17 May - 19 June, 2008
Showroom
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For the first time Lars Bohman Gallery presents an exhibition with works by Carsten Regild (1941-1992). The show A bientôt includes early works from the 1960s to the latest series of work from 1989-90. The show covers both gallery spaces at Karlavägen 16 and at Sturegatan 36. In conjunction with the exhibition a catalogue with texts by Olle Granath and Rolf Börjlind is released.

Carsten Regild started his artistic carrier at Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm, but continued quickly into something that was completely unique in Swedish contemporary art. His drawings and paintings mixed written messages filled with irony and warmth, with images taken from newspaper clippings, the world of advertising or his own imagination. He nevertheless always succeeded in balancing this merge of imagery and texts. At a first glance it is easy to define Carsten Regild as a pure pop artist. He appeared in the 1960s and did in Sweden what Andy Warhol was doing in New York at the same time; screen-prints, collages, short films, music, performance etc. But just as with his constant mental friend and companion Francis Picabia, he is impossible to define or place in a genre. His creativity knew no limits and his oeuvres breathe just as much pop art as they do Dadaism and Surrealism.

Carsten Regild developed an iconography with certain motifs that appeared both in his drawings and his paintings; the black light bulb, the key, the eye, the roll of film, to mention a few. During the early 1970s the Wolf, the man with the hat, appeared. The Wolf, Carsten Regild's alias, the artist registered as a trademark, and the Wolf's sharp looking profile with the perfect hat appears as a constant voyeur and participant. During 1974-75 Carsten Regild published the cultural magazine Vargen (the Wolf) that always had the Wolf on the cover as its mysterious and evasive icon.

The selection that Lars Bohman gallery now shows speaks about a variety without limits, a sharp intellect that was capable of mixing all the ingredients of life and to do it with both beauty and pain. Expect from early paper works and the iconographic paintings the show also includes two major series of paintings, Åtta dagar (Eight days) from the mid 1980s and the majestic Terra Incognita from 1989-90, the last major work the artist completed before his early death in 1992.

Carsten Regild was born in 1941 and lived and worked in Stockholm. His artistic activity not only included drawing and painting, but also publishing, music, film and performance. Carsten Regild had numerous solo shows, among the more famous can be mentioned Nekropolis at Moderna Museet in 1972 and the shows he did with Galleri Engström in Stockholm during the 1980s and 1990s. He participated also in many group shows, both in Sweden and abroad. Carsten Regild is represented, among others, at Moderna Museet, Nationalmuseum, Malmö Konstmuseum, Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Norrköpings Konstmuseum, Örebro Läns museum and Museum Bochum, Germany.

For further information and press images, please contact the gallery.