Torsten Andersson's Enigmatic Art Has a Strange Pull

The Marabouparken art gallery in Sundbyberg is currently hosting "Språkets tyngd" (The Weight of Language), the most extensive exhibition of Torsten Andersson's work in Stockholm in 40 years. This retrospective, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the artist's birth, delves into his distinctive artistic development and his persistent quest for a unique visual idiom.

Andersson, who passed away in 2009, famously left his professorship at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the capital city 40 years ago. He isolated himself in his childhood home in Benarp, Skåne, during a period of personal crisis following a divorce. It was during these solitary years that he felt he had conquered a personal language, aligning himself with the postmodernism of the 1980s, which he saw as a departure from modernism's perceived dead end. He sought "a third way" in art.

The exhibition features early, well-known works such as "Bäcken" (The Stream) from 1967 and "Molnen mellan oss" (The Clouds Between Us) from 1966. In "Bäcken," Andersson employed a technique of both painting and cutting out a long, sign-like form. His style is described as enigmatic and abstract, yet simultaneously corporeal, concrete, and realistic, a combination that the reviewer finds compelling and difficult to fully reconcile.

The reviewer's experience of visiting Andersson's self-designed hexagonal art space, "Solförrådet" (The Sun Storage), in Benarp, provided a meaningful prelude to the Marabouparken exhibition. This unique environment, built amidst a rural landscape he described as "anarchist smallholding," reflects the artist's independent spirit. The exhibition draws several works from a foundation Andersson established to manage his art, underscoring the enduring legacy of his deeply personal and impactful artistic vision.