PHOTOGRAPHER ROLAND THYSELL
CURRENT & UPCOMING
EXHIBITION
PÅSKUTSTÄLLNING
Museum Gösta Werner
Simrishamn
An exhibition together with works from Torsten Erasmie (1950 – 2018) and Gösta Werner opening on Good Friday, open until april 7 (daily 13–17). Grand opening on Maundy Thursday 15–17. Welcome!
Read more on the official website right here.
EARLIER EXHIBITION
ROLAND THYSELL
Sin Paradise Freedom
Trelleborg • Sweden
“The exhibition takes you on a photographic journey through time and space, from the year 1955 and onward. Photographer Roland Thysell creates unforgettable images filled with temperament, rhythm and originality.”
Read the entire press release here.
NEW BOOK AVAILABLE
ROLAND THYSELL
Sin Paradise Freedom
[ Available now! ]
Available for purchase at the exhibition in Trelleborg between 2.12 2023 – 28.1 2024 and directly from me upon request.
FILM
A film about Roland Thysell - from the exhibition Sin Paradise Freedom
The film was created as a part of the exhibition in Trelleborg and is just over 20 minutes long. Audio and texts are in Swedish.
See the complete film right here.
VERNISSAGE
DECEMBER 2 – 12:00
Trelleborg Museum
OPEN FOR ALL
Join us for the grand opening of the exhibition at Trelleborg museum 12:00 on the 2nd of December. Welcome!
THE MUSIC OF SIN PARADISE FREEDOM
The official playlist
GET INTO THE RIGHT MOOD
Listen to the official playlist of the exhibition in Trelleborg with music curated by Roland himself. The playlist is available right here.
A SELECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHS
PHOTOS
THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER
KIVIK 1967
ÅLAMÖRKER
RODEO
TRAVELS
MUSIC
LANDSCAPES
PARADISE
THE STORY
The year was 1967.
Ingmar Bergman held a lecture at Fotoskolan KV at Stockholms Universitet.
I was 21 years and I was there! A small boy from Anderslöv with eyes like saucers and ears big as an elephants.
Ingmar’s gaze was intense, so he began:
“When I was young, everything was either black or white.
When it was black I was down with the devil and it was hot as hell ….
When it was white, I flew up to God and heard all the angels’ beautiful music ….
Today, I have learned to appreciate the beauty in the different shades of gray.”
FROM THE BEGINNING
My first contact and the fascination of images began in the late 50’s and TV’s childhood. And with the curiosity from one who just recently became a teenager I managed to nag myself to stand behind the studio camera at one of Lasse Holmqvist’s nationwide chronicles. That ignited my interest in the images, which later on developed to a focus on stills.
A couple of years later, at the age of 15, my dreams were fulfilled when I got the opportunity to assist the hot-shot fashion photographer Claes Lewenhaupt and his wife Tonie. Claes was considered to be the ”master of lights” and Tonie one of Sweden’s leading fashion journalists. At that time they rented Markiehage Mansion just outside Anderslöv in the south of Sweden where they created 6-8 paged features in Femina presenting the established designer Katja of Sweden. There, in my own neighbourhood, I participated in creating well-known masterpieces in the history of Swedish fashion photography.
A little later, when I was 17, I used photograph at Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen and sell those pictures of famous musicians, among others Dexter Gordon, to the Swedish tabloids.
And so in 1967, I was admitted to Fotoskolan KV at the Stockholm University, on a free quota thanks to my pictures. It was common that only 5 of 100 was admitted to the school on the “free quota”, and normally it took several years of practice to pass. It was a 3-year education directed by Sweden’s most renowned photographer, Christer Strömholm. We also had well-know artists as Carl-Johan de Geer and his wife Marie-Louise as teachers.
IT REALLY TOOK OFF IN THE 60s
During my studies I even managed to get pictures published in photo-magazines like Foto and Populär Fotografi. And when I graduated from Fotoskolan more than 70% of my fellow students, who had once started this education, had dropped out. But I kept going!
My practice in the daily-press took place at Ystad’s Allehanda. At that time they had not begun to print in offset so all images must be rasterized. Offset came to YA at the end of my internship and made it possible to present to the readers large pitched photo stories.
In one of the article’s in 1967 I got the opportunity to make a big story on the eel-fishermen in Skateholm and Hörte, just west of fishing village Abbekås on the Swedish south-coast. This feature article, almost 50 years later, is on an exhibition tour and will soon be published as a book.
This period of my life was a lovely time with wonderful colleagues and workmates. Maybe because it was in the late 60s.
CV ROLAND THYSELL
EDUCATION
1961 INTERNSHIP WITH PHOTOGRAPHERS CLAËS & TONIE LEWENHAUPT
1966 – 1969 THE KV SCHOOL OF PHOTOGRAPHY AT STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY, UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF CHRISTER STRÖMHOLM
1967 INTERNSHIP AT YSTADS ALLEHANDA, A LOCAL NEWSPAPER
PHOTOGRAPHIC ART
FOR PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS AND BUSINESSES
HAS BEEN REPRESENTED BY
BUKOWSKIS, BUKOWSKIS MARKET, STOCKHOLMS AUKTIONSVERK, MAGASIN 5 AND LAURITZ
MAGAZINES
POPULÄR FOTOGRAFI, FOTO AND INDUSTRIA
EXHIBITIONS
AXEL EBBES, KÖPMANNAMAGASINET IN SMYGEHAMN AND STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL FAIR TOGETHER WITH SVEN LUNDH’S SUSTAINABLE DESIGN FURNITURE FROM KÄLLEMO
2015 KONSTRUNDAN AT HOLMÅKRA GALLERI
12 SEPTEMBER – 8 NOVEMBER 2015. SOLO EXHIBITION “EEL SEASON” AT TRELLEBORG MUSEUM
2015. LJUSSTRÅLAR MED MINA ÖGON. LIMITED EDITION PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK, NUMBERED AND SIGNED. 100 COPIES. SOLD OUT.
2015. MALMÖ PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY ( FFIM) ’ S ANNUAL SCHOLARSHIP FOR A DESERVING PHOTOGRAPHER
2017. ST. NICOLAI CHURCH. SPIRITUAL IMAGES – INSTALLATION
2019. A SELECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHS FROM CENTRAL STAT ION AND SKYSCRAPERS IN NEW YORK. MUSIC VIDEO IN COLLABORATION WITH SAXOPHONIST ROLAND KIRK
2020. PHOTOS IN PUBLIC SPACES, AND IN APARTMENTS, FAMILJENS HUS IN ANDERSLÖV
2023. TRELLEBORG LIBRARY IN ANDERSLÖV, CONFERENCE ROOM
2 DECEMBER 2023 – 28 JANUARY 2024. SOLO EXHIBITION AT TRELLEBORG MUSEUM SIN – PARADISE – FREEDOM.
OLIVER LAZAREVSKI AT THE DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE AT THE TRELLEBORG MUNICIPALITY HAS PRODUCED A FILM SHOWN AT “ BIAN ” DURING THE EXHIBITION PERIOD.
A LIMITED EDITION BOOK , NUMBERED AND SIGNED, WITH 150 COPIES IN SWEDISH AND 50 COPIES IN ENGLISH, IS BEING PUBLISHED IN CONNECTION WITH THE EXHIBITION.
TRUE FRIENDS & MEMORIES
BEAMING, BRILLIANT, LUMINOUS
When Sven Lundh, sent the word EFFULGENT – meaning Beaming, Brilliant, Luminous – it opened up a new code of signals within me. It felt like a strong beeping from a broadcast. I felt that my story about the life was like a jigsaw puzzle with lots of fragments. I had trouble sleeping – went through the story of my life – in my pictures. Or more specific 1000’s of analogue and digital images, from 1964 to 2011. I chose some 40 images showing the life in different shades. A life returning to a perpetual rebirth. All humans emit signals – radio waves. We communicate with the variable quality living on the earth and in the universe. With beams and signals. It’s great to be affected by radiation and signals.
SVEN LUNDH
When coming to interpreting the object’s significance, Sven Lundh is a big personality. He is gifted with a permanent youth, despite his 89 years of age. He possesses an unbeatable force field of energy and commitment.
Transforming furniture into art objects and art objects into furniture requires a master like Sven. No other person has woven so much information and communication in his objects. To talk with artists about an object to fit into production, without losing its soul, requires a person with a magic formula. Sven mastered the whole range from sketching, material sense, production, completion design and presentation. Sven’s personality has a way of listening as a warm mentor inspiring their birds to take off. To challenge the thin ice to see if it really carries. Going that extra mile to reach a new step on the ladder of life. I sincerely appreciate the warmth and encouragement that Sven has given me during our three exhibitions together.
FREDRIK “FIGGE” ROOS
Another person who I appreciated very much was Fredrik Roos. Frederick’s personality was captivating. His sense of direct communication with the art made him a prodigy. What a gift!
He initiated me into his way of approaching art and gave me a new dimension. Lasker, Kiefer, Hooper, Rauchberg among many others. I remember once when we were dining at Rolf’s Kök and I told him that I intended to produce an installation with fragments of different material. He encouraged me to study Kiefer deeper before I began. Frederick was on to me several times that when his own art-museum Rooseum once opened he wanted us to do a solo show together with my photos. Frederick was also sincerely happy to be able to introduce his new recruit, Lars Nittve. to me as the head of Rooseum.
Fredrik and my conversations circled around everything from the meaning of art, to what the space contains of and what really is outside there in the Universe. I miss Fredrik a lot and specially his signals of the image and the art that I always will carry with me.
Figge taught me to always try to think the opposite.
“Rolle have you ever noticed that if you do this instead…”
Just one of his quotes that still sticks with me every day.