Modart » Vincent Skoglund

From the Mountains to the Museum

Maxi — Wed, 25 May 2011 17:40:08 +0000

This weekend, HLP artist Vincent Skoglund opens his long awaited solo exhibition at the Dalarnas Museum.

There is an old English proverb that claims: ‘You can’t go home again.’ Somehow this rather philosophical claim is one of the subjects in the exhibition, which opens in Falun, Sweden on May 21st.

Vincent left his hometown of Falun in the heartland of Sweden in the nineties to work all over the world as a snowboard photographer for titles such as Method Mag, Modart, Onboard and Snowboarder. The current exhibition summarizes personal projects undertaken during visits to his hometown, exemplifying the particular practice that the artist has developed in physically demanding alpine environments.

Vincent Skoglund Museum Preview from Harlan Levey Projects on Vimeo.

Information about the Exhibition:
The exhibition opens on Saturday the 21st May and runs until the 14th August, 2011. Dalarnas museum is on Stigaregatan in Falun, Sweden, and is open every day of the week: Saturday-Monday 12:00 – 17:00, Tuesday-Friday 10:00 – 17:00. Free admission. www.dalarnasmuseum.se.

Waste Management

Maxi — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 15:00:12 +0000

Harlan Levey, the founder of the No New Enemies network and Harlan Levey Projects, and creative director of Modart, has been asked to curate a selection of photographers for Bite! Magazine. The second photographer of choice on Bite! is Vincent Skoglund and his Waste Management series.

“One of Sweden’s most respected photographers, Vincent’s remarkable depictions of the then emerging snowboard scene, set his name on the world map in the early 90’s. Since then he has received numerous honors, been featured in galleries and art fairs, while professionally covering various areas of fashion, action sports, music and art.

“Regardless of the subject matter or nature of the work, there is a strong recognizable style: photographer as narrator and not simply silent observer. This is the case, whether the image was taken on location or in the studio; whether he was occupied with a massive landscape or a minute still life.” (Harlan Levey)

Vincent Skoglund abut his Waste Management series: “To me, the dump is intriguing. It’s one of the most interesting places I have been to. Garbage inspires me. The randomness is so vast. Colors and materials are in different states of decay, coming together, to be piled into a new context. I rather spend any Saturday walking around a dump, than in a big shopping mall. New stuff bores me, I prefer things to be used or broken. I like it how a product’s life ends, it makes me wonder about what happened along the way. Why did this particular thing get thrown away? What is the history of all these things in decay? Every human is involved in making waste. An endless stream of products is made from nature, used briefly and inevitably gets shredded, buried, burned, or made into new raw materials. I let them live a little bit longer by rearranging bits and pieces. It smells. It’s noisy. It’s dusty. It’s in decay. It’s alive. It’s dangerous. It’s fantastic!”

Vincent Skoglund Talks About Light Years

Harlan — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 18:49:30 +0000

Vincent Skoglund is one of Sweden’s most respected Photographers. His remarkable depictions of the, then emerging, snowboard scene, set his name on the map in the early 90’s. Since then he has received numerous honors, covered various subjects and situations such as fashion, action sports, documentary or journalistic endeavors, music and art. Having lived abroad for many years, prior to settling down in Stockholm last year, his travel schedule saw him on the move more than 300 days each year.

Born in the small Swedish village of Kniva Dalarna, his LIGHTYEARS series is in many ways a homecoming and explores the forests of his childhood by experimenting with light. The images appear at once meticulously defined and fairytale abstract, as if a giant brush had swept the landscape. These are not touched up. There is no digital reworking. I never thought I’d fall in love with a photo of a landscape, but in a creepy fairytale sort of way these drew me right in and left me waiting for the rabbit. I’m the one whose fucking late. While I was waiting I asked Vince to talk to me a little bit about how he came to freeze these lovely scenes.

Where was this series shot?
The series was shot all around the area were I grew up. Lots of deep forests. I shot it while I was living in London. I think that was a reason for me to go back to were I grew up and the place that has ment so much to me.

Did you retouch the photo after?
They are shot on large format and scanned when scanned I go through and get the colors the way I want and such, darken, lighten etc. The final image is printed with Light jet as a digital C-print. 125 x 100cm. So yes photoshop is always a tool it is more or less used. That said, I am not so much interested in the effects of making photoshop my main tool like some other photographers do. The image shot on location is more or less it.

What sort of lights and exposure did you use?
I used a big theater light very heavy and not at all made for carrying around in the woods, that’s for sure. The exposures were really different from image to image, all depending on distance and ambient light.

What were you trying to do in this series?
Explore.

Did it work?
Yes. It did. It was very interesting and I went out and shot at numerous occasions and each time I would change something and learn to adapt to what’s out there.

Did something else happen?
There was a big brown bear scare around Sweden at this time it was all over the news this fall. We were shooting lots of these images right around in the forests were these bears live. So me and my assistant were keeping contact on the radio and trying to be noisy to scare them off. I think it worked. We would see some bear poop every now and then so they were out there in the dark somewhere.

What equipment was involved? Did the selection of tools have a relationship to whatever goals or ideas you might have had for the work? If yes, how so?
Very basic. Just a big light and and large format camera. I like the simpleness of less equipment. It is good it keeps me focused on the idea.