Borderlands

Scanian landscape painting meets contemporary works when the art museums in Malmö and Ystad open a joint exhibition

The exhibition Gränstrakt is based on Malmö Art Museum and Ystad Art Museum's extensive collections of Scanian landscape paintings from the period 1850–1950. In both museums, older paintings are shown in dialogue with contemporary works. Gränstrakt is thus an exhibition that is shown in two places.

With landscape painting as a lens, we get a view of our relationship with nature and ourselves through the ages. Today, issues of national identity and belonging in relation to art and culture have once again been brought up in Swedish politics. The exhibition Gränstrakt problematizes the role of landscape painting in relation to notions of a culturally homogeneous and original place in the past and how artistic representations have been used to create feelings of belonging.

At Ystad's art museum, Gränstrakt focuses on the first half of the 20th century and five landscape painters who are well represented in the collections. Here, their paintings meet contemporary works that examine questions of place and identity. In the meeting, we will see how cultural heritage affects our image of the landscape and the countryside today.
Images of the landscape appear not only in art, but also in contexts such as advertising and marketing. Stereotypical images of Scania are used to attract both tourists and investors. Landscape images are also used in political campaigns, both to convey hope for a greener future and conservative notions that things were better in the past.
Today, the view of nature is one of the strongest elements in the Swedish national consciousness. Questions about national cohesion in relation to art and culture are highly topical, not least because of the ongoing work to produce a Swedish cultural canon.
— Our collections carry many stories that are shaped over time and through the selection of artworks we make in both acquisition and presentation. Each image carries so much more than the subject it depicts. By showing a selection of our historical landscape painting, placing it in a contemporary context and initiating new encounters across time and space, we raise new issues and perspectives that enrich our picture of our history and how it has shaped the times we live in, says Ýrr Jónasdóttir, director of the Ystad Art Museum.

Curators: Julia Björnberg, Anna Johansson and Ellen Klintenberg.

Gränstrakt is shown at Malmö Art Museum and Ystad Art Museum 18 May—3 November. The exhibition is part of Den platta jorden - a network for artistic exploration of Scania.