The exhibition Will you be profitable, my friend? presents Swedish art from 1945 to 1979 with works from the Moderna Museet Collection. Four turbulent decades that have left different imprints on art. Abstract idioms, expressive painting, and strong political stances from a period when the welfare state was taking shape, come together in the exhibition.

With the end of the Second World War, Sweden’s isolation is broken and the doors to the international art scene are opened again. During the following decades, Sweden is characterised by economic growth and a strong political will to realise the welfare vision of “Folkhemmet” (the People’s Home), through reforms, housing planning, investment in education, and the establishment of new institutions.

There is great faith in the future, but life is also characterised by anxiety, and during the Cold War, commitment to social and political issues grows.

Within this ambivalent climate, a need emerged for new ways of understanding and representing the world. In Sweden, the period encompasses a diversity of expressions: some artists immerse themselves in formal experiments and the possibilities of abstraction, whilst others explore inner and outer worlds or use fiction as a means of commenting on contemporary society.

Swedish art 1945–1979

The exhibition Will you be profitable, my friend? – Swedish art 1945–1979 in the Moderna Museet Collection features around 90 works from the period. The exhibition’s title is drawn from Peter Tillberg’s painting Will you be profitable, my friend? a work that continues to function as a critical commentary on the ideals of conformity and efficiency.

Among the participating artists in the exhibition are Carl Johan De Geer, Siri Derkert, Öyvind Fahlström, Staffan Hallström, Åke Karlung, Eva Klasson, Beth Laurin, Evert Lundquist, Lennart Rodhe, Ulrik Samuelson, P O Ultvedt, Ulla Wiggen and Barbro Östlihn.

A central work in the exhibition is P O Ultvedt’s newly renovated Manhattan twenty years later (1963–1983), a mechanical installation with motors and a coin slot.