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Born in 1969 in Karlstad (Sweden).
Lives and works between Östra Ämtervik, Paris and Stockholm.
Artist Website : www.jhengstrom.com
Gallery : www.galerievu.com
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JH Engström was born in 1969. He grew up in Sweden but spent much time in Paris and elsewhere in France during his childhood and adolescence. He was assistant to photographer Mario Testino in 1991 and then, in 1993, to Anders Petersen, with whom he maintains an obvious relationship and photographic complicity. In 1997, the year he completed his studies at the Photography and Film Department of Gothenburg University, he published his first book, Shelter/Härbärge (Bokförlaget DN, 1997). In 1998, he moved to Brooklyn, New York to work on his project Trying to Dance, a project that he finished on returning to live in his native region of Värmland in 2001. The book Trying to Dance (Journal, 2004) was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2005. His work is regularly shown in numerous exhibitions both in Sweden and abroad and his photos are exhibited in many collections in Europe and the United States. Other books published by JH Engström are Haunts (Steidl, 2006), CDG/JHE (Steidl, 2008) and From Back Home (together with Anders Petersen and Max Strom, 2009), The Residence (2009) and Wells (Steidl, 2010).
Extract from an interview between Remi and JH Coignet Engström from Le Monde (27 November 2011):
Here, JH Engström evokes life as the raw material of creation, proximity or distance as an essential issue in photography. He still speaks of his interest in failure as a profoundly human phenomenon, and takes another look at the importance of books in shaping his photographic intentions. (...)
There are photographers that keep people at a distance and others who go towards them, including physically - William Klein, for example. I have the impression that you belong to the latter category?
Yes, this question really interests me. What does being close mean? Or being remote? As I wrote on the back cover of "Trying to Dance", "it is easier to keep your distance". Observing from afar is a way of staying safe. In getting closer, you show yourself. But if you decide to be close to your subject, you reveal yourself as a photographer, just as the people you photograph reveal themselves. Perhaps photography asks what it means to be present or absent, near or far. All photography travels between this proximity and distance, whether you're taking the photograph or looking at pictures. (...)
Is life a material?
Yes, you must be the material. This is then expressed differently from one author to another, in a more or less "objective" or "subjective" manner. At the same time, how can you really define objectivity or subjectivity? It is not always about my life, but that is where I draw everything from.
In this period of "Trying to Dance" and "Haunts", what does the will to represent male nudity as feminine correspond to?
You are right to note masculine and feminine, because I think it's the same thing. Vulnerability is identical in men and women. It is not related to sex. For me, it was not about how a man sees women; rather, it was to show human vulnerability without the erotic or heterosexual aspect.
Your photography is voluntarily "dirty", with blurry shots, visible flash and violent framing effects. What do you seek with this form?
I try to break things. Maybe it helps people to see in a different way, it surprises them, it causes a reaction. At the same time, I think many of my photos are very beautiful.
Yes, of course, it does not preclude beauty, but you have a form that is deliberately clashing.
Yes. Perhaps it is because I see things that way. Outside the frame, if we can say that. (...) Failures interest me.
Why?
Because it is very human. I think most often we fail. All of us. Even though people often claim to have succeeded, in fact they have failed. It is human, and that's why it interests me. Perfection does not exist in the human record. We always try, but nobody really succeeds. The title "Trying to Dance" also stems from that.
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