SweVin 9: Russia, Branding & Fails

When the gallery actively bans selfie-sticks: you know you know you are in the right place.

As you may or may not know, I am a sucker for an art gallery; I may often avidly dislike contemporary art but that doesn't stop me liking them. Today we visited Moderna Museet, a gallery & museum that fills roughly 80% of the island that contain it. The name translates to Modern Museum or Museum of the Modern, so of course it contained a good amount of modern art.

Here's my problem, I do not dislike any art just because of when or where it was created, but I have a problem if your art is a drawing of a dick coming out of a woman's eye, in an illustration style that could only be described as halfway between 'I didn't learn how to illustrate & I drew it with my feet for a greater connection'. That, by definition is boring, contemporary, shite.

But wait Vincent, if you truly liked art you'd know it's all about expression, concept and it's meaning. Yeah that's great, but a bag that inflates in random intervals connected to a CRT monitor playing some kind of abstract feedback pattern, tells me nothing more than you're art was noticed from your notoriety rather than any actual talent.

Who knew Franz Ferdinand were famous Russian Photographers, eh?

Any how, the gallery was only filled with about 20% of this 'modern shite' and the rest was a great mix of well curated art; ranging from a large collection of Russian Constructivism to an impressive room full of Matisse pieces. 

With it being completely free, I think British galleries could learn a lot from Moderna Museet; it was well curated, available in 3 different languages and had a gift shop that was actually worth buying items from. But most importantly, it had really, really strong branding.

I know Tate has a great branding system, but it is the exception. Moderna operates a branding system that reflects it's space fantastically. It's lead and heading font is both highly adaptable and really quite beautiful. The branding lent it's hand both from colourful, type lead advertising to slotting directly into a displaying exhibition—both with ease.

Going directly to the posters. How predictable, how fantastic.

I won't keep on about the branding too much, because other than going looking at type, I actually spent a day doing things today. We went to Djurgården in hopes of attending a student exhibition at Lilyvalchs gallery, which wasn't open. We then went to the Aquarium, which was both small and lovely; though we fired though it in less than an hour; we still had a fantastic lunch there.

From there we caught a ferry, over to the island that hosts Moderna Museet. Moderna hosts (quite lucky for me) a great collection of Russian art, which hosts dreams of a Communist utopia.

I got side tracked there—after our lovely visit we had little plans and little ideas fro what we'd do next. We wondered for a little while, casually arguing with each other in the middle of a Viking Market that we had fumbled into. Actually, there is little that is stranger than arguing in front of a man dressed in full viking gear, smithing metal craft items, in the centre of Stockholm's most central parks.

Fantastic branding example #1

Quarrel over, we had decided to drop the argument and go on the hunt for a craft shop Gaby had found the other day. But with quite a bit of hopeless searching, we either went to the wrong place, or it closed before we could even figure out where we were supposed to be.

We then did the average grown up things; food shopping, walking and eating.
The fun really ended when we stopped doing actual fun, not everyday things; so I won't let you into any more. We're of to Hornstull tomorrow, which went really well last weekend, so we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

Fantastic branding example #2

Free entry signs, are the best kind of signs. Especially when they have nice colour palettes.