Peter Johansson

The settlement with Dalarna, its aesthetics, and the self-image that exists in the county have been a recurring theme in Peter Johansson's artistic career since his time as a student. At the graduation exhibition at the Art Academy, he showed sliced Dala horses in charcuterie packaging, as well as images of himself as a "dalkulla" and fiddler. In a later well-known work, he combines attributes from Nazism with Dala aesthetics - bomber jackets, heavy boots, and face masks embroidered and painted with patterns from traditional costumes. Johansson's father was a church painter. It is in relation to his father and his father's admiration for Zorn that the exhibition "Johansson vs Zorn" took off. For four years, he worked on the project, which resulted in a book and the exhibition at the Zorn Museum. Johansson reconstructed about ten photographs of Zorn, where he placed himself, instead of Zorn, in the leading role. He was photographed in Zorn's red sports suit, in the same pose and at the same location in Zorngården where Zorn himself stood in 1915 for his famous "Self-portrait in Red."

The entire exhibition began with Johansson's red-framed paraphrase of "Self-portrait in Red," where he meets the visitors with a stern and superior expression - a statement about who has taken over. The strong red color that Johansson used for frames and objects at the Zorn Museum has been present throughout his career.

The exhibition also featured a number of nude studies by Zorn, original paintings worth millions, where the works were removed from their original frames and provided with new copies painted in Johansson's signature color. These works were complemented by large sculptures, a lying church, and a church interior - all of them brightly red. During the exhibition in Mora, the entrance building's roof was also adorned with two church towers in the same shade.

The exhibition received widespread attention, not least because 140 dogs had the privilege of attending the preview (Johansson took note of Zorn's love for dogs and his frequent depiction of them in his paintings). In SvD, it was called "both a stylish and absurd exhibition," but regardless of what one thinks of his treatment of Zorn and Dalarna's culture, Peter Johansson is one of Sweden's most innovative and interesting artists, constantly relevant and always ready to turn concepts, art history, and the role of the artist upside down.