Gittan Jönsson

Swedish artist Gittan Jönsson was born in the southern town of Helsingborg in 1948. Having lived and worked in Stockholm for several years, she currently divides her time between the bustling streets of Berlin (as a resident of Prenzlauer Berg) and the quiet coastal life of Brantevik, in the south of Sweden (where she spends her summers in a small fisherman’s cottage). Throughout her career Jönsson’s art has, consistently, explored themes like human vulnerability, inequality and social injustice; often relating to the different conditions we live under, depending on our background, gender and the added pressure of society’s inherited norms.

Sometimes with a pronounced political edge, and always by observing the conditions of her contemporary times and immediate surroundings, Jönsson gives a voice to the disenfranchised or marginalized, often female, individuals in society. In connection with Jönsson’s first major solo retrospective (Gittan Jönsson. Parallella linjer / Gittan Jönsson. Parallel lines, Marabouparken, Sundbyberg, Sweden, 9 March – 19 June 2016), Bettina Pehrsson (Director and Curator, Marabouparken) wrote:

Gittan Jönsson’s artistic career spans more than six decades. With the recurring themes of power structures and social relations her work is as willful and strong as it is topical. She is an artist who affects us all; an artist who dares to be political and personal, an artist who gives the big events equal billing with the small. Nothing is too simple to be of importance. […] Like many women artists of her generation, Gittan Jönsson depicted her own experiences, describing her own reality and women’s invisible history. […] Since the 1970s, Gittan Jönsson’s painting has gone through many phases, serving as a way of filtering the world and as a place to reflect on her own situation.

Jönsson grew up in the 1960s, a period defined by political awareness, when the international peace and anti-nuclear movements marched forward together. Other areas of activism during these years included women’s liberation, solidarity with the American civil rights movement and anti-apartheid activism in support of the oppressed in South Africa. This political awakening would affect Jönsson, who at the age of nineteen had moved to Stockholm to study at Konstfack University College of Arts, Craft and Design. Teachers and students at the school were inspired by the spirit of the times which called for community involvement. Egged on by these attitudes, and wanting to stop US involvement in Vietnam, Jönsson joined Rebellrörelsen (The Rebel Movement), which soon, taking a turn for the worse, developed into a virtual sect of Maoists who believed that they were in the forefront of the next revolution. No sooner than it had begun, however, the movement came to a sudden and dramatic end.

To process the experience, Jönsson (and three of her fellow students: Annika Elmqvist, AnnMarie Langemar and Pål Rydberg) produced Historieboken (The History Book), a socialist graphic novel that relates to the history of Europe and Africa by depicting the emergence of colonialism and imperialism (viewed from the perspective of the workers). Published in 1970 the book went on to sell an incredible 70,000 copies and was also translated into six languages. Having received international recognition the book also, in the 1970s, formed part of the teaching material for many future history teachers.

Having graduated and left Rebellrörelsen (The Rebel Movement) behind her Jönsson worked as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines like Dagens Nyheter and Kamratposten. She also designed mail order catalogues and advertisements for legendary design company Mah-Jong. At one point during the Vietnam War, when Hanoi was bombed by the USA, the Mah-Jong imagery on the billboards in the Stockholm Metro system were exchanged for press images of the bombings.

After giving birth to her first children, in the 1970s, Jönsson gained a greater understanding of the prevailing gender inequality and discrimination against women, not least in the art world. This newfound awareness shifted the focus of Jönsson’s political commitment from the peace movement to the women’s movement. The overtly political message of Historieboken, and the 1960s, now gave way to Jönsson’s interest in feminism and questions relating to the role of women in contemporary society, that had to deal with the everyday conflicts of domestic family life. This new theme of Jönsson’s would be apparent in iconic works like Den ensamma mammans semester / The Lonely Mother’s Holiday (oil on canvas, 1972) and Diskkasterskan / The Dish Thrower (1978, oil on canvas, 150 x 125 cm) in which Jönsson’s protagonists illustrates the trivialities of everyday life, vacuuming and washing the dishes, basic chores that never gives rise to any headlines.

Katarina Wadstein MacLeod (professor of history of art at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University) writes (in ‘To look from within’, article in Gittan Jönsson. Parallella linjer / Gittan Jönsson. Parallel lines, exhibition catalogue, Marabouparken, Sundbyberg, Sweden, 2016):

When the 1960s turned into the 1970s, several of Stockholm’s young artists had had a couple of turbulent years behind them and the rallying slogan of the women’s movement, “The Personal is Political” lay ahead. Gittan Jönsson’s oeuvre manifests this shift. Via poster art, illustrations, drawings, painting, sculpture and film, she has captured the ideas of the time and the possibilities of art. Then as now. Her art allows us to experience the women’s movement’s demands for equality, the disintegration of the concept of art, the relationship between music and image and the contemporary political situation with demonstrations at Tahrir Square in Cairo. The main characteristic of Gittan Jönsson’s art is a feverish interest in what is going on in the world and in the many possible expressions of the image. Her art never rests.

Copyright Firestorm Foundation