Books/Audio – Thomas Liljenberg

IS THIS PHASE THREE OF THE IMITATION OF THE HOLY SACRAMENT?

Thomas Liljenberg — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:57:55 +0000

IS THIS PHASE THREE OF THE IMITATION OF THE HOLY SACRAMENT?

Box with printed matters, CDs and 7” vinyl, in collaboration with Leif Elggren. FIREWORK EDITION 2015. Size 192 x 254 x 117 mm . Limited edition of 40 copies. Containing the following items: GOOD GOD, postcard (1994) . CUNT 69, a collection of poems by Charles Bukowski, book (2001) . Booklet for the exhibition EXPERIMENT WITH DREAMS (1996) . PARTIET, a box with a collection of material around The Party (1994). EXPERIMENT WITH DREAMS, book (1996) . A SCHOLAR STOOPS MOUNTED ON A WHITE CHARGER, book (1997). THE ANSWERS, book (1999) . Zzzz…, CD (1996).  THE CODFISH SUIT, CD (1997) . 9.11, CD (1999). THE PARTY, CD (1999). TWO THIN EATING ONE FAT, CD (2000) . CUNT 69, CD (2007) . IDOL, book (1993).  EBOLA / SWEDISH DREAMERS, 7” (1997)

FLOOR OF DREAMS

Thomas Liljenberg — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:57:55 +0000

FLOOR OF DREAMS

Printed matter in a box: preface, 100 pages texts/photos and a poster (594 x 841 mm). Size box: 300 x 215 mm. Numbered edition in 100 copies. (FE No. 25). Stockholm 1997. A documentation of the installation Floor of Dreams, in conjunction with the exhibition LOVE ALL, Färgfabriken, Stockholm 1996.

”The caption of dreams and photos that created Floor of Dreams were collected through advertisements on Internet during September 1995 to August 1996. The dreams and photos were compiled and printed in A4 size. These print-outs were copied and gradually they became the foundation to set-up Floor of Dreams which was shown as a part of the exhibition Love all at Färgfabriken in Stockholm, August 1996. At this set-up, several thousands copies of the dreams were spred out on the floor in the exhibition hall. During the exhibition these copies were either picked up by the visitors or ruined by the visitors stepping on them.” (Preaface from the book Floor of Dreams)

Zzz…

Thomas Liljenberg — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:57:55 +0000

Zzz…

CD in collaboration with Leif Elggren. 1 track 62′, 35”. Sleeping at Firework Edition, Stockholm, June 19, 1995. FIREWORK EDITION RECORDS FER 1002. Stockholm 1996. In conjunction with the book and exhibition project EXPERIMENT WITH DREAMS.

CHAPTER VII

Thomas Liljenberg — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:57:55 +0000

CHAPTER VII

Book. Firework Edition, Stockholm 1999. English text. 112 p. Size 150 x 210 mm. ISBN 91-87066-23-8 (FE no. 92)

The book Chapter VII is totally free of charge and may be used, copied and reproduced by anyone. The book is free against any compensation from copyright, economical claims, labels and other purposes except that of its own. The price tags, the profitability, the proceeds, and the business ideas are here replaced by sovereignty, by the loss, and the gift…

”The matter of freedom is essential in the tradition of the art and in the modern society, where our own individual freedom as well as responsibility towards society always is a topic for discussion and law legislation and where everything always has its price – in daily life as well as in the art. Since the beginning of the eighties, the matter has been essential in Thomas Liljenberg’s work, where the dreaming state and the sleeping state represent a sense of freedom, impossible to exploit by the production system and in which all individuals advances to equals and where we “liberated from the physical reality” freely can move around in time and space.

In Chapter VII the problems are enhanced in combination with texts obtained from the famous chapter seven in Sigmund Freud’s book The Interpretation of Dreams from 1900, in which Freud describes the psychic apparatus and the function of dreams in humans. Texts which later has consistently been censored by the artist, with texts and statements which both relates to and is illustrated by the fact that the book is distributed free of charge.” (From pressrelease 1999)

6 VERK

Thomas Liljenberg — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:57:55 +0000

6 VERK

Box with printed matters, photos and 7’’ vinyl, documenting six performances/installations from 1982 – 2010, by Leif Elggren, CM von Hausswolff, Thomas Liljenberg and Erik Pauser. Printed in an edition of 6 copies, Stockholm 2010

Containing the following items: Poster, photos and catalogue: KONSTANT ARBETE I 48 TIMMAR, performance/installation at Galleri Mors Mössa, Gothenburg 1982. Poster, 7’’ vinyl and catalogue: GAMLA VATTENTORNET I LINKÖPING, at Gamla vattentornet i Linköping 1982 (in conjunction with Nutida Musik i Linköping). Catalogue: GRAND HOTEL (Vi hyr ett rum men bor inte i det), performance at Grand Hotel, Stockholm 1983. Poster, photos and catalogue: NÅGONTING SOM ÄR STÖRRE ÄN VAD DET ÄR, performance/installation at Galleri Mors Mössa, Gothenburg 1984. Catalogue: VAKTOMBYTE, performance at The Royal Palace of Stockholm, 1987. Catalogue and photos: FRIMURARHOTELLET I KALMAR (Någon hyr ett rum och vi bor i det), performance at Frimurarhotellet, Kalmar (in conjunction with the exhibition Swedish Conceptual Art at Kalmar Konstmuseum, 2010)

Images (from top): 1. 6 Verk, box. 2. Konstant arbete i 48 timmar, catalogue spread. 3. Gamla vattentornet i Linköping, poster. 4. Grand Hotel, catalogue spread. 5. Photo of the artists’ outside Grand Hotel. 6. Någonting som är större än vad det är, catalogue cover. 7. Photo of the artists’ at Galleri Mors Mössa. 8. The tower of water/The gallery of water, 7” vinyl, Phauss & Firework. 8. Frimurarhotellet i Kalmar (Någon hyr ett rum och vi bor i det), catalogue cover

EXPERIMENT WITH DREAMS (book)

Thomas Liljenberg — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:57:55 +0000

EXPERIMENT WITH DREAMS

Book in collaboration with Leif Elggren, Stockholm 1996. A correspondence. 230 p. Offset and photo copies. Size 150 x 210 mm. ISBN 91-87066-12-2 (FE No. 79)

”A book comprised of letters the artists had written to a selection of celebrities, autocrats, governments, and commercial and cultural institutions. In sometimes bizarre, often hilarious letters the artists describe how the addressees have appeared in or affected their dreams, and as a result, because these people profit themselves on everybodys dreams and possibilities for the future, demand monetary compensation. Writing in awkward English, the artists often take on different personas and alter egos, sliding between first person singular and plural. The relationship between the analyst and analyzed becomes effectively blurred and extended onto a collective social unconscious. The result is a poetic, hallucinatory, sinister and comical text, which is ultimately hopeful in its search for identity and affirmation against the economic and social forces of global capitalism. (Rumpsti Pumsti, Berlin. 2011)

…”The texts are hysterically funny.” (Kenneth Goldsmith; New York Press, 2000)

…”You wont belive this book, this conceptual approach to dreams. Its a wonder”. (Umbrella Magazine, vol. 20 no.1, 1999)

…”As you read through the letters you can discern the pattern, the path the dreamers are following. At times hilarious, disgusting, humiliating, boring, happy or just plain rude. A truly original experiment, and better still a superbly imaginative work.” (Immerse 001, London 1997)

”The idiosyncratic Swedish artists Leif Elggren and Thomas Liljenberg have released a challenging but hilarious CD and book project from Firework of Sweden. The pair sent letters to pop, art and political dignitaries all over the world, from President Clinton, Nelson Mandela and Pope John II to Janet Jackson, Barbara Streisand and Niel Young, describing dreams and then asking for money. The letters are documented in a book, Experiment with dreams, and the texts are converted into music on a CD, The Codfish Suit…” (Neil Strauss; The New York Times, April 17, 1997)

THE ANSWERS

Thomas Liljenberg — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:57:55 +0000

THE ANSWERS

Book in collaboration with Leif Elggren, Stockholm 1999. A correspondence. 260 p. Offset and photocopies. Size 150 x 210 mm. ISBN 91 87066 22 X (Fe No. 91). The Answers was printed with support from Sveriges Bildkonstnärsfond (The Arts Grants Committee).

The Answers was presented as an exhibition at BildMuseet, Umeå 1999 and as a book release at Printed Matter, New York 2000.

”In 1996 we published the book Experiment With Dreams, a book filled with letters to a selection of the most autocratic people of our times. We demanded compensation for the unjust inequality that prevails in the world and because these people profit themselves on everybody’s dreams and possibilities for the future. Nearly every letter ended with: Please send us money on Swedish postal number… Now we are taking the opportunity to publicise all the replies from the correspondence in the present book: The Answers. (From pressrelase, PRINTED MATTER, New York 2001)

Images (from top): 1. The Answers, cover. 2. The Answers, book spread with letters from Johannes Paulus II and Paramount Communications. 3. The Answers, book spread with letters from George Soros and Exxon Valdez. 4. The Answers, installation at BildMuseet, Umeå

IDOL

Thomas Liljenberg — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:57:55 +0000

IDOL

Book in collaboration with Leif Elggren. A correspondence, Stockholm November 1993. 45 p. Offset and photo copies. Swedish text. Paperbacked. Size 150 x 210 mm. ISBN 91-87066-10-6 (FE No. 70)

”Hösten 1991 skickar konstnärerna Leif Elggren och Thomas Liljenberg ett utställningsförslag till Björn Springfeldt på Moderna Museet, men får avslag. Elggren och Liljenberg godtar inte museets nej. De skickar mängder av brev där de vädjar, hotar och tjatar om att Springfeldt och intendenten Sören Engblom ska ändra sitt beslut. Tonen blir alltmer indignerad, och det är tydligt att brevväxlingen tagit formen av ett elakt skämt. Men först när konstnärerna yrar om att de har såväl självaste påven som Carl Hill (!), Robert Aschberg och Cindy Crawford på sin sida börjar Engblom ana att någonting är i görningen. ”Måste vara något påven hittat på i sin ensamhet”, replikerar han hurtfriskt. Fast då är herrarna plötsligt vid sina sinnens fulla bruk igen. ”Hur står det till intendenten?” frågar de nyktert Engblom. ”Skojar Ni?” Totalt vansinnigt blir det när Liljenberg och Elggren stjäl Springfeldt och Engbloms identitet och skickar brev på museets eget brevpapper. ”Hela museet står till Er disposition. Välj och vraka. Välkomna!” är deras glada budskap till sig själva. Denna fantastiskt roliga brevväxling finns nu utgiven i bokform på Firework Edition, titeln är IDOL.” (En dag på Moderna Museet: Bo Madestrand, Expressen 16.12.93)

”IDOL, a collection letters published in 1993, opens quite conventionally with the artists sending a proposal for an exhibition to Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Their idea is to show a rigorous and personal selection of role models from modern history, complete with a long list of all those not elected, including the reasons to their pantheon. After a first reacting mildly positively, and generating hope, the museum decides to turn the proposal down.  It seems they shouldn’t have. With the stubbornness of a couple of parrots, and staking their own pride, the artists proceed to try to make the curators reverse their decisions; the courteous tone of the first letters is gradually replaced by cocky appeals and angry disappointment as the artists realise that they are being rejected by the museum. Despite twelve letters relentlessly battering their increasingly weary arguments, the museum’s curators are not brought to reason. The exchange ends, after two years of correspondence, with the artist’s suggestion that the museum staff should kneel in order to listen, just like St. John, to Gods dictation…”(Mats B; A Unholy Correspondences, exhibition catalogue in connection with the exhibition Flown over by an Old King by Leif Elggren, Färgfabriken, Stockholm 2000)

SWEDEN DREAMS

Thomas Liljenberg — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:57:55 +0000

SWEDEN DREAMS

Book, Stockholm March 1998. 64 p. A combination of dream texts and photographs of Swedish Prime Ministers. Offset printed. Paperbacked. Size 212 x 150 mm. ISBN 91-87066-11-4 (FE No. 73). Published in conjunction with the exhibition SVERIGE DRÖMMER at Kalmar Konstmuseum and The Swedish Parliament Building, 1993.

Initially shown as an exhibition at Kalmar Art Museum and in the building of the Swedish Parliment, the book Sweden Dreams consist of a combination of dream texts and photographs of Swedish Prime Ministers. The dreams were obtained and collected through advertisements in Swedish local newspapers during 1992 and 1993. The photographs of the ministers were copied directly from the Parliment’s books on file. The dream texts and the photographs of the ministers were then combined completely at random – one dream for each Swedish Prime Minister during the twentieth century until 1993.

PARTIET

Thomas Liljenberg — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:57:55 +0000

PARTIET (THE PARTY)

Box in collaboration with Leif Elggren, with printed matters: party program (catalogue), ballot paper, voting poster and color photo from the exhibition/project THE PARTY in conjunction with the Swedish General Election 1994. Swedish text. Edition of 200 copies. Size 160 x 230 mm. (FE No. 74). Stockholm November 1994