1989 – the year of change
1989 – Velvetrevolutions and the dramatic fall of the Berlin wall. Stockholm,at the time saw another kind of- cultural- revolution– the birth of Forum. When stage director and photographer Jean Claude Arnault opened his second gallery at Sigtunagatan 14 in Stockholm he had a vision of creating much more than just another art-gallery. He imagined a meetingplace where different forms of artistical expressions were merged together. The venue itself – not a living room,not a concert hall-just an abandoned coalcellar with grey,rugged concrete walls, seemed to be a neutral enough environment to heighten the concentration of the artist and sharpen the ears and eyes of an audience. After the first exhibition featuring chinese artist H.H.Lim ,Arnault invited Roland Pöntinen to give a piano recital at Forum.Roland brought his own piano,a New York Steinway from 1907. (Read the review! - only in Swedish)
That concert was followed by a number of events traversing various art fields: dance,theater,philosophy etc. The success for Forum was immediate.This was obviously what people had been waiting for and the asumption that the naked ,raw concrete walls were the ideal setting proved to be just right. The cellar was packed on virtually any kind of Forum-event and has been so since.
Culture goes underground
The multi-cultural nights where music,dance & literature was meticulously woven
around specific themes soon became,and still are among the most popular events at Forum.The rich diversity of themes–”Orpheus”, ”Eros”, ”Russian Nights”, ”Ravel meets Lorca”, ”Nabokov-The Seducer”, ”Gombrowicz”, ”Lisztomania”, ”Music of the Seventies”, ”The Gender of The Voice”, ”Boulez and Mallarmé”, ”Schubert&Schumann-Nights”, ”Les Six”, ”American Music” etc–bears proof both of Forum’s inventivness and the endless flow of a cultural heritage.Equally demanded is ”Poetens musikaliska rum” (Musical room of a poet) that features music (and sometimes musicians) chosen by one writer or poet.In these programs the function of the texts are often to accompany the music –not the other way around.The long list of brilliant musicians, dancers, highly praised actors and internationally acknowledged authors who have contributed to these evenings includes names like Katarina Frostenson,Salman Rushdie,Pernilla August,Tomas Tranströmer,Nobuko Imai,Horace Engdahl,Anne Sofie von Otter,Virpi Pahkinen,Karl-Erik Welin... (for a complete list click here)
Forum on a crowded night is indeed crowded-and narrow-the audience are practically sitting in the knees of the performers.Oxygen runs out fast and the acoustics are admittedly not the most favourable for most musicians.At the same time it is precisely these factors that create the intimacy,the intensity and the drama of a live performance and that make people return again and again.
The Proust series
Perhaps the most monumental undertaking of Forum besides some of the thematic marathon-nights or the 19 hour performance of Satie’s Vexations is the reading of the complete A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust.
Every Sunday at 3 pm a segment of Proust’s gigantic text is read by some of Sweden’s foremost stage actors or authors and always preceeded by a music performance,often french chamber music and often with some kind of connection to the proustian epoch.
At the moment the readings have reached the third volume (of seven ) and the project is likely to continue for another three years.Forum – 15 years!
Forum will celebrate its 15-year-Anniversary in Autumn 2004. A kind of retrospective documentation is to be expected–as are more concerts and all-cultural marathon nights. There is plenty to remember and celebrate: Since the opening in 1989 Forum has arranged more than 400 events!
Forum– the staff
JeanClaude Arnault, artistic director
Katarina Frostenson, consultative for literature
Roland Pöntinen & Love Derwinger, consultatives for music
Hans Ruin, consultative for philosophy
FORUM Nutidsplats för kultur
Sigtunagatan 14, 113 22 Stockholm
Tel. 08. 34 25 41 fax. 08.34 23 48
e-mail: forumnu@minmail.net
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