Following in a 40-year career as a stylish and celebrated photographer of fashion giants, Pelle Bergström (b. 1956) has changed tracks. In 2022, he first entered the art scene with geometric studies, in an exhibition named Blockography, a terse yet playful affair on relationships between colour and form. Now, he returns to Galleri Glas, and this time the stakes are higher, more personal, as Bergström carefully winds his way down into the past.
On the surface, it looks fairly simple. Bergström has combined variously shaped and painted wood pieces, such as mouldings and veneer, into rhythmic patterns. These delicate objects are placed on tables and photographed against a white background. The result is astounding!
Suddenly, three-dimensional constructions appear. The surface is invaded by suits of armour in grey, white and black. This transformation takes place as the works fill up with light and darkness, materiality and volume. Pictorial spaces open and close and tell us of life’s predicaments. Of memories.
At the core is the utmost degree of photographic skill, commensurable in the world of art with minimalists such as Agnes Martin and Robert Ryman. It’s about structures that are gently imbued with life. It’s about composing the fragile into a cohesive, melancholy whole. In the gap between intentional imperfection, animate mouldings and meticulous photographic craftsmanship, a life-giving discord arises.
Clues in the works lead us back to Pelle Bergström’s roots in Skåne and being fostered in minimalist aesthetics. At home, the plain and precise reigned supreme. The same clues also take us to a young Pelle, alone at the seaside and childhood wanders around Barsebäck. From the sea: salted driftwood, beach debris, wind-polished wreckage, fish traps and broken baskets. Amid it all, a sense of vulnerability and alienation.
It is obvious that photography, for Pelle, is now an art of contemplation. What is revealed is a naked proclamation, a “this is me”, in search of the very essence of a personality, an origin and a current state. It is exquisite, it is sensitive and brave. These works could only be made by a modestly searching person in an exceedingly evil world.
Mårten Castenfors
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