Goodbye
With artist Peter Thörneby’s exhibition, Goodbye, Maraboupark continues its artprogram with the ambition to present exhibitions of younger artists’ work. The exhibition features works by Peter Thörneby from 2000 to his latest work, the first issue of the magazine Goodbye.
A recurring element in Peter Thörneby’s work is a search for new places, mental and physical, where the possibility of having unexpected thoughts is enhanced. Thörneby uses prints and patterns to create backdrops against which artist and audience can dream themselves away. One such backdrop which appears in several works is a raindrop-pattern inspired by the symbolist painter Ivan Aguéli’s opium-clouded sensation of seeing a text turn to raindrops before his eyes. In Thörneby’s visual interpretation this becomes a silver rain, a metaphor for a deeper understanding of art. The silver rain then forms a backdrop against which he places texts about art’s function of finding and presenting new places and ideas.
In history, new patterns have often been ideological accompaniments and descriptions of a new political order. Patterns play a central role in Thörneby’s art from artist duo Gratis Design’s use of textile patterns as backgrounds for Walter Gropius’ manifesto, the poster series Gratis Design’s Bauhaus Manifesto and 10-gruppen Patterns (collaboration with Fredrik Holmqvist 2000) via the silver rain-pattern mentioned above to patterns for unknown rooms in the poster series How Can I Sleep With Your Voice in My Head (Vita Kuben, Norrlandsoperan, 2003).
In Thörneby’s latest work; the magazine Goodbye (2004) the artist leaves abstraction to examine day-dreaming from an everyday perspective. A small family is portrayed while doing the laundry, a situation easy enough to identify with and dream oneself away from. The magazine has the format of an LP-cover and folds out to reveal lyrics and photographs of the little family. The word Goodbye appears in a smoke-like typography, like a whisper from the dreamers’s lips before he or she disappears into another world.
Marabouparken would like to thank: Veidekke, Sundbybergs Stad, ABF Norra Stor-Stockholm, Sundbybergs stad kultur & bibliotek and Fastighets AB Förvaltaren.
