BRIDAL issue
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ART & ARCHITECTURE
Questions for Bassam Fellows interview Iké Udé
BON APPÉTIT
Lucien interview Danielle Brown
BUSINESS OFF THE WALL
Questions For Aaron Schwartz
FASHION
Badgley Mischka interview Iké Udé
La Vie En Rose photography Andrew Matusik
FASHION LINGERIE
Suite 1940 photography Ben Oliver
KULTURE & ART CINEMA
Anthony Hopkins Not Brain Surgery interview Brandon Judell
KULTURE & ART PAINTING
talking with Marlene Dumas interview Odili Donald Odita
Johan Falkman A Dance-Macbre Around The Autopsy Table interview Magnus Sjöholm
KULTURE & ART PHOTOGRAPHY
Daniel Malcolm interview Koan Jeff Baysa
SHELTER & DESIGN FLORAL DESIGN
Questions for Olivier Guigni
TRAVEL & LEISURE
"Brazil? With my hair? Never!!" Diane von Furstenberg
aRUDE comment
bridal_issue_jfalkman.php
ONLINE content
ART & ARCHITECTURE
Questions for Bassam Fellows interview Iké Udé
BON APPÉTIT
Lucien interview Danielle Brown
BUSINESS OFF THE WALL
Questions For Aaron Schwartz
FASHION
Badgley Mischka interview Iké Udé
La Vie En Rose photography Andrew Matusik
FASHION LINGERIE
Suite 1940 photography Ben Oliver
KULTURE & ART CINEMA
Anthony Hopkins Not Brain Surgery interview Brandon Judell
KULTURE & ART PAINTING
talking with Marlene Dumas interview Odili Donald Odita
Johan Falkman A Dance-Macbre Around The Autopsy Table interview Magnus Sjöholm
KULTURE & ART PHOTOGRAPHY
Daniel Malcolm interview Koan Jeff Baysa
SHELTER & DESIGN FLORAL DESIGN
Questions for Olivier Guigni
TRAVEL & LEISURE
"Brazil? With my hair? Never!!" Diane von Furstenberg
JOHAN FALKMAN a dance-macbre around the autopsy table
intreview Magnus Sjöholm
Johan Falkman photography Viveca Ohisson click image to enlarge Magnus Sjöholm: Why doctors? and painter?
Johan Falkman: Doctors have always intrigued me. Medical doctors and artists are in many ways similar: driven, passionate beings, sometimes on the verge of obsession, often with a child’s need of attention and confirmation.
MS: In your book “The Face of Medicine” you write that your fascination with medical doctors comes from your childhood, when you were exposed to the stern Dr. Kaltenbrunner. What effect did this encounter have on you?
JF: Kaltenbrunner's lack of empathy made the examinations unpleasant, sometimes fearful. Even the environment frightened me. You were told by the nurse to get naked, then you were left alone in a cold, sterile examination-room with nothing in it except a bed, a rotating metal-chair and posters of dissected eyes and ears. My feelings of abandonment and vulnerability were mixed with defiance and anger. As an adult, I am intrigued by the kind of personality that Kaltenbrunner represented—a certain role model that, at best, strengthens our personalities, and, at worst, hampers us.
MS: Your project deals with vulnerability as a result of exposure to these kinds of authority figures, and our often ambivalent, sadomasochistic, relation to them. Tell me more about that. JF: I think that most of us have a need, perhaps a secret wish, to completely reveal ourselves to others. Bergman explores this phenomenon in all his movies. When we are naked, we are also true—and, in a complex way, strong and challenging. I call it sadomasochistic suggestion. It’s like tribal initiation-rites, from which a young boy or girl emerges a man or a woman. You're putting yourself at the mercy of someone else. And that is trust – trust in life, not in the individual being.
MS: When you came to New York to study at Pratt, you were exposed to similar emotional and physical sensations when taking classes in anatomy at New York University Hospital.
JF: Yes, at the hospital I encountered the anatomists. They were old, stern, and extremely sincere; an aura of somber-ness, serenity, and death surrounded them. I remember that the room was filled with a pungent smell, a mix of formaldehyde, decay, cigarette-smoke, and liquorice-scented aftershave. The anatomists dissected the bodies with passion and devotion. To me, they appeared as embodiments of the medical discipline - the abstract phenomena that is The Doctor – the way I had fantasized since early childhood.
MS: You were a young student at Pratt. What drew you to the theme of mortality at such a young age?
JF: Occultism, through which I finally acquired a Christian faith, after years of mystical studies. The death of Jesus is the ultimate symbol of exposure, vulnerability, and, ultimately, of trust—faith, faith in life, in the good of man.
MS: And how did you explore this theme in later years?
JF: When my sister Lena died, in 1997, I sat next to her deathbed and drew for three days. My parents kept her body in an open coffin, in their livingroom, for a week. I sneaked into the room at night, closed the door behind me, lit candles around my sister’s coffin and started to paint her. The stillness, the smell of winter, burnt wax, and the sweet scent of bodily decomposition, created an unreal, eerie, peaceful atmosphere, filled with the sternness and intimacy of death – a dangerous and demanding liaison, built upon trust and confidence. I exhibited the works under the title "Crossroads."
JF: Absolutely. I think our similarities lie within our focus on this sadomasochistic suggestion, and on our ambivalent feelings towards death and the morbid. However, Greenaway often focuses on the grotesque and the absurd while I don't.
MS: Why was Lund the perfect platform for this unique project?
JF: It is like Lund was made for me, or rather, I was made for Lund. The whole town is characterized by academic harshness, eccentricity, conservatism, black humor, and a Lutheran view of man, dictated by the High Church. Lund is a religious town with both a strong catholic community and a powerful, vibrant, protestant church, and I am closely tied to both.
MS: Bergman seemed to have had the same fascination for the academic Lund as you do. It is to Lund that the ageing professor of medicine, Isak Borg, travels in his famous road-movie Wild Strawberries (1957). Along the way, Borg reflects upon his life, the constant fear of insufficiency, and he begins to perceive his mortality. Is your project a way for you to perceive your own mortality?
JF: I think so, in a way. The encounter with The Doctor is always a reminder of one’s own mortality, but of their mortality too. So, in a way, what I'm dealing with is a reversed objectification to the tragedy of human nature and of life.
MS: You must be overwhelmed by the success of your project. Why do you think it has generated such an interest?
JF: I think that there is a big general interest in figurative painting, especially portrait painting.
MS: Some critics argue that portrait painting is an old dinosaur.
JF: That is nonsense. I believe that people have a yearning to see themselves reflected, in part, in the portrayal of others. People seek to identify with the subject. In my paintings, I strive to create a direct and often brutal confrontation between the subject and the viewer.
MS: You are also a singer and became wellknown in both New York and Sweden during the mid '90's for your interpretations of Zarah Leander. Wasn't that an odd choice? Why not Weill? Or Gershwin?
JF: To me, Leander embodies a paradox inside myself: the mix between the delightful and the morbid. I see that in Weill as well, but in a less complex way. The songs of Leander are like a forensic doctor singing couplets in an autopsy-room. Actually, isn't that what life is, a dance-macabre around the autopsy-table?
intreview Magnus Sjöholm
Johan Falkman photography Viveca Ohisson click image to enlarge Magnus Sjöholm: Why doctors? and painter?
Johan Falkman: Doctors have always intrigued me. Medical doctors and artists are in many ways similar: driven, passionate beings, sometimes on the verge of obsession, often with a child’s need of attention and confirmation.
MS: In your book “The Face of Medicine” you write that your fascination with medical doctors comes from your childhood, when you were exposed to the stern Dr. Kaltenbrunner. What effect did this encounter have on you?
JF: Kaltenbrunner's lack of empathy made the examinations unpleasant, sometimes fearful. Even the environment frightened me. You were told by the nurse to get naked, then you were left alone in a cold, sterile examination-room with nothing in it except a bed, a rotating metal-chair and posters of dissected eyes and ears. My feelings of abandonment and vulnerability were mixed with defiance and anger. As an adult, I am intrigued by the kind of personality that Kaltenbrunner represented—a certain role model that, at best, strengthens our personalities, and, at worst, hampers us.
MS: Your project deals with vulnerability as a result of exposure to these kinds of authority figures, and our often ambivalent, sadomasochistic, relation to them. Tell me more about that. JF: I think that most of us have a need, perhaps a secret wish, to completely reveal ourselves to others. Bergman explores this phenomenon in all his movies. When we are naked, we are also true—and, in a complex way, strong and challenging. I call it sadomasochistic suggestion. It’s like tribal initiation-rites, from which a young boy or girl emerges a man or a woman. You're putting yourself at the mercy of someone else. And that is trust – trust in life, not in the individual being.
MS: When you came to New York to study at Pratt, you were exposed to similar emotional and physical sensations when taking classes in anatomy at New York University Hospital.
JF: Yes, at the hospital I encountered the anatomists. They were old, stern, and extremely sincere; an aura of somber-ness, serenity, and death surrounded them. I remember that the room was filled with a pungent smell, a mix of formaldehyde, decay, cigarette-smoke, and liquorice-scented aftershave. The anatomists dissected the bodies with passion and devotion. To me, they appeared as embodiments of the medical discipline - the abstract phenomena that is The Doctor – the way I had fantasized since early childhood.
MS: You were a young student at Pratt. What drew you to the theme of mortality at such a young age?
JF: Occultism, through which I finally acquired a Christian faith, after years of mystical studies. The death of Jesus is the ultimate symbol of exposure, vulnerability, and, ultimately, of trust—faith, faith in life, in the good of man.
MS: And how did you explore this theme in later years?
JF: When my sister Lena died, in 1997, I sat next to her deathbed and drew for three days. My parents kept her body in an open coffin, in their livingroom, for a week. I sneaked into the room at night, closed the door behind me, lit candles around my sister’s coffin and started to paint her. The stillness, the smell of winter, burnt wax, and the sweet scent of bodily decomposition, created an unreal, eerie, peaceful atmosphere, filled with the sternness and intimacy of death – a dangerous and demanding liaison, built upon trust and confidence. I exhibited the works under the title "Crossroads."
I think that most of us have a need, perhaps a secret wish, to
completely reveal ourselves to others.
MS: Some critics are associating your work with Peter Greenaway,
his dissected bodies, and his fascination with the bodily process of decay and death.
Do you agree?
JF: Absolutely. I think our similarities lie within our focus on this sadomasochistic suggestion, and on our ambivalent feelings towards death and the morbid. However, Greenaway often focuses on the grotesque and the absurd while I don't.
MS: Why was Lund the perfect platform for this unique project?
JF: It is like Lund was made for me, or rather, I was made for Lund. The whole town is characterized by academic harshness, eccentricity, conservatism, black humor, and a Lutheran view of man, dictated by the High Church. Lund is a religious town with both a strong catholic community and a powerful, vibrant, protestant church, and I am closely tied to both.
MS: Bergman seemed to have had the same fascination for the academic Lund as you do. It is to Lund that the ageing professor of medicine, Isak Borg, travels in his famous road-movie Wild Strawberries (1957). Along the way, Borg reflects upon his life, the constant fear of insufficiency, and he begins to perceive his mortality. Is your project a way for you to perceive your own mortality?
JF: I think so, in a way. The encounter with The Doctor is always a reminder of one’s own mortality, but of their mortality too. So, in a way, what I'm dealing with is a reversed objectification to the tragedy of human nature and of life.
MS: You must be overwhelmed by the success of your project. Why do you think it has generated such an interest?
JF: I think that there is a big general interest in figurative painting, especially portrait painting.
MS: Some critics argue that portrait painting is an old dinosaur.
JF: That is nonsense. I believe that people have a yearning to see themselves reflected, in part, in the portrayal of others. People seek to identify with the subject. In my paintings, I strive to create a direct and often brutal confrontation between the subject and the viewer.
MS: You are also a singer and became wellknown in both New York and Sweden during the mid '90's for your interpretations of Zarah Leander. Wasn't that an odd choice? Why not Weill? Or Gershwin?
JF: To me, Leander embodies a paradox inside myself: the mix between the delightful and the morbid. I see that in Weill as well, but in a less complex way. The songs of Leander are like a forensic doctor singing couplets in an autopsy-room. Actually, isn't that what life is, a dance-macabre around the autopsy-table?
