© Cecilia Lundqvist. Video still from "Absolutely Normal

It's common around this time of the year that many new artistic talents are introduced in the form of student exhibitions at a handful of galleries, institutions and at the art schools themselves, of course. Many years of education have come to an end and the students' expectations are great after the structured, collective fellowship of art school.

Index decided that this season's last exhibition would present artistic talents who graduated from their respective art schools last year, 1999. We were curious about what had happened next. How had it gone? What was it like working by themselves, without the need to pass or the help of teachers or automatic access to helpful partners, lectures and everything else that is part of an education.

After having gone through material from all the art schools' graduate exhibitions 1999, we contacted a number of artists. We asked them to tell us what they were working with, as artists, since completing their education. Some hadn't done anything at all and thought it was wonderful not having to produce anything on demand. Some had been using all their time trying to support themselves and didn't have any time left to work as artists.

In the end we selected three artists, whose common denominator could possibly be a patient and somewhat slow method of working. Elin Kristine Kromann (Vanlöse, Denmark), graduated from Malmö Art School, Patric Larsson (Gothenburg) from Valand Art School and Cecilia Lundqvist (Stockholm) from Konstfack.

Accompanying the exhibition is a document containing interviews with the three artists.

Welcome!

Karina Ericsson Wärn