A detail from a work by Jockum Nordström, titled Farväl/ Farewell, dated 2019.
A detail from a work by Jockum Nordström, titled Farväl/ Farewell, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström: The Anchor Hits the Sand

David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Jockum Nordström (b. 1963) at the gallery’s London location. The exhibition will feature a new immersive environment that plays with light, shadow, and movement, as well as a range of new collages and works on paper.

Expanding on the characteristic motifs and imaginative spirit that have come to define the artist’s broader oeuvre, Nordström’s light and shadow environments  employ a cast of objects within a fantastical and psychologically charged environment that is at once vaguely familiar, evocative, and meditative. They are encountered by the viewer through a veil composed of semitransparent paper (in fact, the same paper used to create his collages); behind which cutouts of buildings, trees, and animal and human forms—recurring motifs in the artist’s work—are suspended between the ceiling and floor by rotating wire mobiles that are illuminated by color wheels, animating the surface of the paper in a whimsical play of light and shadow. The sound element, a “collaged” musical composition of found and new sounds, recorded in collaboration with the music producer Rudolf Nordström, the artist’s son, lends another dramatic dimension to the overall work. Taken together, the result is “part fantasy, part dream, and entirely analog. It’s a work out of time or place.”1

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1 Andrea Andersson, “Four Questions for the Curator: Andrea Andersson on Jockum Nordström: Why Is Everything a Rag,” davidzwirner.com (May 2018), accessed online.

Image: Jockum Nordström, Farväl/ Farewell, 2019 (detail)

Dates
November 22December 19, 2019
Private view
Thursday, November 21, 6–8 PM

“Some talk about ‘living in the present.’... For me, art, poetry and sounds are all about unformulated memories.”
—Jockum Nordström

 

Above: Jockum Nordström, The Anchor Hits the Sand, 2019

A work on paper by Jockum Nordstrom titled Farväl/Farewell, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström

Farväl/Farewell, 2019
Watercolor, graphite, crayon, and collage on paper

51 1/8 x 64 5/8 inches (130 x 164 cm)

A work on paper by Jockum Nordstrom, titled A plan for living, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström

A plan for living, 2019
Watercolour and collage on paper

20 5/8 x 26 3/8 inches (52.5 x 67.1 cm)

A drawing by Jockum Nordstrom, titled Meisterwerke, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström

Meisterwerke, 2019
Graphite on paper

13 7/8 x 10 1/2 inches (35.1 x 26.6 cm)

A drawing by Jockum Nordstrom, titled Accomendation, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström

Accomendation, 2019
Graphite on paper

17 3/4 x 21 3/4 inches (45 x 55.2 cm)

A drawing by Jockum Nordstrom, titled Förändringen/The change, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström

Förändringen/The change, 2019
Graphite on paper

16 3/4 x 22 1/2 inches (42.6 x 57.3 cm)
Framed: 19 3/8 x 25 1/8 x 1 5/8 inches (49.1 x 63.7 x 4 cm)

A drawing by Jockum Nordstrom, titled Jag har en hund/I have a dog, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström

Jag har en hund/I have a dog, 2019
Graphite on paper

11 3/4 x 16 5/8 inches (29.7 x 42.1 cm)

“Jockum Nordström creates oddball and apparently naïve narratives; his way of looking at life owes much to the twin influences of folk art and modernist absurdism. Each of his painted, drawn, or cut-up stories is both specific and open-ended, as though—not unlike Henry Darger’s paintings—they are part of a much grander and ongoing tale that is going to take a long time to unfold.”
—John Hutchinson

A work on paper by Jockum Nordstrom titled Fortfarande, från sidan/Still, from the side, dated 2019

Jockum Nordström

Fortfarande, från sidan/Still, from the side, 2019
Watercolour, graphite, crayon, and collage on paper

44 1/4 x 27 1/2 inches (112.5 x 69.8 cm)

A work on paper by Jockum Nordstrom, titled A house narrow, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström

A house narrow, 2019
Watercolour, graphite, crayon, and collage on paper

38 5/8 x 31 5/8 inches (98.2 x 80.2 cm)

“Sometimes I’m completely inside another world…. when I’m making them [my works] it’s more like dreaming. There’s a lot of self-representation involved—even with a woman or an old man or a tree. You go into yourself so much that they all become part of you. You don’t leave them before they have a character.”
—Jockum Nordström

A graphite drawing on paper by Jockum Nordström, titled Över sten och trapp/Over stone and steps, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström

Över sten och trapp/Over stone and steps, 2019
Graphite on paper

16 7/8 x 15 5/8 inches
(42.8 x 39.8 cm)

A drawing by Jockum Nordstrom, titled I skrivande stund/As I am writing this, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström

I skrivande stund/As I am writing this, 2019
Graphite on paper

16 3/4 x 22 1/2 inches (42.4 x 57 cm)

A drawing by Jockum Nordstrom, titled Gathörn/The street corner, dated 2019

Jockum Nordström

Gathörn/The street corner, 2019
Graphite on paper

16 1/2 x 18 7/8 inches (42 x 48 cm)

A drawing by Jockum Nordstrom, titled Rooms room, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström

Rooms room, 2019
Graphite on paper

14 3/8 x 10 inches (36.5 x 25.4 cm)

A collage by Jockum Nordström, titled Farväl II (Tralala-lalala-lalala)/Farewell II, dated 2019.
A drawing by Jockum Nordstrom, titled En gång gick jag i trappan två gånger/Once I went up the stairs twice, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström

En gång gick jag i trappan två
gånger/Once I went up the stairs twice, 2019
Graphite on paper

22 3/4 x 15 1/2 inches (57.7 x 39.4 cm)

A drawing by Jockum Nordstrom, titled Larghetto, dated 2018.

Jockum Nordström

Larghetto, 2018
Graphite on paper

12 7/8 x 18 7/8 inches (33 x 48.2 cm)

A drawing by Jockum Nordstrom, titled Smycka vår kammar, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström

Smycka vår kammar, 2019
Graphite on paper

10 3/4 x 8 1/4 inches (27.4 x 21 cm)

A drawing by Jockum Nordstrom, titled An other problem, dated 2019.

Jockum Nordström

An other problem, 2019
Graphite on paper

16 7/8 x 14 3/4 inches (42.8 x 37.4 cm)

A work on paper by Jockum Nordstrom titled Träden går ner för landning/The trees go down for landing, dated 2019

Jockum Nordström

Träden går ner för landning/The trees go down for landing, 2019
Watercolour, graphite, and collage on paper

106 1/4 x 27 1/8 inches (270 x 69 cm)
Framed: 112 x 33 3/8 inches (284.6 x 84.8 cm)

“In [Nordström’s] refusal to accept established things we can distinguish a sort of inextinguishable resistance, an undeniable tenacity, and an immense generosity.” 
—Marc Donnadieu

 

A collage by Jockum Nordström, titled How to get in, dated 2019.

References:

Jockum Nordström, in an interview with Katarina Wadstein MacLeod, “Then and Now. Here and There,” in the catalogue accompanying Jockum Nordström: For the insects and the hounds, David Zwirner, London, 2014–2015
John Hutchinson, “A Cowboy Sailor,” in Jockum Nordström: All I Have Learned and Forgotten Again, 2013
Jockum Nordström, in an interview with Martin Coomer in TimeOut London
Marc Donnadieu, “For Such Is the Way of Things,” in Jockum Nordström: All I Have Learned and Forgotten Again, 2013

 

Full-width images, from top:
Jockum Nordström, Historien, 2018
Jockum Nordström, Farväl II (Tralala-lalala-lalala)/Farewell II, 2019
Jockum Nordström,How to get in, 2019

An installation view of the exhibition, The Anchor Hits the Sand, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2019.
An installation view of the exhibition, The Anchor Hits the Sand, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2019.
An installation view of the exhibition, The Anchor Hits the Sand, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2019.
An installation view of the exhibition, The Anchor Hits the Sand, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2019.
An installation view of the exhibition, The Anchor Hits the Sand, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2019.

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