Home is where the art is
Affordable art for the home used to mean an Athena poster. Famously, there was the image of a handsome male model holding a baby, while teenage boys lusted after the tennis girl, photographed resting a hand on her bare bottom. It was fun and it was cheesy. Millions of us pinned these posters to our bedroom walls.
Athena folded 15 years ago – so where to go now for cheap art to hang above the mantelpiece? One, perhaps unlikely, destination is Ikea. Popular art is more sophisticated these days. There's no cheeky nudity or muscle-bound hunks in their latest series of prints. Rather, they come from original artworks made by five contemporary artists. It's the first time that the Swedish chain-store has worked directly with the artists themselves, having previously done deals through commercial intermediaries.
Ikea's ethos lies in its Scandinavian roots; it has been compared to the Bauhaus movement in Germany thanks to its guiding principles combining style with reduced cost. All five of Ikea's artists are Swedish and are well-known in their home country. Their work has been shown at museums and galleries in Sweden, at Frieze Art Fair in London and at New York's Armoury Show. The prints are a step up from Athena posters – and they're cheap too, starting at £29, including the frame.
"All five artists are very different, which is what we wanted. We asked them to make suggestions and the results were fantastic," says Asa Wibrand, who heads Ikea's product range in Sweden. "We have framed them all differently and they are all in different styles, so there should be something for everyone. Usually our art range is easy to like, but this is the kind of art that you don't usually see in a home furniture shop."
Certainly, the themes and ideas in Ikea's prints are more complex than simply a pin-up poster girl. Living in My Room by Helene Billgren is a drawing of a woman wearing jodhpurs. There's emotional depth to the scene. The woman has her eyes closed, her eyelashes fluttering away. In the distance there's a tiny interior, with a table and chair and an exotic bird in a cage. Surreally, a horse's head leans over a stable door inside the room, weeping. Two horse shoes hang over the stable to symbolise good luck.
"It's about relationships," says Billgren. "Happiness and sadness. She's closing her eyes because she's thinking about what she wants. I usually draw girls or women, in domestic settings or in nature."
It's a pleasing image to look at, if slightly sentimental, and the domestic theme links it well to Ikea. It's simple and feminine and should have broad popular appeal. Six hundred prints will go on sale in Ikea stores around the world.
"It's nice to think that my work will be seen in China," says Billgren. "I thought it was an exciting idea. I didn't feel snobby about it. I was glad, although I wouldn't want all of my work to become Ikea prints. But as a one-off, it is very nice."
Ikea hasn't shied away from darker themes in their artwork. Roger Andersson's print explores fairy tales, more Brothers Grimm than Disney. Rascals is a print of an ominous giant thistle, or ragwort. The plant dwarfs silhouettes of three ragamuffin children, who dangle from it with sticks and poke at its roots; a sense of foreboding hangs in the air. The monochrome print has the look of work by Kara Walker, an American artist who explores race, gender, sexuality and violence within American culture, albeit without that artist's complexity.
Jens Fänge carries weight in the Scandinavian art world. His work is shown in Norway and Finland, as well as London, New York and Beijing. Influenced by Surrealism, his print, titled Mannequin, shows a figure that recurs regularly in his paintings – a man who appears to be half-puppet, half-human, not unlike Pinocchio. He's a sad-looking figure, hunched over in despair, or exhaustion. His arm hangs down limply and a shoe lies discarded, to the side. It's a little eerie and depressing, although still not likely to give children nightmares were it to be hung on their bedroom wall.
drive from www.independent.co.uk