Greger Ulf Nilson, Photography as a starting point

He collects prizes and awards at international level, both in his professional field – advertising and communication – and in what is first and foremost a passion, the presentation of photography in exhibitions and, above all, books. As he freely admits, books are at the heart of his thinking. Greger Ulf Nilson describes himself as a “book junkie”, who must have more than 6,000 volumes in his library and who has designed and drawn more than 150 titles, mainly on photography, but also on art. As an art director, graphic artist, designer and gallery owner, he has always put his knowledge and talent at the service of artists, whose intentions he never betrays. It’s all about finding the right form. At the crossroads of his multiple activities, the spectacular Under/Exposed exhibition in 1998 in the Stockholm metro, which brought together the work of 211 photographers from all over the world, is characteristic of his approach.

For each photographer – from stars like Sophie Calle and Robert Frank to the very young – there were four or five 4×3 advertising panels displaying a photograph with no author’s name, no title, no date and no caption. A large supplement to the free daily Métro brought together all the images in the form of a vignette and, with a print run of one million copies, served as a catalogue. While the operation was spectacular, carried out to the millimeter and with a real desire to share in a bold and generous way, it shows how, for Greger Ulf Nilson, while it is a question of form, it is first and foremost a question of producing meaning. Without ever taking the place of the artists, and in order to make them accessible and intelligible.

Christian Caujolle, Curator