Well, I darn well should be as a curator, since I also finished installing the small show I put together at Moderna Museet this week! It looks really professional, IMHO. Here is a little information online in English (though, admittedly, with some typos. Where did my italicized titles go, or that last 's'?)
I took pictures over the few days of installation, which I will post here whether you are interested or not. This blog has the secondary function, aside from communication, of 'archiving' our experience here, and I think its a project I want to remember. Regardless, it has been a lot of fun. I have felt a little insecure about some decisions, but I've still had to make them. I have done a ton of research and planning and installation, along with the *amazing* staff at the museum (I cannot get over how professional and nice they are!) It feels pretty good. And admittedly, it also felt pretty good when both the museum's director and deputy director came through and gushed about how good it looked. Almost like they were surprised about how good it looked, but regardless, I'll take the praise!

Day 1, a bunch of empty display cases

Day 2, placing the artworks, wherever they would actually fit!

"Closed for Re-hanging"

All of the works in their right places, display cases in their right positions.

Day 3, putting on the glass covers

The very funny conservator cleaning the inside of a case, while making Anchorman jokes about being in a glass cage of emotion.

Day 3, wall texts in place! Wow, I hope people read them.

And, we're done!

I love this wall. I love Henri Matisse. Holy wow, I got to put a Matisse in my school art show!

In the middle is the TV screen showing a sound piece in conjunction with one of the books. There are also two other screens showing book films I planned (and Stu edited!), from a selection of works in the show, with the idea that visitors can better see the three-dimensional object via film than they otherwise can under glass.

And then there are lots and lots of artists' books. Each book has a corresponding 100-word text to give it some context, so I hope people read them. You may not even realize what you are looking at without them! And each also had to have a specially designed cradle for it, so the conservator and prints & drawings technician worked incredibly hard to make these in a very short time span.
One of the other curators (one the museum actually pays for their work) wanted to use a few of the works I had already earmarked for exhibition, in addition to needing nearly ALL of the large display cases in storage for another show. I held on to the artworks, diplomatically, but since he had left post-it notes on so many of the best display cases, the technicians and I had to scrounge for whatever could be found. Surprisingly difficult, but it all worked out. I didn't have to cleave any of my darlings due to space issues. It just meant I could not group the books according to any particular theme; they just got placed where they fit.
There is no real 'opening' event. We had talked about it quite a bit, and early on, I had been excited about it. But in the last few weeks, I'd just gotten too busy and tired to pursue an opening or to think of a curator's speech, so it opens to no fanfare this morning at 10am. If you are in Stockholm any time this summer, go see it!

Picture post: Millesgården

A gorgeous Saturday meant we could take the afternoon off from school work (not really, but we did it anyway). We went out to Lidingö to Millesgården, the lovely house museum and gardens of the Swedish sculptor Carl Milles, and had a picnic.

Picture post

I am supposed to be writing a 7-page paper exploring the possible legal issues in my upcoming graduate exhibition (7 pages!? Legal issues?!?!) Instead, I'm posting pictures of some of the weird stuff we encountered last week.

This guy is strapped in duct tape and bag-in-a-box wine bags, and these people are filling up using his thigh-spout. I think I'd prefer to buy my wine at the bar...

A little meatball wrestling, anyone? I feel it is obvious who would win a meatball-eating contest between a Swede and a Turk.

Some inspiration for my Artists' Books exhibition in May?

I'm more of a shower person, anyway...

I love guerilla knitting!

The handrail on the T-bana. Just in case you needed an invitation? 

Despite the presence of so much thick snow, Swedish dogs have great aim. Still managed to blast the trash can! And I swear, you can't walk 10 meters in this white city without seeing one of these little yellow pee points. I can't believe I took a picture of this.

Who speaks Swedish anyway?

I realized it has been a few since I posted, but I had no idea what to write about?!? What we are up to? What we have planned coming up? Something totally random?

Currently, I am helping out with a project on postmodernism that involves 1980s Swedish art journals at Moderna Museet (and spent 8 hours today helping an artist make 400 paintings for the project...I have paint in my ears.) I am also supposed to be working on my final exhibition and thesis. It'll happen. I hope.
Stu is busy working full-time at a Swedish company for his capstone project, but he'll be done in 2 months. In fact, he'll be done with a 2-week break right when I will be most busy preparing for my final exhibition presentation, so I need someone to take my husband for that time....anyone want to babysit Stu? Anyone? If he is home with nothing to do, while I have to focus and produce, we might get divorced. Not really, but he could use a vacation then, anyway ;)

We are applying for jobs all over. I see lots of museum/library jobs in the States, but Stu has more options in Europe. So it's a bit of a toss up...I guess we'll take the first thing we get! We are traveling a bit. We are apartment-swapping in London in a few weeks, and are thinking about taking a weekend up to the super-north of Sweden to see the Northern Lights and have dinner at the Ice Hotel (yeah, just dinner...not all that interested in sleeping on a chunk of ice and wolf pelts.) We were invited to a wedding in southern France and one in Tuscany. I love it when people get married in exotic places. And our friends from NYC are coming for a visit in April, which I am *psyched* about! Hmmm...what else?

And for the something totally random...a commercial I really like. Tele2 has a sheep as a gimick because Swedes pronounce the word "cheap" as "sheep". Clever.



Consummentbaguette?
Ha. Swedes.

Solar halos over Stockholm

 We thought it was just a weird rainbow when we were out today, but in fact, it was an optical phenomenon known as halos, shining over Stockholm. Ice crystals in the clouds filter the sunlight in a way that makes it look like a bubble of light hovering over the city.

From SR

Photo of the halo over Stockholm University campus (Paul Parker)

Also showing this phenomenon is the Vädersolstavlan from 1535. I'll make you read the Wikipedia link yourself for background on the painting, but it is one of the oldest painted depictions of Stockholm, one of the oldest Swedish landscapes and the oldest depiction of the halos.

What a cool thing!

Last week of interning

I just finished up my fall semester internship at Moderna Museet, working within the registrar's department. During the 13 weeks with the exhibitions registrar, among other things, I got to help de-install the big Ed Ruscha show, assisted in this year's Modernautställningen, began helping organize the upcoming Eva Löfdahl, Siri Derkert, and the giant Turner, Monet, Twombly shows, re-learned the TMS database (surprisingly, this was far less painful after library school!) and made some lovely new friends. This is the third internship I have done for school credit, and this was by far the best experience and will take me far in applying for collections management jobs in the future. (And it didn't hurt that they gave me lovely presents on my last day!)

Learning from the master in the galleries

8 sculptures that all looked virtually the same, all were untitled, could not be physically labeled, in which none of the measurements added up, but belonged to several different collectors and therefore, needed to be differentiated. See my ingenious post-it note solution.

 But maybe one of the best things out of this was more short-term. To complete my master's degree in June, I have to write a thesis and curate an exhibition. And I just found out that I got the okay to curate my master's show AT MODERNA MUSEET! I am pretty psyched. It will be lots of work, and I think that next April and May will be the busiest 2 months I have ever experienced in my life, but it will be a fantastic experience. And pretty fantastic to put on the ol' CV, too!

Modernautställningen

Whew, busy week! I thought I was busy the week of Fotografiska opening, but this week was far crazier.

Thursday was the big opening for Modernautställningen (for which there were a total of 4 opening celebrations.) My supervisor at the museum got sick and spent most of the week at home with a 40c fever. So I did the exhibition registrar's work for the exhibition, after having interned less than a month. And admittedly, not the most efficient way: the opening started at 7pm on Thursday, and I was working with the curator until 6:30pm making sure the last details were in place. But it got done.

And the vernissage party was nuts. Everyone with a name in the Stockholm art/culture scene was present, crowding every corner of the 4th floor spaces. And because I was working to finish things until 6:30, I didn't eat dinner, so after a few beers and glasses of champagne, I was having a blast. Dinner was burgers at 10:30 at Max before the after-party at Berns. Not a bad night.

A few pictures: