PRESENTATION: Emily Sundblad-Crayfish Theater
Emily Sundblad makes works characterized by a push and pull between beauty and sophistication on one end and grit and rowdiness on the other. They are intentionally traditional in their subject matter, mostly confined to the classic genres of landscape, portrait, and still life. They seem tender and vulnerable, yet simultaneously brash and rough. Sometimes they feel unfinished or abandoned, and at other times excessively exuberant.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Hoffmann + Maler + Wallenberg Gallery Archive
Emily Sundblad’s exhibition “Crayfish Theater” unfolds in collaboration with Stockholm’s legendary restaurant Teatergrillen, which celebrates its eightieth anniversary in 2025. A cherished haunt of Ingmar Bergman and a long-standing companion to the nearby Royal Dramatic Theatre, Teatergrillen has long stood at the crossroads of Swedish culture, cuisine, and performance. By situating her work in this storied dining room—neither sterile white cube nor solemn museum—Sundblad avoids institutional gravitas. Instead, she anchors her paintings in lived tradition: in childhood memories of visiting this very restaurant, and in the cultural aura Teatergrillen has carried for generations of artists, actors, and writers. The result is not just an exhibition of paintings, but an immersive act of remembrance—part celebration, part ritual, part life itself. The exhibition presents eight paintings that contemplate Sweden’s beloved “kräftskiva” (crayfish party). This annual August festivity—cracking shells, aquavit toasts, and drinking songs—marks summer’s waning days with communal joy and ritual. In Sundblad’s hands, the crayfish becomes muse, memory, and emblem of fleeting time, turning tradition into both subject and stage. The crayfish party becomes both a literal and a metaphorical framework for the exhibition. Sundblad’s exploration delves into themes of tradition, collective memory, and the ephemeral nature of seasonal celebrations. By integrating these motifs, the show reflects not only on Swedish culinary culture, but also on the broader interplay between art, ritual, and social cohesion. The exhibition unfolds in three movements, like acts in a play. In the first, “Vampyr I (Embrace)” and “Vampyr II (Embrace)” present figures locked in embrace, perhaps shadows of Bergman’s “Fanny and Alexander” (1982) and “Persona” (1966)—two films where the boundaries between family, identity, and performance blur. Yet just as easily they might speak to other, more private dramas: the silent choreographies of intimacy, gestures charged with longing or estrangement, moments of closeness both tender and inscrutable, where affection blurs into enigma and the line between embrace and entanglement is never entirely clear. The second group turns toward the stage: “Pantalone, Isabella”, and “Pulcinella”—three variations on the fragile glass clowns that already populate Teatergrillen, part of its peculiar decor and half-forgotten charm. Sundblad reimagines these figures as echoes of the Italian commedia dell’arte. Each one carries a plume of pink feathers—an irreverent nod to the crayfish feast, and a playful wink at theater’s mingling of tragedy and comedy. In doing so, she transforms the restaurant itself into a collaborator, drawing its history and objects into the performance of the exhibition. The final act brims with exuberance: “Kräftvampyr I”, “Kräftvampyr II”, and “Kräftparadiset” —three canvases where crayfish drift into dream, guiding Sundblad’s figures through surreal landscapes of collage and memory. Half-myth, half-masque, these works unravel into a world where revelry becomes ritual, and ritual dissolves into vision.
Photo: Emily Sundblad, Kräftparadiset, 2025, Oil on canvas, 38 × 46 cm (15 × 18 in.), © Emily Sundblad, Courtesy the artist and Hoffmann + Maler + Wallenberg Gallery
Info: Teatergrillen, Nybrogatan 3, Stockholm, Sweeden, Duration: 20/8/-20/10/2055, Days & Hours: Mon-Tue 11:30-15:00 & 17:00-23:00, Wed-Thu 11:30-15:00 & 17:00-24:00, Fri 11:30-15:00 & 15:00-01:00 Sat 17:00-01:00, https://hoffmannmalerwallenberg.com/
