'Aeronaut (3)', 2002
Signed Maria Friberg verso. Edition 2/3. Cibachrome silicone mounted to glass 120 x 120 cm.
Galleri Charlotte Lund, Stockholm.
The series Aeronauts was created from 2000 to 2002 as an artistic decoration at Södersjukhuset. The three images in the series are mounted on the ceiling of one of the hospital's departments. The series has been exhibited, among other places, at the Conner Contemporary Art gallery in Washington.
Maria Friberg was a Swedish artist who primarily worked with photography and videography. Her primary theme was masculinity, whereby she investigated the traditional male adopted roles and its properties which has through history been defined as "masculine". Since her breakthrough in the 1990s alongside other female photographers who were educated at Gothenburgs photography school, Friberg has offered his growing audience enigmatic, powerful, and imaginative staged images of men. They float tranquilly in pool water, are squeezed into cars, sometimes sleeping among white sheets, or only their lower halves are visible as they sit in suits at a table. She works with staged photography and often uses art historical references. Friberg likes to work in series, varying a motif across multiple works. Some of her most well-known series are "Still Lives" and "Almost There."
Read more