Just like people in general, artists aren’t islands–quite the contrary, in fact! The artists we remember, the ones who move us, are those whose pseudopods are particularly sensitive to the vibrations of the present. This is made especially clear in this fifth instalment of our exhibition series Ten by Ten, in which ten formidable works from various times and places are temporarily brought together in the main gallery of CFHILL. 

On the one hand, our intention is to grant our audience an opportunity to experience the power of a few, select works which have all impacted the art world individually. On the other hand, it is to place these selected works in a state of interaction and dialogue with one another for a couple of weeks. What connections exist between Carl Larsson’s sincere depiction of the family’s reading room at Sundborn in 1909 and the dangerously magical expression of Lucas Samaras’ work of 1964, which he showed when he became the first installation artist to expose his whole bedroom at the Green Gallery. We take particular pleasure in being the first gallery in Sweden to present a large painting by the phenomenal Takashi Murakami. In a single gesture, by relocating the manga subculture to the high-status field of painting, he did what only one artist, Andy Warhol, had ever done before him. Murakami took it to a whole new level. 

Consumerism, Zen, past and present, child’s play, and religion summed up by an infinity of flowers and skulls. Enso: Always loved you from 2015 is obviously related to Warhol’s Parrot from his 1984 series Toy Paintings. The trivial object as sacred artefact. When viewed in the light of pop art, the way that the American artist Ron Gorchov uses colour to bridge the gap between abstract expressionism and minimalism seems entirely natural. Equally sacral is Ed Ruscha’s penetrating analysis of a standardised petrol station. 

1984 isn’t merely the title of one of the most famous and widely read novels in the world. It also denotes a magical year in New York, when street art culture fused with music and fashion in a manner that would soon bring events to a boiling point: Keith Haring meets Madonna, Andy Warhol, and Grace Jones, and nothing will ever be the same again. The works we’re presenting in this edition of Ten by Ten embody the pace and the presence essential to any time and the place. We’ve also included three great, modern Swedish artists: John E Franzén’s mournfully monumental painting of retired American cars is juxtaposed with Olle Baertling’s galactic visions, and, finally, the poetry of Christian Berg, who masterfully reinterprets Scandinavian natural romanticism through the idiom of modernist sculpture.