Jockum Nordström, Sista dansen (The last dance), 2017
80 × 104 cm, collage, watercolour and graphite on paper
© Jockum Nordström – courtesy the artist and Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm
visual identity © Lieux Communs – La Criée centre d’art contemporain, Rennes
Jockum Nordström, exhibition view, Pour ne pas dormir, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Rennes, 2021
courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, Zeno X and Magnus Karlsson
photo: Benoît Mauras
Jockum Nordström, exhibition view, Pour ne pas dormir, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Rennes, 2021
courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, Zeno X and Magnus Karlsson
photo: Benoît Mauras
Jockum Nordström, exhibition view, Pour ne pas dormir, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Rennes, 2021
courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, Zeno X and Magnus Karlsson
photo: Benoît Mauras
Jockum Nordström, exhibition view, Pour ne pas dormir, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Rennes, 2021
courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, Zeno X and Magnus Karlsson
photo: Benoît Mauras
Jockum Nordström, exhibition view, Pour ne pas dormir, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Rennes, 2021
courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, Zeno X and Magnus Karlsson
photo: Benoît Mauras
Jockum Nordström, exhibition view, Pour ne pas dormir, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Rennes, 2021
courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, Zeno X and Magnus Karlsson
photo: Benoît Mauras
Jockum Nordström, exhibition view, Pour ne pas dormir, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Rennes, 2021
courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, Zeno X and Magnus Karlsson
photo: Benoît Mauras
Jockum Nordström, exhibition view, Pour ne pas dormir, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Rennes, 2021
courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, Zeno X and Magnus Karlsson
photo: Benoît Mauras
Jockum Nordström, exhibition view, Pour ne pas dormir, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Rennes, 2021
courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, Zeno X and Magnus Karlsson
photo: Benoît Mauras
Jockum Nordström, Kvällen kommer (Evening comes), 2017
138 × 67 cm, collage, watercolor and graphite on paper
© Jockum Nordström – courtesy the artist and Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm –photo: Per-Erik Adamsson
Nordström Jockum, Den öppna boken (The open book), 2017
54 × 90 cm, collage, watercolor and graphite on paper
© Jockum Nordström – courtesy the artist and Zeno X Gallery – photo : Peter Cox
Jockum Nordström, Samma spelbord, samma mynt (Same Game Table, Same Coin), 2019
collage, watercolour, graphite and crayon on paper, 99 × 81 cm
© Jockum Nordström – courtesy the artist and Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm
Nordström Jockum, Sjukhusparken (Hospital park), 2017
72 × 104 cm, collage, aquarelle et graphite sur papier
© Jockum Nordström – courtesy the artist and Zeno X Gallery – photo: Peter Cox
Jockum Nordström, Naken på en planet (Naked on a plane), 2019
25,6 × 35,2 cm, graphite on paper
© Jockum Nordström – courtesy the artist and David Zwirner Gallery – photo: Per-Erik Adamsson
Jockum Nordström, Utan lykta, 2016
19,5 × 22,4 × 11,6 cm, crayon and graphite on cardboard
© Jockum Nordström – courtesy the artist and Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm
Jockum Nordström, Förändringen/ (The change), 2019
42,6 × 57,3 cm, graphite on paper
© Jockum Nordström – courtesy the artist and David Zwirner Gallery – photo: Per-Erik Adamsson
Jockum Nordström, Gathörn (The street corner), 2019
42 ×48 cm, graphite on paper
© Jockum Nordström – courtesy the artist and David Zwirner Gallery – photo: Per-Erik Adamsson
Jockum Nordström, Skogen (The Forest), 2019
86 × 65 cm, watercolour and collage on paper
© Jockum Nordströmcourtesy the artist and David Zwirner Gallery – photo: Per-Erik Adamsson
Jockum Nordström, Rymden tystar ljudet, 2017
75,0 × 54,0 cm, collage, watercolour and graphite on wood and paper
© Jockum Nordström – courtesy the artist and Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm – photo: Per-Erik Adamsson
Jockum Nordström, Scuola Elementare, 2008
32,6 × 91 × 10,4 cm, pencil and watercolor on cardboard and paper
© Jockum Nordström – courtesy the artist and Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm
Exhibition
Pour ne pas dormir
Jockum Nordström
from 19 May to 29 August 2021
A major figure on the Swedish art scene, Jockum Nordström has devoted over thirty years to his mischievous mix of worlds quotidian and oneiric, human and animal, abstract and naive, natural and architectural. At La Criée centre for contemporary art he’s presenting a selection of recent works: collages, drawings and cardboard sculptures.
When worlds intersect
Jockum Nordström is also an illustrator of children’s books and a musician. His work is fuelled by references to popular and outsider art, jazz and Surrealism, in addition to architecture, Swedish culture and contemporary art. Out of all this emerge dreamlike fables in which different worlds and eras intermingle. The power of his work resides in the tension he sets up between simplicity of line and polyphony of subject matter.
Among his passions are architecture and a fascination with interiors and furniture going back to his childhood in the Stockholm suburbs, when the housing estates were being built. In his work architecture can be seen in both two and three dimensions. At La Criée he’s showing a series of fragile geometrical sculptures, el cheapo residential blocks whose slender lines contradict the saddening clunkiness of their originals.
Nordström defies and defeats pigeonholing: in his case the “supposedly badly made” is very well made – and deliberately so. He emphasises the liberating force of an expressiveness that simultaneously plays on and shakes off the shackles of convention: his forms and characters spill out of the frame, his lines can be messy or wobbly, his paint runs intentional; there are unfinished bits, crude cuts, crooked folds. Plus a sense of composition made all the more striking by its sheer zaniness.
When abstraction and narrative come together
Jockum Nordström’s commitment to forms and colours in their primal state is matched by his interest in narrative, whether real or imaginary. Here we have a storyteller moving back and forth between worlds, between characters and scenes, in a mingling of the childlike and the sexy, the contemporary and the timeless, the figurative and the abstract.
The collages on show are in earth colours: greens, dirty yellows, greys, diluted browns and faded blues, with touches here and there of darker, more saturated tones in the same range. The drawings illustrate the dexterity of someone who has been practising since he was a child.
curator
Sophie Kaplan
production
La Criée centre for contemporary art, Rennes
COVID-19
Entrance conditions have been adapted in line with the obligatory preventive measures.
No reservation is necessary, the capacity is limited.
