Color My World Video
Throwing herself into the unknown seems to be a bit what artist Siri Berg is all about. She was born in Stockholm to a German father and a Polish mother, but left Sweden when still a teenager, all alone. Though her mother didn’t much like the thought of young Siri crossing the ocean, the political situation worked in Berg’s favor. She left Sweden via a ship from Norway to Baltimore—a journey that at the time took 28 days.
Hionas Gallery has partnered with celebrated Swedish-born abstractionist Siri Berg to stage a redux of the artist's momentous solo show, Black & White 1976- 1981, which originally exhibited at the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia, March 6 -- May 31, 1986.
Known primarily as a master colorist, Berg's 1986 Black & White represented a major departure from her oeuvre. In this series of monochrome black and white paintings and assemblage, the artist abandons pure color in place of pure shade, resulting in one of the twentieth-century's most stunning collections of minimalist and geometric abstraction.
Article by Clementine Kitty
Sept. 19, 2012
On entering the home and studio of Siri Berg I am welcomed by the artist, a petite, radiant woman. Softly spoken and elegant she stands in front of a selection of her life’s work that adorn the walls. One is immediately struck by a sense of calm order and organisation. She invites me to sit and we begin an intimate and fascinating discussion of her life and work.
Born in Sweden in 1921, Berg came to New York alone as a teenager, leaving as she describes it the “constriction” she felt in Sweden. It is clear from her smile, as she warmly reflects, how much she loves New York and the freedom it allowed her in following her artistic path. It wasn’t until her thirties that Berg became fully focused on producing Fine Art. Married twice and with two sons, it was in her home in Riverdale that she first began to paint; on a bridge table in her bedroom. As one son moved out she would claim his room as a studio and it soon became clear she would need more space. With the encouragement of her stepdaughter she started seeking a studio in New York City and the one she found is the one she remains in to this day.
In her home and studio you can gain a serious overview of her work throughout the years. The work of Berg consists of three main bodies, assemblages (made from found objects), paintings and collages. Most are minimalist, but there are other works created in a more geometric abstraction. She speaks of her influences from the Bauhaus, mostly it would seem, in terms their “revolutionary and unconventional” approach, and adds, more pragmatically, that her influence derives from the “home furnishings not furniture or fine art, forks and knives and things like that… I was open to it – nothing stopped me.”
The show of her work that opens on the 6th September: Black and White 1976 – 1981: Redux 2012 focuses on a moment when there is a departure from her normal striking use of colour. Her choice of black and white, at this time, is perhaps not surprising in that her use of colour is typically very bold and direct including series’ of monochromatic panels. The show at Hionas Gallery, New York, NY, provides a rare opportunity to see these earlier pieces, concentrated on black and white.
In her current show which is a selection of work from her previous exhibition of 1986, at the American Swedish museum in Philadelphia, she uses circles in space, not so much to create an image that might be thought minimalist in the nihilistic sense of being stripped of emotion to the bare bones, but rather, still full of energy and deep reflection. In the original exhibit (now in her studio) her piece “Big Bang” in title and in composition is a perfect reflection of this. She speaks of the redux with excitement: “interesting,” she says, “when it’s up to see how one reacts when it has been so long ago,” poignantly, in fact, as this group of works marked her departure, at the time, from these compositions of spheres ending with the aptly titled “Big Bang.” Fascinatingly she would return to this theme 7 years later but with the injection of powerful colour very much changing the mood, which she explains by saying “the theme needed to be explored again.” In this show we can appreciate the cool, calm and collected precision of this excursion into pure black and white.
In Focus: Siri Berg
Eva Stenskar
Nordstjernan, Sept. 12, 2010
Moderna Museet nasta for Siri
Anna Sjoblom, Editor
SWEA International Forum, 2008
Siri Berg: TechnoFemme
Rachel Somerstein
NY Arts Magazine, November/December 2004
Siri Berg's Pulp Paintings
Carmen Bethencourt
NY Arts Magazine, May/June 2004
Sophisticated Variations of Siri Berg
Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg
NY Arts Magazine, January/February 2004
Visual logic ; Siri Berg's paintings and collages play with textural qualities, color:[North Final Edition]
Alan G Artner, Tribune art critic.
Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Ill.: Nov 20, 2003 (Copyright 2003 by the Chicago Tribune)
Click here to view photos of this exhibit.
Berg's exhibition at the Swedish American Museum Center -- overlapping with one opening this week in the artist's native Stockholm -- presents both paintings and collages exclusively concerned with textural qualities and color. That means they may suffer a bit in relation to the current fashion for paintings with "concepts," though they are successful at the optical gratification they are about.
Berg has said she is interested in weighing such opposites as light and dark, heavy and light, fear and comfort. In the paintings on show, she works this out in ways the eye can follow, with unassailable visual logic. In her chosen format of the grid, the choices of composition, surface treatment and color are virtually impeccable, if also at times a bit too pared down to encourage long, sustained viewing.
The collages on view offer more. In the mid-1990s Berg began making prints according to the Japanese woodblock technique. Some of her collages make use of these prints, combining them with crisp rectangles of handmade Japanese papers. Other collage-paintings bring together colored and textured triangles to form compositions of no mean ambition.
A piece called "Microchip" is one of the most winning among those that make use of prints. It combines two grids of different scale and color with a narrow hard-edged vertical form presumably suggested by the title. The chromatic delicacy softens Berg's geometry, though at the same time the piece depends on firmness of structure. The opposites weighed might be seen as recessiveness and assertiveness. The balance is perfect.
"Five Panel Painting" proves one of the largest and most complex pieces on view. All of the vertical panels are built, mosaic-like, from small interlocking triangles of mottled and textured color. Each panel is of interest in itself, though it also complements or counterpoints the others. Again, sugary color tends toward an all- too-easy decorative gratification that is complicated by Berg's flickering, unpredictable textures.
Most of the collages, like the paintings, are non-objective. However, there are a few very small ones that play with representational forms such as a star, reindeer and pine tree. These, unfortunately, have little of Berg's balance, looking simply like projects for greeting cards.
The severity of the artist's discourse is at every turn softened and sweetened in ways that make us forget all the work that has gone into these works of art.
Monochromes of Siri Berg
Jamey Hecht
NY Arts Magazine, November-December, 2003
Siri Berg: Then and Now
Heli Haapasalo, Curator of exhibition at Hallwyska Museet, Stockholm
NY Arts Magazine, November-December, 2003
Kreab and Siri Berg
NY Arts Magazine, November-December, 2003
Siri Berg at ETS Brodksy Gallery
Kenneth Martina
NY Arts Magazine, May, 2003
