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Welcome to my diverse art home with works & texts documenting my life as an art photographer since I opened Oberg PhotoGraphics in 2009. It can be seen as a catalogue raisonné of 400+ works.

Lund, Sweden – April 15, 2024

2024 is my 15th photographics year. It’s going to be exciting.

Here are some of my ideas, plans and news.

• Continue experimenting with my philosophy that “no style is a style” and post new and revised older works in the Themes and Shops menus above.

• Continuing work on some of the pieces in the slider below.

• Do more documentary photography, not the least from my all-November trip around China.

• Explore Polaroid, Hipstamatic and other ‘different’ and smaller formats.

• I plan to open my studio/gallery at the Night of Culture—“Kulturnatten”—in September and the Art Weekend—“Konsthelgen”—in October. However, my studio is not open during the Easter Round because my SPAR Installation arrived from Venice with a great delay on March 28, and it takes days to unpack and arrange. Otherwise, I am always ready to welcome you when we make an appointment first.

• Future exhibitions I open will also appear online because my audience is mostly global and does not visit ‘live’ here in Sweden. I hope to give you an online experience as close as possible to a ‘live’ visit.

• This front page provides all the news and views. Subscribe to the “PostArt” Newsletter to receive reminders and alerts 5-8 times a year, or visit often, as I frequently post new things here.

• I’m so grateful if you comment at this page’s very bottom.

• And now an image introduction. Press the arrow to the very right in the slider – and continue under it when you are through.

What happened in 2023?

That is all reported in my year-by-year Logbook here. Judged by what I experienced during my art explorations in China during all of November last year, I have decided to postpone until further – not cancel – the idea of getting my SPAR Installation shown and travelling around China in 2024. Here are the “structural” factors that make it difficult for me and that I cannot change.

New works

Please find new works added to the China 2018 to Present (6), in the Art PhotoGraphics (10) and the Abstract – Real (4) shops. There are also three new portraits – from China – at the bottom of the Portrait Theme, added here in February 2024.

To the right, a work from February 2024 – “Should We Be Preparing for Another World War?” That was the headline of a recent BBC studio debate. Consider that the world spends US$ billion 2200 per year on ‘security,’ and now we must be prepared for world war?!

If weapons could create peace, we would live in worldwide peace long ago.

Much invisible work

These are troubled and dangerous times for our world. There are long periods where my work as a peace and future researcher completely consumes my time—see some results at The Transnational, TFF Substack, Jan Oberg, and TFF Vimeo. I try to find the time to create new works, including prints, collages, mixed media, acrylic paintings, and multi-media works.

Also, thanks to the incredible development of printers and Photoshop over the last 5-10 years, I feel that I must upgrade/improve some of my earlier works. I am far from a techno-perfectionist, but if technology permits me to add quality, I think my audience deserves the best I can create.

The “Works In Progress” slider below shows some of the pieces I am currently working on.

Social media and the Vimeo Channel

Earlier, I mostly used Instagram and Facebook. However, both are Zuckerberg’s Meta, and they have become less interesting and useful for me; Instagram has too many ads, entertainment, self-promotion/selfies and much less art than, say, 3-4 years ago. I am now using LinkedIn and Telegram to promote my work and, soon, also China’s WeChat.

By early 2024, there are 80+ videos on my Vimeo Channel – my art and that of others. Welcome to take a look.

The “Other Art” blog & the blog about my own work

This is where I write about the work of other artists, not my own – Basel, Venice, China, France, Britain – wherever I happen to see something inspiring. I am not an art critic but an art recommender, more positive that way. Sharing is caring…

The latest is Glimpses of London Arts in January 2024: Snaptexts & snapshots – from Tate Britain and Modern, The National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Academy.

In 2023, I published two articles with lots of photos from the Basel art events – “Impressions from Basel art events 2023” and “Three at Photo Basel 2023 – and a little more.”

What I write about my own works is still here. And I continue to post interesting stuff on “GlobalArt” on Flipboard.

“Worldmoires” about my life in peace and art

From time to time, I write new stuff in my online book “Goodbye Peace – Worldmoires Into A Peaceful Future”. It’s not me-moires but world-moires about how I have engaged in international affairs and also how my life and peace research work relates to my lifelong passion for contemporary art and my art photographics works today. If you’re interested, you may follow and comment on it while it is in the making and get an e-mail when I publish a new chapter.

Works in progress

Here are some images that I work with these days. They hang on my studio walls right now. They may or may not end up in the Themes or Shops above or as elements in a collage. Click on the right side arrow, and when you are through continue underneath:

My real art home

Established in May 2009, Oberg PhotoGraphics is about experimental art photography based on my photographics concept. Here are some reflections on those years.

It’s a real art home, not just a shop (yes, it is fine if you buy one of my works!). I care about giving you background stories, ideas and some explanations.

We always see more in an image if we know something about its context and the artist who created it.

The homepage can be seen as a catalogue raisonné.

Appreciations

An author and photographer:

I went through more of your photos this morning. They are incredibly striking, and give an amazing sense of place, and a feeling of being there in the moment. I’ve never seen anything quite like them. I cannot account for why that is, but something about them translates very freely between them and I.”

European theologist, expert in the Middle East and inter-cultural dialogue:

Dear Jan, 
discovering you as an artist 
not a surprise 
since great humans 
like for instance
einstein, planck, 
heisenberg, dürr, 
c.f. von weizsäcker, 
were also musicians, 
erwin schrödinger 
wrote poetry. 

A leading intellectual in the Balkans:

Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Idiot: “Beauty will save the world.” And Jan Oberg will help…

Art connoisseur living in Venice:

“With the ongoing growth of your activities, I find an enormous esteem and liking for all I see and read on your website. It is an honour to know you. Exploring your site did me a world of good.”

US peace & culture working in Paris:

“You cannot imagine how much I would love to come to the opening of your exhibition. I so much enjoyed looking through all the images you have already provided. It is so rich and interesting. And your humanistic and artistic eye behind the camera comes through loud and clear!”

American professor emeritus:

“Wishing you great success from far away with the exhibition. It is so impressive that you do this, and maintain this artistic side of your vibrant sensibility.”

Many thanks. I am humbled, happy and honoured.

Now…

Link up and follow Oberg PhotoGraphics here – note, now also TikTok

And on WeChat too:

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I shall always be grateful for your comments, ideas, and any questions you may have.
Write them below. Thanks!

Enjoy!