On January 27, there was a grand opening. The new Södertälje konsthall with its 600 square meter exhibition area was filled with Friberg’s drawings and graphics. It was his biggest exhibition to date. A total of 200 works were exhibited with the time span 1958 – 78. Also included in the exhibition were the decor sketches Friberg had just made for the new Cullberg Ballet.

Friberg and Birgit Cullberg attended the opening. Gunnel Liljegren, vice chairman of the cultural committee at the time, made the opening speech. Then konsthall´s director Per Drougge took over and enchanted the audience with his fiery enthusiasm and presence that was characteristic of his time at Södertälje konsthall. Christer Duke writes: “Vernissage lecturer according to the classic model – and with that honor! – Per Drougge, in front of a circle of spectators.” Below is a piece of Per Drougge’s speech quoted from L.T.

I was in Gothenburg at the time. I still remember the echo of Friberg’s and the others’ work, with its new, “cold-hammered”, photographic technique. But Friberg has never been directly involved in contemporary social issues. He has never allowed himself to be bound by any unequivocal slogans. He has been too much of an aesthete for that. He has had his own benchmarks, emphasized Per Drougge.

Notable among the monumental works was The Classic Image, a drawing 119 x 145.5 cm depicting the junta that took over Chile in connection with the military coup on September 11, 1973. The drawing was made in 1974 and is based on a photograph. Many Chileans came to Södertälje as refugees after the coup, and perhaps it is because of the topicality that this particular work was purchased for the municipality’s collection. In the image, the dictator, the self-proclaimed head of state Augusto Pinochet appears as the central figure wearing sunglasses and with his arms demonstratively crossed. Beside him and in front appear skeletal figures, as a testimony that from this comes nothing but death. Behind him, his appointed junta backs up, wearing their uniforms. They are depicted eyeless, their mouths cruelly drawn down. It is a picture without confirmation of the other. The blind power is expressed in its raw perfection. The lithograph Junta with an edition of 180 is from the same year, the proceeds from the sale of the work went in full to support the Chile Committee. Other monumental works on display bear titles such as Humans and Demons, Nattmara, Post-Industrial Landscape. Hallucinatory deep dives into the darkest recesses of the human psyche. Nightmare landscapes that raise criticism of civilization, such as the environmental problems in post-industrial society. The motifs appear and are illuminated from a mysterious nightmarish obscurity. Or as Drougge describes in the exhibition catalogue, the unique technique of working from darkness to light

/…/to bring out the light from a black surface, a sheet of paper blackened with a graphite pencil, which is processed with a rubber//….

Other larger-format works on display has titles such as Humans and Demons, Nattmara, Post-Industrial Landscape. Hallucinatory deep dives into the darkest recesses of the human psyche. Nightmare landscapes that raise criticism of civilization, such as the environmental problems in post-industrial society. The motifs appear and are illuminated from a mysterious nightmarish obscurity. Or as Drougge describes in the exhibition catalogue, the unique technique of working from darkness to light

/…/to bring out the light from a black surface, a sheet of paper blackened with a graphite pencil, which is processed with a rubber//….

When Per Drougge describes Friberg’s artistry, he places him in an art historical context.

His soul mates in the earlier history of art must be masters like Munch, Van Gogh, Goya and Rembrandt, in whom the outer and inner worlds are fused into an expression of our existence in its totality. I must add the Englishman William Blake, whom Arne Törnqvist mentions in the catalog preface.

In Drougge’s catalog preface, you also get an explanation for the speech he gave about Friberg and his relationship to politics at the opening. An explanation that is put in connection with the groups that were formed in different parts of the country during the 1960s.

Together with six Gothenburgers, he formed the group “six aspects”, which emerged around the mid-60s. The group came to turn against the inherited West Swedish colorism and its immersion in still lifes and corners of nature and became involved in the social and political reality, although in a more ambiguous and not as militant way as, for example, the Stockholm group that was behind the newspaper Puss.

Sources: Södertälje konsthalls archive folder, text and compilation Anneli Karlsson