Linda Svedberg. A very unusual kind of ceramics.

Ceramics is a craft. And can be great art.

On the one hand, pottery is an ancient cultural technique used all over the world, and working with clay and loam requires a lot in terms of skillfulness. In fact, pottery does not show any “mercy” in the process of it’s production or allow „mistakes”. It requires great craftsmanship and technical skill. And anything that is not worked precisely, will destroy itself in the kiln at the latest. Or as soon as you take it out of the kiln.
However, for a long time ceramics had a hard time asserting itself as a high art and form of expression in the „big” art business. For decades, pottery stood for dungaree trousers and hippie-esque „Go out and find your true self“-seminars. But just as the Birkenstock sandal made it to the heights of Street Wear and even onto the catwalk for a while, ceramics are back as an established art form. Even the international galleries again show contemporary ceramics: Edmund de Waal, Rachel Kneebone, Thomas Schütte, Betty Woodman, Lucio Fontana or Rosemarie Trockel, to mention some of the great names (and to put them on a very incomplete list!). Far beyond all the cachepots, bowls and vases that have been created on many a haptic feel-good-experience weekends and in fully booked pottery courses. And there’s nothing wrong with that part of the „clay world”. I would like to explicitly make that clear at this point.

In Östersund / Sweden I have met an artist to be noticed, whose ceramic objects are to be ranked far beyond boring every-day pottery and self-discovery that turned into a vase.
Linda Svedberg does ceramics, and she does it really well. Just the right thing for this blog.
I would like to tell you about my really inspiring conversation with Linda Svedberg, and about an exciting visit to her studio.

The teapot that doesn’t like tea

Swedish artist Linda Svedberg makes ceramics that definitely go beyond the earthen everyday object. She remembers her first encounter with the material at art school. Clay, hm. It felt a bit strange. Kind of suspicious. And probably more of a leisure activity for older women with bad taste. And then… while exploring, things suddenly changed, and she „fell in love with clay“, as she describes it herself. Linda Svedberg creates amazing objects from her material: pots, vases, bowls and pots, everyday and decorative, it seems…. only at first glance. Her objects sometimes seem almost subversive….and not at all usable. But „usability“ is a second rage (third range!) requirement for Linda Svedberg. Not interesting at all, and clearly not among the criteria to describe her work.
Let’s start almost conventionally with exemplary objects from her group of “household objects”: For example, with an almost over-“life-size” coffee pot in the shape of a hen, whose neck….consists of small cups stacked one inside the other, from which one could perhaps drink tea or coffee. But this would require to de-construct the neck of this gigantic hen, make it headless. Or the teapot trio, which Linda Svedberg called the “Caravan”. In fact, those three remind a little of traditional, tall Arabic teapots. “The Queen”, “The City” and “The Leader”. But these names aren’t that important. “If the names are disturbing, forget about them.“ Linda Svedberg says.
And, yes, one can imagine how they move through the desert on their many tiny caterpillar-like feet, swaying because of their height, very slow, like grave animals with long, narrow, tower-like necks, which in one case even become a lookout and carry a tiny figure that reminds of a jockey. Can you drink tea from it? Not important. More important is, that you can imagine and have an idea- maybe even with a cup of tea – where this caravan is going.

Made by subconscious hands

Linda Svedberg chose „Made by subconscious hands“ to group a whole series of objects that are simply “radical”. They are quite different, but have one thing in common: they are kind of „self-sufficient”. Being without any practical value, they simply evade a criterion that is taken for granted by ceramics as an everyday object. Functionality is by no means the focus for Linda Svedberg. Her works are literally „stubborn“ and willful. “Like horses or dogs, that you simply can’t train to do tricks. But it’s them that you like most, because they surprise you.“, Linda says. For example, as tall tower-like, brick houses with countless windows that seem to grow out of pumpkins. Marionettes on a coat hanger, or vase-like structures that seem very soft and organic, almost a little clumsy, as if catched amidst an eternally flowing movement. In this movement they have “their own head”, so to speak, and even seem to escape the attempt to put flowers in them. Flowers? They don’t seem to like the idea. What, if you wanted to put them on a shelf in a very decorative (!) way? Then they would definitely need the whole shelf and simply sweep the other things off the shelf. The artistic world of Linda Svedberg is definitely animistic. Her works introduce a life of their own, sometimes highly obstinate, even as if they consciously evade any attribution.

Does clay have a soul? Yes! Linda Svedberg has no doubt.

Linda Svedberg explores her material, she works associatively, and at the same time out of a strong will to form. In her mind, the work is always finished as soon as it has become an idea and a vision. It must then only be carried out, made into the object that she has in mind. Very simple? Not always.
Linda Svedberg actually compares the use of her material with the love for a human being, and this other person actually has something like „his or her own head”. Linda Svedberg views the world that surrounds her, as it were with the eyes of her material. And almost everything can be inspiration. “What would this house look like, if it were made of clay. This piece of jewellery or a tree trunk in the woods? This shape of someone’s nose. What would clay make of it?”
Colour plays a clearly subordinate role. Her work is often almost white to beige or grey. A dark glaze that runs in cracks or patterns emphasizes the contours. Linda Svedberg trusts in the light with which her works change during the day and which supports the sculptural effect of her works. Glossy glazes would require too much attention for themselves and would distract from the actual shape. Her objects reveal their essence, and thus their beauty, by the feel. By the way, the very first work she sold was bought by a blind man.

“The feel is in the process.”

Linda Svedberg particularly appreciates the actual process in which the objects are given their final form. The special feel of the material, and being aware that “You can do anything.” If she succeeds in making this freedom tangible in her work, it is good. A vase that “feels” more like a teapot and is captured in this particular transcendent moment of its actual transformation, for example, that is such an idea of hers.
With all this freedom of the material, however, there is also this moment when “nothing works anymore”, when the formed material is too dry and remains unyielding, compared to every attempt to change something again. It must be finished in this very moment. And then the material, with all its softness, is quite strict. The special haptics, the amorphous and flexible nature of the material is lost upon completion, but might be retained in expression. As in the sculptures of Anton Alvarez, a contemporary Swedish-Chilean artist whose works inspire Linda Svedberg.
“That’s the tragedy with ceramics. You can’t actually communicate clay with finished works. The feel is in the process.”
This process is far from being over for Linda Svedberg. And the horizon that she has in mind for working with “her“ material, is broadening. From a single object to entire room installations. “I have nothing to tell the world, it’s simply within me, and it needs to get out.”
There’s a lot more to come. I’m excited and looking forward to it.

Best regards from Meererbusch

Michaela

Hotel Villa Meererbusch
A sustainable stay next to Dusseldorf