STOCKHOLM.- Nationalmuseum presents Ernst Billgren – New Memories, an exhibition with multiple new pieces by one of Sweden’s most renowned artists. Billgren challenges the art world’s unwritten laws and unspoken expectations with work that combines traditional art historical motifs with pop culture references and kitsch.

The exhibition will feature about two dozen artworks by Billgren, in which the artist playfully relates to classical painting. Billgren puts his own spin to the museum’s artworks, like the well-known painting Bringing Home the Body of King Karl XII of Sweden. The exhibition will be held in a single gallery on the fourth floor, from 10 April to 28 September.

Ernst Billgren was born in Stockholm in 1957. He made a name for himself as an artist in the mid-eighties, before he had even graduated from Gothenburg’s Valand Academy of Art and Design. He was a key figure in the breakthrough of postmodernism in Sweden, along with other artists like Max Book, Ingrid Orfali and Dan Wolgers. Billgren’s tongue-in-cheek approach to modernist tradition and popular culture was one of the most noteworthy artistic expressions of the decade.

Billgren’s oeuvre is characterised by its impressive scope. The artist works with a range of artforms – painting, sculpture, and graphic art – and likes to combine different materials, like oil paint, glass, tiles, and wood. Billgren’s imagery is often rooted in myths and sagas, with recurring motifs of animals depicted in nature as well as modern interiors.

“Ernst Billgren’s way of subverting art historical traditions invites us to look at older art with fresh eyes. He challenges the art world’s unwritten laws and unspoken expectations in a way few others do,” the exhibition’s curator, Per Hedström, comments.

Breathing new life into existing works

Ernst Billgren – New Memories showcases several brand-new pieces that are a nod to classical paintings in the museum’s collections. The 19th century’s Romanticism, for example, pops up in Billgren’s paintings as impressive ships and Gothic cathedrals. In Billgren’s world, however, there is an absurdity to the drama of Romanticism: ships sail right through the cathedral’s choir. Several series reflect the landscape paintings and still lifes of the Baroque, only the motifs in them gradually crumble and collapse in a final catastrophe.

Several of the paintings in the exhibition are directly inspired by artworks in Nationalmuseum’s own collections. One of the clearest examples is Billgren’s remake of Gustaf Cederström’s famous Bringing Home the Body of King Karl XII of Sweden, whereby the artist creates his own version of the well-known scene.

“When I paint others’ works, I’m unaffected by my own aesthetic taste, which leaves me much freer. I’m able to paint just about anything then,” the artist says. “We are dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. This is a way of breathing new life into the painting, skills, and ideals of generations past, only with a new story.”