is part of the series "My Life As A Film", in which Stig Eklund has explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety. He creates, or rather regards, things in a way that is different from that of other artists. He sees only the essential, and that, naturally, is all that he represents: A look, a small gesture, a kiss gone wrong, a shrug of shoulders.
 
For this reason Eklund's work is as a rule ‘not complete’, as people are at first so frustrated to discover. But, fill a room with a dozen of these ‘paintings’ or so, and one finds they are surprisingly complete. His complete vision of an incomplete world.
 
Art is finished once the artist has said everything that was on his mind, and this is precisely the advantage Eklund has over his fellow artists, that he really knows how to show us what he has felt, and what has gripped him, and to this he subordinates everything else.

- Jessica Hopkins, chief curator at the Museum of New Art

The Little Museum That Still Can...

In a young century dogged by instability and uncertainty, faith in the power of art is rekindled by the reopening of the Museum of New Art (MONA). The need for a contemporary museum in Detroit remains especially strong in view that the entrenched artistic circles continue to oppose such a truly active partner. Moving outside these circles, a small group of collectors and businessmen have stepped forward to support and retain this contemporary in the region.
 
The idea was to choose a city nearby Detroit that would have a fresh atmosphere and without the old politics. A small enough community where the museum could create an art scene which would be new and innovative, and yet still encompass the entire region.
 
As explained by director Jef Bourgeau: "We've never thought in small terms. We don't accept this notion of small. It's a museum on the human scale. I would say that is the ideal scale."
 
This new MONA vows to retain the museum's philosophy since its founding in 1996: that art's joy, power and creativity lie solely in the eyes, hearts, hands and minds of the generation that creates it.

The Museum of New Art (MONA) is located at 7 North Saginaw Street, Pontiac, Michigan - 2nd floor.

email:  detroitmona@aol.com    telephone:  248.210.7560    website:  www.detroitmona.com

    Jessica Hopkins, chief curator  

Among Hopkins' many qualities as a curator is her resistance to those revived trends and fads that seem to have gripped both art world and critical chatter. Her exhibitions are like space travel. She insists on taking the present into the future.
 
Her unique eye possesses a neutrality that reflects current culture rather than trying to impose or predict its course.

   Jef Bourgeau, director
 
Jef Bourgeau's vision of art exemplifies the post-modern sense of working in a period when the epoch-making achievements of modern art are already matters of recorded fact.
 
Bourgeau's best known work, the Museum of New Art, has become a broad commentary on the fact that most people don't actually see real paintings, as they are more likely to experience art as a decal reproduction on the side of a coffee mug... Asking isn't that good enough, after all.

  < click for exhibition catalogue 

PRESS:

It Will Leave You Breathless by Robert del Valle for Real Detroit Weekly
The Norwegian-born Detroit photographer Stig Eklund once made the intriguing admission that he could only see "right" through a camera. Well, we're inclined to agree – and we also think Eklund feels, grasps, imagines and creates with an equal degree of clarity and skill through that same device. Eklund has spent much time in recent years with an ongoing series entitled My Life As A Film – a collective album of images that explore such themes as fear, love, anxiety and all the other extremes that comprise the gamut of a person's existence. Waiting for Godard, the latest chapter, will be on display at the Museum of New Art in Pontiac starting 1/28. These photos, individually and together, prompt both immediate admiration and a contemplative mood. 7 N. Saginaw St. Check detroitmona.com as well.

• Jan 25 - 31, 2012 - Vol. 13, No. 44