På en utställning på Fotografiska museet i Stockholm 2012 visades två av konstfotografen Maria Fribergs fotosviter tillsammans, Almost There (2000) och The Painting Series (2011). Syftet med uppsatsen var att undersöka huruvida bilderna påverkas av varandra. Förändras tolkningen och budskapet i bilderna då de visas gentemot varandra? Bildanalyser och en jämförande studie mellan serierna utfördes för att komma fram till hur de influerade varandra. Almost There framhäver starkt frågor kring maskulinitet, könsroller och manlig sårbarhet. The Painting Series inger en mera poetisk känsla i och med färganvändningen och de rymdlika miljöerna som visas. Den yngre fotoseriens tydliga agenda influerar den senare och en betydelseöverföring sker. Betraktaren fokuserar mera på det återkommande temat mannen i kostym i en sårbar situation i The Painting Series då den ses tillsammans med Almost There till skillnad om The Painting Series visats själv. Då Almost There är den fotosvit som har ett tydligare budskap verkar överföringen endast ske åt ett håll, den påverkas inte av The Painting Series på samma sätt. Resultatet blev alltså att bilder har inverkan på andra bilder men inte alltid. Den bild som innehar det tydligare budskapet tycks styra överföringen.

<p>The aim of this essay is to debate the narrow contextualization of the works of Swedish artist Maria Friberg, in which she is interpreted as a female, feminist artist engaged in masculinity studies. Art reviews and exhibition catalogues regarding a great part of Friberg’s work have formed the core body of information in this study, selecting the more recent works entitled Still lives (2003- ) as the main focus. These show a change in Friberg’s artistic expression.</p><p>Subjects concerning group belonging, identity and existential questions have always been present in Maria Friberg’s art, but they are more clearly expressed in her latest works. Art critics have acknowledged the change of motifs in Still lives as a negative development and have expressed disappointment in the absence of Friberg’s renown portrayals of men in business suits. This attire and the gendered motif man have ascribed Friberg to an agenda surrounding masculinity and feminism, leaving little room for other interpretations.</p><p>The subordinate aim of the study is to suggest alternative readings of Friberg’s art in general and of the Still lives-series in particular. The great majority of art critics are accentuating Friberg’s interest in men, overlooking reasons for her supposed fascination of them. This creates a need for further examination of the depths of Friberg’s photographs. Hence, the last chapter presents a theory of the artists’ use of men as carriers of non-gender related meanings in which the human being is a small part of the impressive machinery composed of nature, culture and the industrialised world which absolutely devours humans.</p>

The aim of this essay is to debate the narrow contextualization of the works of Swedish artist Maria Friberg, in which she is interpreted as a female, feminist artist engaged in masculinity studies. Art reviews and exhibition catalogues regarding a great part of Friberg’s work have formed the core body of information in this study, selecting the more recent works entitled Still lives (2003- ) as the main focus. These show a change in Friberg’s artistic expression. Subjects concerning group belonging, identity and existential questions have always been present in Maria Friberg’s art, but they are more clearly expressed in her latest works. Art critics have acknowledged the change of motifs in Still lives as a negative development and have expressed disappointment in the absence of Friberg’s renown portrayals of men in business suits. This attire and the gendered motif man have ascribed Friberg to an agenda surrounding masculinity and feminism, leaving little room for other interpretations. The subordinate aim of the study is to suggest alternative readings of Friberg’s art in general and of the Still lives-series in particular. The great majority of art critics are accentuating Friberg’s interest in men, overlooking reasons for her supposed fascination of them. This creates a need for further examination of the depths of Friberg’s photographs. Hence, the last chapter presents a theory of the artists’ use of men as carriers of non-gender related meanings in which the human being is a small part of the impressive machinery composed of nature, culture and the industrialised world which absolutely devours humans.

This essay examines how family-related violence was depicted in art in Sweden during the 70s, 80s and 90s. A major shift in the views of violence within the family and in relationships occurs during this period, which becomes evident through a change in laws but is also visible in an ongoing social debate. Basing my research on a number of works by female artists, depicting violence, I have analysed ways of interpreting and understanding the violence in these images, in relation to the changed views on family, gender roles and violence. The female perspective on violence is often the same as the perspective of the violated, and I have chosen to study female artists, thus assuming that a changed attitude is most clearly reflected in this group.The artists included in the study are Marie-Louise Ekman, Marja Ruta, Kristina Abelli Elander, Maria Lindberg, Maria Friberg and Monica Larsen Dennis, Helene Billgren, Tuija Lindström, Charlotte Gyllenhammar, Anna-Maria Ekstrand and Annika von Hausswolff.The works are grouped into four categories based on a model created by Gregory H. Stanton, which he developed in the survey of genocide. His model depicts ten stages in which violence slowly increases. My division is in four stages and is named structural violence, embodied acts of violence or abuse, crime victims or traces of crime, and consequences of violence. Seen over the period covered by the study, one can observe an increase in the number of images with violent content. The depictions change from being political messages to becoming more provocative and questioning power structures. This is a development which is happening simultaneously with the breakthrough of postmodern art.The artists have in several works been influenced by or relate to images of violence shown in news media and popular culture, a genre that grows during the 1980s home video epoch. But the art not only interacts with other visual media, it also wants to involve the viewer by exploring and questioning values and hierarchies in society.The girl as a symbol of an innocent victim is represented in several of the works, and the girls are given a much greater freedom of action in the artworks than in reality. A concealed aggression is made visible and in several of the works the girls act violators.Depiction of violence has not been treated as a theme or categorized as a separate genre in the arts. To the extent that I have found analyses of works containing violence in the arts, there has been a hesitative attitude and the images have been perceived as simple in a communicative or interpretive aspect. In my study, I come to another conclusion, Seeing that the processing of violence in the artistic works creates a counter-image to stereotypical and simplified images in media and and so helps us to see the normative values, power imbalances, behaviours and expectations that are often the basis for acts of violence.