Private Business
The series of nine photographs was first exhibited at Schaper Sundberg Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden, from August to October 1999.
The Public Art Agency Sweden, Public art agency, Sweden, purchased the two photographs “Corner” and “I Can See You but You Can’t See Me” / “Jag kan se dig men du kan inte se mig” and placed them at the University of Skövde, where they sparked extensive discussion — even involving the Minister of Culture (a long story about art; see below on this page). Another print of Corner was installed in Umeå at the Department of Gender Studies. The photographs remain there today.
“I Can See You but You Can’t See Me” / “Jag kan se dej men du kan inte se mej” was exhibited in 2011 in the group show Lust och Last at the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, and earlier in the touring exhibition Konstfeminism throughout Sweden (2005–2006), including venues such as Liljevalchs Konsthall. The curator was Niclas Östlind; see the publication Konstfeminism.
The book and exhibition Konstfeminism focus on a range of feminist strategies in art from the 1970s to the present, highlighting works that have profoundly shaped debates and attitudes toward gender, sexuality, embodiment, and human relations. During the 1970s, new ideas and motifs entered the art scene in groundbreaking ways. Women drew on their own experiences and allowed these to inform artistic expression and the public debate — in contrast to prevailing patriarchal norms. The personal as a political arena gained visibility, while there was also strong engagement with global issues. Existential themes likewise assumed a prominent role.
The large size of the prints is necessary to see all the details. They are analog negatives (Hasselblad panorama camera).
Title: ”The International Egg and Sperm Bank”
(Analog panorama negative, C-print from analog negative, 229 × 84 cm. Hasselblad panorama camera.)
This photograh, entitled The International Egg and Sperm Bank, depicts a city and the airspace immediately above it. The air functions as an image of an unlimited expanse — a metaphor for the way many egg and sperm donors and recipients make contact in cyberspace, a kind of collective space of fertilization. Cyberspace does not exist as a physical environment, yet it comes into being the moment one acts within it.
Title: ”Corner; Athenas Emergence (on the lifelong architecture of trust and power).”
(Analog panorama negative, C-print from analog negative, 229 × 84 cm. Hasselblad panorama camera.)
A reclining figure rests on a gravestone, while another figure stands balanced at the first figure’s neck, looking out toward the cemetery’s entrance and exit. On the standing figure’s upper arm, a tattoo of an anatomical heart appears — a symbol of interiority, life, and vulnerability. The wider cultural and historical context is signaled by the library for women’s literature in the background, a quiet counterpoint suggesting knowledge, memory, and a lineage of resistance.
The work examines how relationships involve a continual negotiation between trust and power. It is titled Corner because a corner is the part of a structure that carries weight — a point where forces meet, support one another, and sometimes strain. Likewise, intimate relationships can sustain or endanger; the cemetery setting suggests the closeness of both possibilities. Attachment theory, in psychology, understands early relationships as the foundation of a building — the supporting structure that determines what the building can bear later on, and what may need reinforcement, renegotiation, or new strategies in adult relationships. Against this psychological backdrop, the myth of Athena offers a symbolic parallel that further deepens the question of how relational structures originate.
This connection to the myth of Athena is particularly resonant, as she emerges fully formed from the head of Zeus — not as an act of violence, but as a moment of insight and revelation. The myth presents a parent whose “offspring” arises directly from an internal world of thought, strategy and judgement rather than from bodily nurture. This symbolic form of birth can be understood as a mythologization of how a foundational relational structure comes into being, illustrating how a child may ‘inherit’ not only genetic traits but also a worldview, strategies, modes of thinking and ways of relating to power. Athena, goddess of wisdom and strategy, thus embodies a form of power grounded in intelligence, discernment and relational clarity. Her alliance with Zeus is portrayed as one of reciprocal reliance: she advises; he listens. Together they represent a model of power that is legitimized through trust.
Seen through this mythological lens, the dynamics of trust and power appear as mutually constitutive rather than opposing forces. They form a relational architecture shaped early in life and continually renegotiated across a lifetime. Trust becomes the condition that allows power to be exercised without domination, while power provides the structure within which trust can be sustained. In this sense, trust and power are less a duality than an interwoven system — a lifelong interplay that shapes how individuals relate, depend, and act in the world.
Title: “I Can See You but You Can’t See Me.” / ”Jag kan se dig men du kan inte se mig.”
(Analog panorama negative, C-print from analog negative, 229 × 84 cm. Hasselblad panorama camera.)
A woman — or part of a woman — is embedded in lush green vegetation. The head is not visible, and the hands form a gesture associated with seeing. The central bodily motif, when viewed in full exhibition scale, appears at the size of a face and symbolically “looks back” at the viewer, asserting: “I can see you, but you can’t see me.” The title alludes to The oppositional Gaze, as theorized by bell hooks where looking becomes an act of resistance and agency. Both the photograph and its title invert the traditional dynamics of viewership: instead of being passively observed, the embodied sign of gendered identity returns the gaze.
(scroll down and read more about The gaze).
In doing so, the work questions how women’s bodies have historically been framed in art — for example, sculptures of nude female figures placed in ponds or fountains, posed to appear gentle, decorative, or idealized. These figures do not return the gaze; they are positioned to be looked at without being granted visual agency.
Here, by contrast, the isolated bodily motif is active. It sees the viewer and acknowledges the act of looking. It becomes an agent rather than an object. It addresses the viewer directly: “I can see you, but you can’t see me.”
The work asks: How are you looking at this body? How do you understand your own gaze in this encounter? And what kind of dialogue do you, as viewer, initiate through this act of looking?
Title: “Pondering How to Establish Communication with My Cousin Through Global Information Systems — Using My Braces, Local Networks, Wireless Access Points, Cellular Towers, Submarine Fiber‑Optic Cables, and Satellite Relays.”
(Analog panorama negative, C-print from analog negative, 229 × 84 cm. Hasselblad panorama camera.)
Title: ”Pondering Power Dynamics at The Blue Angel Bar”
(Analog panorama negative, C-print from analog negative, 229 × 84 cm. Hasselblad panorama camera.)
This photograph was created at The Angel Bar in London as a performance for the camera. The woman is balancing, attempting to locate her axis and relax. The man is contemplating his childhood. The performed act reverberates through the trembling, shifting, creative structure of society. Society is built on relationships — and every private, intimate, and public act by every individual is political.
Title: ”I Love Myself and I Understand You Think I’m Difficult”
(Analog panorama negative, C-print from analog negative, 229 × 84 cm. Hasselblad panorama camera.)
The photograph plays with the viewer’s gaze and is informed by Jacques Lacan’s theories of subjectivity and the mirror stage.
(Scroll down to read more about the concept of the gaze.)
Title: ”The Fool (Pondering Socioeconomic Differences)”
(Analog panorama negative, C-print from analog negative, 229 × 84 cm. Hasselblad panorama camera.)
The Fool explores an inevitable — perhaps even necessary — state of mind. To be a fool is to remain open: to the world, to contradiction, to beauty in unlikely places. A swan lies quietly amid the garbage, radiant in its own beauty. It seems foolish to build a nest in such a place — surrounded by waste and ruin — and yet questions arise: What do you find yourself able to do? What options appear available? What do you want to do? And what do you actually do?
The image becomes an invitation to consider how we navigate the spaces we inherit, the conditions we are born into, and the choices we make within them. Here, foolishness is not ignorance but a form of radical presence — an alertness to possibility even within constraint.
Title: God is love
(Analog panorama negative, C-print from analog negative, 229 × 84 cm. Hasselblad panorama camera.)
The photograph was placed at the far end of the gallery. The title appears as a tattoo on her body.
”Scarring” is a secret photograph
A documentation of a scarring, accompanied by an explanatory text mounted on the wall. You hold a conception — an ideology, a belief, a position in a political discussion. But sometimes an experience cuts through the belief that underpins that conception. This is how I work.
The term the gaze
refers to the act of looking, and to how perception is shaped by the dynamics of observing and being observed. It is a concept used to explore how power and identity are mediated, negotiated, and constructed through visual relations.
In The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators (1992), bell hooks examines the gaze from the perspective of the viewer. I have engaged with this concept, aware of how the female body has traditionally been framed through normative expectations. By reversing the gaze, I aim to question and unsettle prevailing power structures.
Theories of the gaze have contributed to a deeper understanding of self‑representation and are central to discussions about the role of vision in art and society — especially for visual artists.
Jacques Lacan, psychoanalyst and structuralist, developed the concept of the gaze around 1956 in relation to his theories of subjectivity and the mirror stage. His writings explore how individuals perceive and position themselves in relation to others, particularly through the psychoanalytic encounter between the subject and the Other. The gaze of the Other can activate desire, but can also create a sense of objectification, as the individual internalizes that gaze and forms a self‑concept through it.
Michel Foucault incorporated the gaze into his theories of power and surveillance. Laura Mulvey introduced the concept of the male gaze, and feminist theorists such as Gayatri Spivak, Judith Butler, and bell hooks have expanded it in different directions. Their work offers diverse perspectives on how power and identity are shaped through the dynamics of looking and being looked at.
Photographers can adopt or challenge the gaze to evoke different emotional, intellectual, or political responses in their viewers.
Så här svarar Kulturministern angående fotot ”Corner” i Skövde.
Fråga för skriftligt svar. Den 20 december
Fråga 2002/03:356 av Yvonne Andersson (kd) till kulturminister Marita Ulvskog om konstnärlig utsmyckning av myndigheter.
Staten byggnader, myndigheter och liknande utsmyckas med stora mängder konst. Konsten ska bidra till en god arbetsmiljö för de människor som arbetar eller vistas i byggnaderna. Konsten köps in av Statens konstråd som ansvarar för den konstnärliga utsmyckningen av samtliga statliga byggnader. Inköpen görs i samverkan med representanter från den myndighet där konsten ska placeras. Självklart är det svårt att göra alla nöjda när det gäller val av konst till en byggnad. Vissa människor kan vara mycket kritiska till en målning eller en skulptur som andra älskar. I vissa fall kan det dock finnas en bred samstämmighet kring ett verk. På Skövde högskola finns i entrén ett målning som många är kritiska till eftersom den ger associationer som inte alla uppskattar. Målningen föreställer en man som ligger på backen, och en kvinna som står på honom. Så många har nu blivit illa berörda av målningen att högskola beslutat att arbeta för att den ska tas bort. Högskolan får dock inte själva ta bort eller flytta den utan detta måste göras i samråd med Statens konstråd. Trots att högskolan tagit kontakt med Statens konstråd och förklarat att de är missnöjda med målningen har inte konstrådet gett dem tillåtelse att flytta målningen.
Vad avser ministern att göra för att öka myndigheternas möjlighet att påverka den konstnärliga utsmyckningen i deras närmiljö?
Svar på fråga 2002/03:356 om konstnärlig utsmyckning av myndigheter. Den 15 januari
Kulturminister Marita Ulvskog.
Yvonne Andersson har ställt frågan till mig vad jag avser att göra för att öka myndighetens möjlighet att påverka den konstnärliga utsmyckningen i deras närmiljö.Frågan är föranledd av en diskussion som förts efter att ett konstverk av Cecilia Parsberg, tidigare professor vid Umeå konsthögskola och en av våra internationellt mest framstående konstnärer idag, blivit placerat av Statens konstråd i entrén till Skövde högskola. Yvonne Andersson menar att många blivit illa berörda av verket och att högskolan beslutat att arbeta för att det ska tas bort, men att Konstrådet inte gett dem tillåtelse att flytta verket.
Jag delar Yvonne Anderssons uppfattning att man ska efterfråga och respektera brukarens uppfattning om de konstverk som ska placeras i den miljö som är en del av deras vardag och jag menar att det är viktigt att finna goda former för samråd så att denna uppfattning på ett lämpligt sett kanaliseras in i beslutsfattandet. Detta samråd bör präglas av öppenhet från alla parter och en ömsesidig respekt för den speciella kompetens man företräder. Men att man, även med, dessa goda förutsättningar, skulle kunna utesluta alla möjligheter till konflikter i ett sammanhang när man diskuterar och beslutar om frågor med koppling till samtidskonsten menar jag är orimligt, om det ens är önskvärt.
Som jag har kunnat inhämta från Konstrådet har de vedertagna samrådsformerna iakttagits i detta projekt. Högskolan i Skövde är ett mindre projekt utan beställda konstverk där man erbjudits möjligheten att föra samrådsdiskussionen genom att verk placerats under en prövotid. Enligt uppgift kommer det nämnda konstverket, som en följd av den diskussion som har förts mellan företrädare för högskolan och Konstrådets projektledare, inte få sin placering i Skövde högskola efter prövotiden. Enligt min uppfattning visar detta att de arbetsformer som Konstrådet praktiserar innebär att brukaren/mottagaren har ett fullgott inflytande över vilka verk som ska placeras i deras arbetsmiljö.
Samtidigt vill jag betona betydelsen av att en verksamhet som Statens Konstråds förmår att föra ut även de senaste och kanske mest krävande konstuttrycken i den offentliga miljön. Detta är en uppgift förenad med vissa uppenbara svårigheter, men som jag menar är central för verksamhetens konstnärliga och kulturpolitiska legitimitet. Dessa konstverk kräver noggranna introduktioner och andra former av uppbackning, men de kräver också ett öppet sinne från mottagarhåll inför det nya och okända.
Det är inte alltid det omedelbara intrycket av ett konstverk som blir det bestående, det är inte heller det mest lättillgängliga och begripliga verket som blir det mest betydelsefulla. Det omedelbara motstånd man kan känna inför något hos ett konstverk kan med tiden visa sig vara det som är dess viktigaste kvalitet. Att betydande samtida konstverk ändå kan visa sig olämpliga att placera i vissa miljöer hör självfallet också till denna bild. Jag har fullt förtroende för Konstrådets förmåga att på bästa sätt hantera dessa svåra avvägningar.
