Hairless Romantics

Swedish artist Maria Friberg’s first solo show in the Northwest is
letting some much-needed air into the Nordic Heritage Museum. The
series of photographs titled alongside us (2007) sends a chill
right down the spine. Men cloaked in white garments are cradled in the
limbs of dramatic, gnarled trees in a cocoonlike spiritual
stupor—implying the precarious balance between human and nature.
The branches spill across the composition like gestural marks in ink or
paint: a reminder of the harmony that can be found in contrast. This
web of branches transgresses between support and trap, prisonlike,
coupling the vulnerability of flesh and a perilous environment. Each
high-gloss photograph captures the viewer’s own shadow on its surface.
In many ways, the photographs visually articulate the weightless
suspension of breath that occurs in moments of exaltation and
apprehension.

Friberg works in photography and video, bridging contemporary gender
concerns and Romantic sentiments. In way ahead (2009), three
dramatically wide shots push forth from the deep, dark, brown walls.
They also recede into an unknowable expanse, like Caspar David
Friedrich’s landmark 1809 Romantic painting Monk by the Sea. A
young boy with pink cheeks kneels, stands in profile, and then faces
away in a misty field of dewy grasses, his movements echoed by an old
man who stands behind—he progresses toward his future with
uncertainty.

The 35-second looping video blownout (1999) is an oblique
shot of a man submerged in a frothy ocean as it swells against the San
Francisco shoreline. We don’t see the finale as the waves break and
crash off-screen—we see the struggle before the resolution,
begging for contemplation of the possibilities. Did he accidentally
fall into the water or jump? Was he seeking redemption in death or
simply warding off the stagnation of everyday existence? There is
something animal in his desperation for breath—he triumphantly
emerges like a breaching whale, yet almost willingly succumbs to the
tumult. In the comforting sheath of darkness, the viewer’s eyes strain
and recoil at the physically
oppressive whiteness on the
screen.

Friberg’s subjects are all male. Many have had their hair removed.
They’re barefoot and vulnerable, reduced to their humanity. If we’re
all hurtling toward some unknown, yet collective, end, as Friberg seems
to suggest, then what she affords is the stillness and focus we need to
reevaluate our life’s direction.