At the top of a corner of the exhibition hall at Moderna Museet in Stockholm hangs Jan Håfström's contour-cut whale.
She symbolizes, in a way, what you pursue - the whale in the novel "Moby-Dick". Captain Ahab pursued her. He never gave up, but he also sacrificed his life for it, and that's kind of how you feel when you're about 90.
Jan Håfström, a cartoonist, painter and sculptor, has exhibited at the Venice Biennale four times and is one of the most prominent figures in Swedish contemporary art. He is now one of the few remaining members of his generation.
You get lonely. My peers died 20 to 30 years ago, but Dick Bengtsson and Ola Billgren never really die. And as an artist, you're used to spending time with the dead. The conversation lasts through the centuries.
Lace
Håfström, wearing blue overalls and a string around his waist, is installing his works. The new exhibition is called “A Lost World” and is presented as an archaeological excavation of his own past.
A wall-mounted box with white wings refers both to the careful arrangement of jars in his grandmother's basement and to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"There are dead people lying there in the compartments," he explains.
A triptych titled “Loneliness”, “Painting” and “Disease” greets visitors. The image of illness, made of what looks like strips of rag rug, represents the artist's intestines.
It was quite critical for a while. The doctors wanted to perform an ostomy, but suddenly a Syrian doctor appeared and said no. He removed the polyps, and I was cured. Unbelievable. He came all the way from Syria and saved my life.
In a trance
Older poets can have a more stripped-down language - Jan Håfström thinks he has developed a better artistic ear. He is also more productive. He used to work in a planned way; now he works more in a trance.
I've started sleeping poorly. What happened lingers in me like a silent film; it affects me badly, and the only way to find balance is to be in the studio and work while processing those feelings.
I can't put away difficult memories. I can't just wallow in them and think they'll go away; I have to look at them, touch them.
For a long time, he had a plank with a quote from Rilke: "You must change your life."
If you can achieve something like that, it's simply a good day. It might be the answer to why we put on exhibitions at all.
Born: 1937 in Stockholm.
Occupation: Artist, educated at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts from 1963 to 1968.
Most famous work: The sculpture "Who is Mr. Walker?" depicts a fleeing version of the Phantom in civilian clothes. One version stands near Stockholm Central Station, another at a roundabout in Östersund, and a third in Kumla City Park.
"He's my dad in a way. He was constantly running away from his responsibilities toward his wife and children, but that didn't stop us from having a good relationship," says Jan Håfström.
Current: His exhibition "A Lost World" is at Moderna Museet in Stockholm from 17 October 2026 to 14 March 2027.