I am fascinated by connections … and by gaps – my short research-based residency at Uppsala Artists’ Club is revealing plenty of both. The residency is giving me time to focus on the new chapter of my Following Eugène project. I find it easy to lose myself in history. This week is about the history … I hadn’t realised quite how much I would be focused on looking at what was going on, who was involved, who knew each other – or who were at least in the same place at the same time.
A morning at the city’s public archive revealed that artist Richard Bergh was a member of Verdandi … so was art critic and collector Klas Fårhaeus … as was Frey Svens(s)on a doctor who after Nils Santesson’s high profile court case (1907) advocated for homosexuality (or perhaps more accurately homosexual acts) to be redefined as a sickness rather than a crime. Nils Santesson photographed both Eugène Jansson and his naked models at Eugènes studio and Stockholm’s naval bath house.
Bergh was also a member of the Opponents, later the Artists’ Union, several of whom exhibited in Verdandi’s exhibitions … Eugène Jansson was also a member of the Opponents and the Artists’ Union. Unfortunately the minutes from unions meetings 1905 – 1909 are missing, so there’s nothing relating to the 1907 Uppsala exhibition.
Why do I find it so interesting when names pop up in various different contexts? I think it has to do with the Venn diagram-ness of life – the overlaps … the possible meetings and exchanges that might have happened between people who happened to be in the same place at the same time … that I begin to appreciate the complexities and randomness of things that with hind-sight seem important … significant … pivotal.
I am allowing myself to enjoy this research and these reflections. At the same time I wonder what do to with this information … this stuff … how does it become a contemporary project that has worth and meaning?
