THE ART BYSTANDER

Presents ‘Scales of Intimacy’

Intimacy changes our sense of proportion. A few words can occupy an entire inner world, while a painting larger than the body can draw us into a private encounter.

The presentation’s starting point is Gaston Bachelard’s “intimate immensity”: the imagination’s capacity, explored in The Poetics of Space, to discover vastness within a seemingly bounded experience.

Travey Emin’s Because Its You places us before a personal address whose circumstances remain unknown, yet whose feeling we may recognise. Christopher Wool’s Prankster unsettles our desire to understand quickly and appear certain, introducing humour as both a means of creating closeness and a cover for vulnerability.

Ludvig Helin’s Macroscopic Scale gives these questions a bodily dimension, asking us to negotiate distance between an expansive canvas and its details. Alongside it, Alfred Manessier’s La Tache Rouge suggests how colour can carry feeling without requiring a narrative.

Intimacy, mischief and scale meet in the freedom to be affected before deciding what something means. Living with an artwork allows it to become familiar while retaining its capacity to embarrass, console or surprise us.

By Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar

On display in the reception and the lobby during autumn/winter 2026/2027

For more information please contact:
Lovisa Malmström
lovisa.malmstrom@thediplomatcollection.com
Tel: +46 70 713 61 22