Mobile Art Productions

During the course of 2 weeks in April 2010, Mobile Art Production is holding an exhibition entitled Street View on Avenyn – Gotheburg’s main pedestrian walkway.

Street View is a portrait of Avenyn at street level. The title is borrowed from Google Street View, which shows anonymous images of a city. In Google people's faces are smudged to protect their identity, but it is still possible to recognize a familiar face by their clothes or posture. The smudged faces do something to our gaze and we stare suspiciously, trying to discover who is hiding behind the smudge. Street View changes how we see others, how we look at the street who we become in front of ourselves. 

Mobile Art Productions’ exhibition wanted to examine the way we gaze as we walk along the street, how we meet or hurry past one another. The artists invited to participate discuss issues such as: What kind of place is Avenyn and what kind of meetings take place here? What exists behind the buildings, which people are working, and who is wandering along the street? What happens later in the evening when the shops are closed and the lights in the offices have been switched off for the day?

Artists participating in the exhibition interpret and depict the meetings that take place on Avenyn –  from the most mundane to the spectacular. From the street we see Mats Hjelm’s After Hours where we can sneak a look at an unusual meeting in an office after closing time. In Hans Rosenström’s piece we walk instead into a world where we ourselves are central, a situation of strong presence. Good TV offers real meetings and stories of people who in various ways are linked to Avenyn even though we might not initially think of them.

Gustavus Hellberg’s glass room silently offers a strange view of the street and what happens there.  Another representation of how we see is created by Marianne Lindberg de Geers when she lets Poseidon cry: “Mother! Mooother….” On the way down from Avenyn, we meet Maria Lindberg's work on advertising pillars. On the way up, she gave us messages, a dialogue between her and us. On the way back, we are met with a reflection, a mirror image. This meeting is with ourselves. It is you standing there with Avenyn in the background.

Magdalena Malm, Director, Mobile Art Production