TRUE CRIME

The exhibition True Crime tells about Sweden in the 1920s and 1930s. A period when maple burning, smuggling and peddling of alcohol was seen as one of the biggest social problems. Comprehensive restrictions on the part of the state made it more difficult to get over the socially threatening brandy, but at the same time opened up an illegal market where the black spirit washed over the country. Because the more restrictions, the more charged and desirable the spirit became.

We move through dark harbors and narrow alleys, shady doctors’ offices, seedy jams and illegal nightclubs, where we meet daring smugglers, conniving pimps, cunning maple burners, corrupt doctors and tricky party organizers.

True Crime highlights various criminal cases and criminals, such as the maple burner “Storkevan” whose thunder center exploded on Västerlånggatan in Stockholm, the horse dealer Ivar Severin Jansson who sold liquor from a stomacher with a tap on Norrlandsgatan and the big-time smuggler Karl Georg Malmberg who installed a fog machine on his ship for to evade customs with fog curtains.

The exhibition is produced in collaboration with the illustrator and writer Jakob Nilsson (among others current with the comic book Revolver-Harry) and set designer Lehna Edwall.