Works

INSTALLATION

Strömgatan 2


2025
Pigment print on tempered glass, sublimation print on textile, engraved brass, wood structure, fresh cut flowers, wall colour (coral).
—Yes. I fall asleep every night with your name on my lips.

Strömgatan 2 is both the name of the installation and the address in Norrtälje where the paint shop owner and collector Torsten Nordström (1892—1951) used to live. Today, the bourgeois apartment has long since been converted into a museum, dedicated to Torsten and his eclectic collection. Torsten played a central role in the local cultural life with daily coffee parties and other social gatherings in his home, often in connection with visiting theatre companies. At the centre of the apartment is a small, intimate sleeping area which opens onto the more social and public parlours, with only a thin curtain separating them. 

The walls around the narrow bed are covered with various nude studies, including works by Léo Holmgren and Felix Bryk. There is also a portrait of the Ukrainian-Jewish writer Jasha Golowanjuk, whose early books depicted outsiders and queer life. They were close and there is said to have been an extensive correspondence between them, which has now disappeared. The small alcove is a semi-enclosed space, a sanctuary for dreams, lust and desire.

Strömgatan 2 mirrors this queer space in the form of a wooden construction in 1:1 scale, based on the layout and coordinates of the bedroom. Imprints of bodies on glass and a thin curtain coloured by the sunset from the work Sunset/Sunrise (The Fairy Garden) on the third floor of the art gallery form a porous border between the private and the public. On one of the walls of Strömgatan 2 hangs a painting of a bouquet filled with lilies, narcissuses, irises and anemones. In the exhibition Sunset/Sunrise, it comes to life and spreads its flowers through the halls of the art gallery.



Installation view, Sunset/Sunrise, Norrtälje Konsthall, 2025.
—Yes. I fall asleep every night with your name on my lips. Engraved brass (detail).
Installation view, Sunset/Sunrise, Norrtälje Konsthall, 2025. In the back I Need Somebody to Love Tonight.
Nude No 1. Pigment print on tempered glass (detail).
Split Bouquet, five fresh cut flowers distributed throughout the art gallery (detail).
In the early hours of the morning, a sliver of light finds its way in between the thick, heavy curtains and settles like a ribbon over the bed. It grows brighter, stronger and warmer by the minute. Engraved brass (detail).
Installation view, Sunset/Sunrise, Norrtälje Konsthall, 2025. In the back I Need Somebody to Love Tonight.
Split Bouquet, five fresh cut flowers distributed throughout the art gallery (detail).



THANKS Ingrid Björklund and the people at Torsten Nordströms museum. ABOUT Commissioned by Norrtälje Konsthall for the exhibition Sunset/Sunrise. EXHIBITIONS Norrtälje Konsthall, Norrtälje SE.

 ©MMXXV Conny Karlsson Lundgren