Hans Gedda got his first camera at the age of 12, and knew immediately that he was going to be a photographer. Getting the school doctor’s announcement that he was color blind at about the same time did nothing to stop him.
Today he is not only one of Sweden’s foremost photographers, but also internationally famous for his portraits of Andy Warhol in 1976 and of the freedom fighter Nelson Mandela in 1990.
Just a few weeks after the photographer’s 80th birthday, the new exhibition Nära ögat opens at Fotografiska with over 200 images from his lifelong career. There are intimate and stripped-down portraits of some of our most famous Swedes, such as Astrid Lindgren, Cornelis Vreeswijk, Evert Taube, Lena Nyman, Jonas Gardell, Queen Silvia and many more.
In Nära ögat, we get to get even closer to the image maker Hans Gedda, among other things by showing many of his private photographs, and through recordings where he talks about the meetings with those he portrayed.
– It becomes especially noticeable as a portrait photographer that life is very short. It feels like two weeks since I photographed someone, it’s been 20 years. There are many of them I miss, like Tove Jansson, Sara Lidman and Monica Zetterlund. It was strange when you had lived in little Flen and read about many of them in the school books, to suddenly stand face to face with the person and take a picture. Like Vilhelm Moberg for example. I was out partying with him for a whole evening, says Hans Gedda.
For his image of Nelson Mandela, who had just been released after 27 years in prison, Hans Gedda was awarded the prestigious, international award World Press Photo.
Hans Gedda’s pictures are basically always in black and white, with strong contrasts between light and dark, regardless of whether royalty, great artists, prime ministers or authors are photographed. With his peculiar visual language, he has become an icon for many in the world of photography and art.
But despite epithets such as “The genius from Flen” and “Sweden’s foremost portrait photographer”, he himself is humbled by the accolades.
– I have photographed Ingemar Stenmark several times and I like his way: “De ä bar å ak”. I feel that way too, I take the camera and it’s off to go. Hope chance will do it for you. People ask “How do you bring out the inner in people”, but I read an interview with Giacometti where he was asked the same question and answered “The inner? I’m busy with the outside”. And that’s the truth, it’s not more pretentious than that, says Hans Gedda.
A more private and less often shown side of Hans Gedda is also shown in Nära ögat. Part of the exhibition will focus on his more artistically exploratory images that rarely showed still life, colorful photographs and collages. While many of the portraits have been commissioned jobs, it has been important for Hans Gedda to also continue to photograph privately.
– That’s the advice I give to younger photographers: never stop taking private pictures, because then it’s over. I have noticed this in colleagues of the same age who do not take any private pictures, but only at work. They run out, become disinterested in photography. Photographing privately is what I enjoy doing out here in the country, among other things. No Cornelis or Taube come by here, so I have to settle for photographing skulls out in the woods.
– I certainly hope that they get the feeling of having experienced something extra, something magical preferably…
…Or just that they feel: “That was a dazzling photograph of the genius from Flen!”, says Hans Gedda and laughs.
