Fotografiska

June 11, 2014

Fotografiska Museum

I am in Stockholm to speak at the Nordic Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a society that includes doctors from Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland, and Denmark. Because of the different languages in each country, English is used as the common language. While I attended the conference in the morning, I needed fresh air and a walk to clear my head and adjust my body clock. 

I decided to walk through the Old Town and along the harbor to the Photography Museum. First, I had a grilled vegetable lunch at the museum’s outdoor café.

Then I went inside for some edgy temporary exhibits. First was Lisa Ross, who is a New York artist who photographed in color a series of impromptu religious shrines made out of driftwood and fabric in the desert of Western China. None of the photographs had people in them. They were quite beautiful but stark. Another photographer is Lisa Sedewsky, who dresses up as a nurse and photographs herself in a variety of decaying backgrounds (see below). It is a statement, but of what I am not sure. 

Why is this nurse in a decaying room?

The last exhibit consisted of very disturbing black and white photographs in a series called “Melancholia.” My diagnosis was a serious psychiatric disorder in the photographer, whose name I did not even want to remember. The best part of the museum was the gift shop where I spotted a book on sneakers ("Where'd You Get Those?) on the shelves in which Elliott wrote the introduction!

An unexpected finding in Stockholm!