The booth was exhibited and the artist visited the gallery every day to change the film in the camera. The result was a couple of thousand negatives, divided into three sets. The first trial took place in the autumn of 1967 in the De Geer family’s diminutive flat at Smedslättstorget in Bromma, where thespians and other bohemians performed antics in front of the photo booth. The personal interior style and his own textiles can be discerned in the background. The next step was to install the photo booth at Galleri Karlsson on Vidargatan in Stockholm between 17 February and 17 March, 1968. The gallery was a meeting place for the staff of the magazine Puss and was frequented by cultural workers. Lastly, it was shown for ten days in October 1968 at the exhibition Rum (Space) at Form Design Center in the first high-rise building at Hötorget in Stockholm.
Moderna Museet recently acquired a selection of more than 350 B/W portraits from this collection. They show the artist himself, his family and friends, more or less famous artists, actors and musicians. Among them we find Olle Adolphson, Håkan Alexandersson, Jonas Cornell, Marie-Louise Ekman, Gösta Ekman, Agneta Ekmanner, Fatima Ekman, Folke Edwards, John-E Franzén, Olle Granath, Ernst Günther, Birgitta Hahn, Judith Hollander, Einar Heckscher, Helena Henschen, Lars Hillersberg, Boel Höjeberg, Bosse Karlsson, Kerstin Manker, Per Myrberg, Leif Nylén, Tor-Ivan Odulf, Ludvig Rasmusson, Torkel Rasmusson, Ted Ström, Inez Svensson, Stefania Svenstedt, Rebecka Tarschys, Meta Velander, Jojje Wadenius and others. We also find countless unknown people, children and adults, young and old visitors to the exhibitions. The portraits have been printed two and two, creating unexpected and exciting links in the presentation.
Carl Johan De Geer (b. 1938) has worked as a photographer, film-maker, writer, visual artist, stage designer and textile designer. He studied at Konstfack, the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, in Stockholm in 1959-63 and belonged to the circle around the magazine Puss. Among other works, he and Jan Hannerz published the illustrated novel Pengar eller livet (Money or Life, Bonniers, 1970). Together with his friend Håkan Alexandersson he created the popular children’s TV serials Tårtan (The Cake, 1972), Doktor Krall (1974) and Privatdektektiven Kant (Private Detective Kant, 1983). He played the trombone in the bands Gunder Hägg and Blå Tåget. In the early 1960s, he ran a small printing company that became well-known for its vividly-patterned colourful textiles, and in 1970 he was involved in starting the textile collective 10-gruppen. From the mid-1960s he started supporting himself as a photographer, working with advertising, photo-journalism and fashion photography. His photos were published in newspapers and magazines, including Dagens Nyheter, Form and Vi. He was also a teacher for some time at the legendary Fotoskolan, which was led by the photographer Christer Strömholm.
In 1979, Moderna Museet featured the exhibition Med kameran som tröst (With the Camera as Comfort) for which Carl Johan De Geer had collected 412 pictures taken between 1958 and 1979. He published the collection the following year in a book, and in 2004 he followed it up with part 2 as a film. Here De Geer presented his often emotional and personal relationship to cameras and photography. The camera was a way of getting up close to people, of understanding and interpreting the world around him. His pictures were rarely arranged, but were more of a documentation of everyday situations and settings, using snapshot-aesthetics. This mode of photography is similar to the documentation of Andy Warhol and life at The Factory in the 1960s by the photographers Billy Name and Stephen Shore.
For Carl Johan De Geer the sheer quantity of pictures is crucial; we are to be presented with many photos, and they should be mounted close together. He does not want his photos to be mounted with a passepartout and frame. Hence, the presentation of his photographic works is arranged like a comic book, or a film strip where we can follow an event as it develops. He sees his old negatives as a time machine where we can encounter people who are perhaps dead today or simply 40 years older.
Curator: Anna Tellgren
