Descending, from the series: 1866

Denise Grünstein spent the final twenty-five years of her life exploring art photography in, remarkable, works referencing the history of painting and photography. In her carefully staged photographs, often inspired by the 19th century Romanticists and the Surrealists of the 20th century, she created a peculiar world, where sumptuous beauty meets a disconcerting feeling of disharmony.

When Nationalmuseum in Stockholm shut down for an extended period (due to major renovations of the building) in 2013-2018, unexpected opportunities opened up for Grünstein. During the renovation, Grünstein, at the invitation of the museum’s (then) head of collections, gained access to the vast empty rooms where she carried out her celebrated project 1866 (named after the year in which Nationalmuseum originally opened), creating eerie compositions in which her muse Marta Oldenburg appeared in sepia-coloured photographs, whose evocative power seemed to read the history of the walls.. Her 1866 suite of images captured her fascination with the beautiful, yet terrifying, atmosphere of the empty museum, and Nationalmuseum bought the entire series, making Denise Grünstein the first living artist to be represented at both the Moderna Museet and the Nationalmuseum.

In connection with Grünstein’s untimely passing, Magnus Olausson (born 1956, Swedish art historian. Retired director of collections, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm with the National Portrait Gallery, Mariefred, Sweden) remembered Grünstein and her work on the 1866 suite of paintings:

At the beginning of 2014, I discussed with Denise Grünstein about organising an exhibition of portraits. She was never very keen on the idea, as portraits were a closed chapter for her. Instead, I spontaneously asked her if she wanted to make an art project out of the National Museum building, which at the same time had been emptied of all loose furnishings for the remodelling. Just a week before the contractor took over, Grünstein and her team moved into the deserted museum. The result was the 1866 Suite. The name referred to the year the museum opened. However, Grünstein’s art project was not about the National Museum, but instead became a staging of her own visual world. She confronted the empty museum rooms with her own ideas. At the same time, it provides a complex picture of what a museum is and can be. The result could be seen in the exhibition Denise Grünstein - En face, which was shown in the National Museum’s temporary premises in the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in spring 2015. Since its return, a selection of these images has been displayed in the museum’s restaurant. Now that Denise Grünstein has unfortunately been snatched away far too early, she and her world of images are ever-present through the 1866 suite at the Nationalmuseum.

In her review of Denise Grünstein’s memorial exhibition, Denise Grünstein - Eftermäle, at Artipelag in Stockholm (14 October 2023 - 7 January 2024), Magdalena Ljung wrote the following, about the 1866 series:

Grünstein is at her best at the intersection of people, environment and art references, and she lands well in the first room, which is also the last of the suite En Face/1866 2014. When the National Museum closed for renovation, Grünstein was invited to work associatively with their cultural heritage, resulting in several pictorial narratives. The White Lady descends the National Museum’s staircase and emerges into the marble around her. Red-tinted empty halls, as if flooded with strong emotions and blood. Women heavily sculpted and objectified by tight bodices and bell-shaped skirts, just like in Charlotte Gyllenhammar’s work. Documentary photographs of the backs of old paintings, including a Velázquez. En face means frontal and it is the opposite of Grünstein. She looks sideways, searches around, floats in undercurrents and looks down from her sky.

Edition of 12 + 3 AP

Provenance

CFHILL, Stockholm, Denise Grünstein ‘Minnen i svartvitt’, 29 September - 19 October 2023.

Firestorm Foundation (acquired at the above).

Copyright Firestorm Foundation