| Upon stepping foot into the NY Arts Beijing Space during artist Olle Jonsson’s solo show at the work-in-progress space/studio this spring, the artists’ “Bock Pet” series immediately catches the attention—if not for the bronze series’ monumentality, then for the adept craftsmanship and intricate mythological basis for the five sculptural works. This masterful accomplishment in scrap metal comes from the mind and talents of an artist who has only relatively recently turned his efforts from farming and forestry in his native Sweden to the less locally trodden path of the fine arts. |  |
Olle Jonsson – Simone Cappa
Upon stepping foot into the NY Arts Beijing Space during artist Olle Jonsson’s solo show at the work-in-progress space/studio this spring, the artists’ “Bock Pet” series immediately catches the attention—if not for the bronze series’ monumentality, then for the adept craftsmanship and intricate mythological basis for the five sculptural works. This masterful accomplishment in scrap metal comes from the mind and talents of an artist who has only relatively recently turned his efforts from farming and forestry in his native Sweden to the less locally trodden path of the fine arts.
After farming for over 15 years, Jonsson fell in love with the color, texture and shape of all that scrap metal he sifted and sorted through in searching out spare parts for more utilitarian purposes within his earlier career. This love affair with the aesthetic of another man’s junk metal was a primary influence in Jonsson’s decision to change occupations for good. In the role of artist, Jonsson realized that he could explore his expansive creative potential in full—and good thing. Since the age of 40, Jonsson has created scores of monumental scrap metal-based sculptures, most of which are now in both private and public collections. Specifically, Jonsson’s three-part sculpture series, the “Fighting Giants of Alfta,” based on a Swedish myth passed down throughout history amongst the natives of his region, is made from over 40 tons of scrap metal in all, and is currently installed atop two separate mountaintops. In this work, the scrap metal giants, Bock, Onne and Starkotter, mimic their ancient stances as mortal enemies atop the heights of the Sweden.
Jonsson’s version of Bock the giant took three years for the artist to complete, and it is this mythic character that is again referenced by the artist’s current series of less monumental works in scrap metal. At NY Arts Beijing Space, the giant Bock’s “pet” is put on display and reminds the viewer that even the oldest and most established cultural legends are always shifting, expanding and recreating themselves through oral tradition and, in this case, visual reproduction. Easily likened to immortal works like Jacob Epstein’s Torso of 1913, the “Bock Pet” series has even more legendary associations, thanks to its primeval roots in Swedish folklore and legend.
This series of Bock the giant’s pets may be mythical in origin, but is also highly contemporary and well worthy of note within the international art scene of today. The renowned sculptor of these works sent the five-part series on tour, just as he had previously done with his monumental work Barke (now in Stockholm at the Royal Palace), so that these ancient, legend-based sculptures might reach a contemporary art world audience, and one that could appreciate them in a new light—the light of the present.
If not for Jonsson’s unusual choice of medium, artistic technique and unique aesthetic, the “Bock Pet” series is significant today for its allusion to a simpler, albeit fictional, time, yet a time that was no less chaotic and full of strife than our present day. Back when Bock the giant enjoyed the company of his pets in Sweden’s prehistory, giants were so large and so powerful that they could sculpt and interrupt the very landscapes, environments and ecosystems that they called home. Sweden’s largest lake, Lake Vanern, for instance, was created when a giant scooped up just a fistful of soil from the earth. Jonsson’s representations of Bock, his pets and his enemies leave us with the valid question: Is the force of Man upon the world of today so very different? Are we just as destructive as the giants before us?
