Falstrom, Aivind

The artist’s childhood passed in Brazil, he moved to Sweden in 1939 . In 1949 - 1952 studied archeology and art history at Stockholm University , specialized in pre-Columbian manuscripts, and became interested in theater .

In the early 1950s he worked as a journalist, wrote plays and poems, in 1952 he began to create his first paintings. In 1953 he published the manifesto Hipy Papy Bthuthdth Thuthda Bthuthdy: Manifesto for Concrete Poetry (Stockholm), in which he manipulated the language regardless of the meaning of the words. He saw wealth, both sensual and intellectual, in the phonetic material and the distortions that occur when letters are transferred to another place.

In subsequent years, he worked primarily on large-format painting, called Ade-Ledic-Nander II ( 1955 - 1957 ), where the hieroglyphic signs are located in large antagonistic groups. He then used images from comics such as Krazy Kat and Mad, remodeling them in such a way that they became almost unrecognizable. Falström used language as a base material and an unexpected angle of view to reveal a hidden context.

After staying in Paris ( 1956 - 1959 ), in 1961 Falström moved to New York . During this period, he began to add three-dimensional elements to his work, often presenting game scenarios implying the participation of the viewer. In 1962 he created several versions of the work of Sitting . In the second of these versions ( 1962 ), he included separate forms that could be moved with a magnet on the surface of the painting, creating what he defined as “variable paintings”. In works such as The Planetarium ( 1963 ), “variable” forms still remain on the surface of the painting, but in Dr Schweitzer's Last Mission ( installation , 1964–1966 ), the parts left the surface of the painting and are placed in space.

Falström sought to blur the lines between the media he used. In addition to painting, he organized happenings (“Aida”, 1962; “Ur Mellanöl 1 and 2”, “Fahlströms Hörna”, 1964), staged plays (“Hammarskjöld om Gud”, 1965; “Kisses Sweeter than Wine”, 1966), films (Mao-Hope March, 1966; U-Barn, East Village, Revolution Now, 1968; Du gamla du fria, 1971) and radio productions (Fåglar i Sverige, 1963; Den helige Torsten Nilsson ", 1966;" Cellen, collage for radio ", 1972). Sometimes he abandoned artistic activity in favor of newspaper and television journalism. The pseudo-journalistic content of his late painting is connected with the struggle for the riches of the Third World and other political issues.

In 1966, Falström exhibited work in the Swedish pavilion at the Venice Biennale . He died of cancer on November 9, 1976 in Stockholm . In 1979 , the posthumous mobile retrospective of the Falström work began, which ended at the Pompidou Center in Paris in 1981 .

In 2009, Daniel Birnbaum , curator of the 53rd Venice Biennale , a critic, philosopher and art historian from Sweden, included the installation of Aivind Falström Dr Schweitzer's Last Mission in the main project.

• Olle Granath. From Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press

• Aivind Falstrom Foundation
• Ovid Falstrem's works at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
• ArtNet
• Artfacts
• Eivind Falström installation at the 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009