Hem ljuva hem / Home Sweet Home

Kristianstads konsthall, 2011

Sculpted portraits, drawings and installations form the basis of Gert Germeraad's exhibition at Kristianstads Konsthall, 29/1 - 27/3 2011. Perspective of this exhibition alternates between the personal and the universal. Personal and individual suffering is connected with larger societal and power structures, now and in the past. Main theme of this exhibition encircles racism and our perception of strangers, "The Other"

In Germeraad's sculpture series "On Racial Biology" (Eugenics) - based upon pictures from the Swedish Institute of Racial Biology in Uppsala (1921-1958) - we see a number of portraits of people who were victims of Herman Lundborg and other eugenicists. In the series "Form the Gestapo Archives" he shows people who were classified by the Nazis as criminals, slackers or sexual deviants.

Germeraad's work is a way to restore the dignity and identity of these people. He problematises our need for control, systematisation and categorisation. For him this exhibition has political undertones "because I think that xenophobia and upcoming fascism are a menace for our open society. I would like to stress the fact that thoughts of racist movements - like the Eugenic - still exist in our every day life and thoughts."

Some of the sculptures are presented on pedestals covered with traditional table cloths. Together with embroidered texts like "Home Sweet Home", "Sweden, Sweden Motherland, home of longing, our home on earth" and "look forward, not backwards". The national, familiar and "cosy" nationalism is confronted with xenophobia and racism.

Germeraad's drawings are murky inner landscapes in charcoal. Mental images that intensifies the realistic portraits in ceramics. The drawings, sculptures and installations from a unity with which Gert Germeraad tells his story. A story about involvement and alienation, safety and threat, vulnerability and strength. And at last: about perception and appearance.

Reviews in Swedish:

Mars 7, 2011, Dagens Nyheter, Dan Jönsson
februari 8, 2011, Kristianstadbladet, Caroline Söderholm