OSCAR REUTERSVARDEROTISKA EGYPTISKA GUDAMYTER07 -18.06.1975

PRESS VIEWING — FRIDAY, JUNE 6, AT 11:30 AM

Egyptian Deities Erotized by Professor Oscar Reutersvärd of the Department of Art History, Lund University, is exhibited at Galerie S:t Petri as spiritual and material support for the gallery’s activities.

In about fifty ink drawings, we are told of a multitude of divine beings entangled in strange adventures.

Among Professor Reutersvärd’s special areas of study is the examination of phallic symbolism in 18th-century architecture and its references to buildings alluding to the phallus in antiquity.
Furthermore, he has devoted himself to ancient mythology, especially those divine legends with erotic themes, where, among other things, the sperm and the erect male organ play a central role as symbols of spiritual and abstract forces.

Striking are Oscar Reutersvärd’s profound knowledge of eroticism in Egyptian mythology and his skillful visual recreation of these stories — all the more remarkable considering that the professor has never set foot in Egypt.

The theme of this exhibition should be perceived differently today than, for example, during the Erotic Art Exhibition at Lunds Konsthall in 1968.
The development of conceptual art in Sweden over the past few years has, to some extent, already changed our way of seeing and interpreting such images.
Experience with other artistic means of expression during the past seven years — body art, performance, semiotics, photo sequences, etc. — has expanded our perceptual and associative abilities.
Oscar Reutersvärd’s images are symptomatic of such a broadened vision.

Some of the drawings, kindly donated by Professor Reutersvärd to Galerie S:t Petri for its experimental activities, have previously been shown in larger contexts, including at Lunds Konsthall and Galerie Heland in Stockholm.
In the autumn, an edition of drawings and texts by Oscar Reutersvärd about Egyptian mythological figures will be published as a book.

The exhibition opens on June 7, 1975, at 12:00, and runs until June 18.
Open weekdays 15:00–20:00, Saturdays and Sundays 12:00–17:00.