Until October 25, Oslo’s first private gallery devoted entirely to Fine Art Photography, Shoot Gallery, presents the exhibition ”Dawid: Ex.” Dawid (Björn Dawidsson) is one of Sweden’s most respected and well known photo based artists.
The exhibition ”Dawid: Ex.” gives a broad presentation of Dawids work all the way back to the early 80`s. The main body of work are rare Vintage Silver Gelatin Prints but he also shows us recent work where he has utilised the possibilities of digitalisation proving his continous experimentation with both ancient and modern techniques and equipment. Dawid does all the framing himself with self designed frames as he regards the whole piece as an object.
Dawid has been called Sweden´s first post-modern artist and has for over thirty years been making series of photographically based artworks examining the nature of the medium and exploring issues of perception.
He began photographing in the late sixties, documenting incongruous moments with a wry sense of humour, until he established his signature style of stark graphic illustration, initiated by the seminal Rost series. His work often balances on a tight rope between the graphic and the photographic and reflects, criticises and parallels the chequered history and changing status of photography.
A photographic alchemist, intellectual and scientist with a long list of solo exhibitions, group exhibitions, more than 30 personal photobooks and a collectors choice with his work in prestigeous collections like The National Museum of Art Oslo, Moderna Museet Stockholm and the Hasselblad Collection to mention a few (Please find lists in the press section) as well as a wide range of private collections.
About Dawid
Dawid was born in 1949. He lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.
With the exhibition ”Nobody loved me” at Liljevalchs in Stockholm in 1973, Dawid claimed – in opposition to the prevailing documentary ideals – photography as an artistic medium. He experimented early with large negative format and the exhibition RUST on the Photographic Museum of Modern Art in 1983 shook the Swedish photographic scene.
Through a constantly challenging and an important element in Dawid oeuvre is experimentation with photography done without a camera in the form of photograms and others often proprietary methods.
Dawid has since the 1970s been exhibited at leading galleries and institutions in Sweden and internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art and Thiel Gallery in Stockholm, Galleri Riis Oslo, Folkwang Museum in Essen and Galerie Priska Pasquer in Cologne, Germany. He has published numerous books and catalogs, and in 2001 appeared in Beautiful Frames on Steidl with lyrics by Michael Mack. He is at the moment working on a large format retrospective book, published by Art and Theory Publishing, which will be released in 2015.
Year 2009 awarded Dawid the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s Grand Prize for ”His artistic achievements and significance in the present”.
For more information visit : http://www.dawid.nu.
You find Shoot Gallery in Uranienborgveien 5
More articles about Scandinavian photography:
Pictures from above
Nordic Light International Festival of Photography
Nocturnal Norwegian Ice Climbing