Bukowskis | Contemporary Art & Design | No 631 | April 2021 |Maria Friberg

MARIA FRIBERG

Since the 1990s Maria Friberg has been presenting her mysterious, powerful and imaginatively staged images of men, to increasingly larger audiences. They float quietly in pools, are squeezed into cars, sometimes sleep amongst white sheets, or sit in their suits at a table with only their legs visible. Maria Friberg worked on the series Still lives during 2003–2007. In total ten images are included in the series. Some of these depict men, in different positions, resting inside or on top of compressed car wrecks. The car is a classic identifier of the masculine, yet here the air has metaphorically gone out of them, and instead they create a kind of stratification of our own society squeezed tightly together in layers upon layers. The lacquered car parts have a shiny surface reminiscent of silk fabrics. Here Friberg’s painterly side is revealed, a feature that is always present in her work. The monumental size of Still lives #5 gives the piece its powerful materiality and its almost three– dimensional quality. The connection to the American artist John Chamberlain’s (1927–2011) pioneering sculptures is highly noticeable.