Name: LUDVIG HELIN / APANS SÅNG
Start: 2025-01-16T17:00:00+01:00
End: 2025-01-16T20:00:00+01:00
Location: Hudiksvallsgatan 6, 11330 Stockholm, Sweden

$LUDVIG HELIN \/ APANS S\u00c5NG$

LUDVIG HELIN
Apans Sång
16 JANUARY – 15 FEBRUARY

Exhibition opening Thursday 5 - 8 PM.
Opening hours:
Tuesday - Friday, 11 - 6 PM
Saturday, 12 - 4 PM

Welcome!
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"This exhibition marks a shift in my approach to work. My expressions have become looser, new elements have emerged, and another world is beginning to take shape. Since my school days, I have tried to find a way to work sculpturally, spatially, but I never quite succeeded. I hadn’t found the right material, the right pace, or the right tools—until now.
Finally, I can touch, twist, and turn my own artifacts. I can hammer, screw, sand tenderly, and wander around in my own created world. The paintings also become something else through this new process. They no longer need to contain everything on their own; they don’t have to stand alone as representations of all my thoughts and feelings. Now, there are more of us working together.
In addition to oil paintings and sculptures, I am also showing quicker works on paper and a smaller series of graphic prints, which I hope will contribute to creating a dynamic tension in the exhibition.
Why is the exhibition called "The Monkey Song"?
To understand why this exhibition is called The Monkey Song, we need to go back a few years. For many years, I worked with a clear goal: to find a painterly formula, a method that made me almost invincible in the studio. That formula reached its peak in my previous exhibition at GSA, Resonance in 2021. When Resonance was finished, I felt that I had reached the end of the road with the method I had worked with for 15 years. A sense of repetition and saturation took over. I became tired of my own work, both visually and conceptually. For a while, I was paralyzed by tedium and emptiness.
But then I thought of a painting I bought many years ago. It is a 70x70 cm piece of masonite covered with black paint mixed with gravel, where the artist had written with a paintbrush in red: Apans Sång. It’s the Swedish translation of "The Monkey Song," which King Louie sings in The Jungle Book. When I first saw the painting, it felt like an epiphany to me. With its raw, simple expression, it spoke about everything that is difficult and complicated in both art and life, but I never really understood how it did so. I was probably too young or too foolish—maybe both.
Now I realize that the monkey is missing something. He sings with power and energy, but he feels incomplete because he lacks a vital knowledge: how to make fire. For us humans, it’s simple, but for the monkey, it’s impossible. That insight made me reflect: am I also missing something vital in my work? Is that why I relate so strongly to the painting Apans Sång? The monkey is seeking a knowledge that will make him complete. He wants to know how to make fire.
And for me, the question arises: is there a fire for me? And if so, what does it look like? Can I reach it, or is it forever hidden in a dimension beyond my grasp?
For me, Apans Sång is also a reminder to keep searching, and to keep things simple as well. Not to overcomplicate unnecessarily. A monkey that sings—it’s familiar. At the same time, life goes on with all its relationships, reflections, children growing up, and parents aging. In the midst of all this, we all try to sing, in our own way. It doesn’t matter much how it looks or feels, as long as it comes from the core of desire and curiosity."
- Ludvig Helin 22.12 - 2024