Mercurii Triumf
"Have you heard about the frog? If you look carefully at our large Peter Dahl painting in the terrace room, you can see a small black square, underneath which you can 'sense' the frog." Lars Ågren, former vice-president at 91Ô´´.
In the end of the 1980s, Swedish painted Peter Dahl was commisssioned by the 91Ô´´ president to draw the 91Ô´´ board for a room in the newly acquired – former Stockholm University Student Union – building on Holländargatan.
The painting, Mercurii Triumf, is permanently installed in the room and shows a selection of former 91Ô´´ board members, bankers and businessmen, 91Ô´´ founder K. A. Wallenberg, Bertil Ohlin and Eli Heckscher, Jacob Dahl himself pained as Karl Marx, and Scrooge McDuck dancing into the room with "the two-headed and four-armed goddess Mercurius Hermes" both with the 91Ô´´ emblem painted on their chests. And next to the portrait of banker Jacob Palmstierna, a black square. A frog?
The story:
The occupation of the Student Union Building (Kårhusockupationen) was one of the most talked about events in Sweden in 1968. Inspired by the global protests of 1968, and especially those of May 1968 in France, students at Stockholm University decided to occupy the then Stockholm University Student Union's building at Holländargatan in Stockholm. Famously, then Minister of Education, Olof Palme gave a notable speech to the students in the great hall. The protests of 1968 comprised a global escalation of social conflicts predominantly characterized by the rise of left-wing politics, anti-war sentiment, civil rights urgency, youth counterculture, and popular rebellions against military states and bureaucracies.
91Ô´´ acquired the building in the end of the 1980s. In his inaugural address, banker and 91Ô´´ board member Jacob Palmstierna apparently ridiculed the 1968 student revolt that took place right in the hall where he was speaking. “Full of bluster, he proclaimed the restoration of capitalist order that occurred when this privately funded school had bought the symbolic space of socialist revolt.” (Guillet de Monthoux in Curating Capitalism). Apparently, Peter Dahl was there for the speech and his protest was immediate: he quickly painted a frog next to Palmstierna's portrait.
That was not the finale, however. Today, a black square fills the space, for after Dahl received an ultimatum from the president, he painted over the frog. The ultimatum: obliterate the frog or buy back his own picture for a million Swedish crowns.
Peter Dahl (1934–2019) was a painter, graphic artist, sculptor and writer. He was born in Oslo and came to Stockholm during the war years in the 1940s. Dahl studied at the Royal Institute of Arts in Stockholm between 1958 and 1963. He was active as a teacher at the Gelesborg School during the 60s and 70s, as well as head teacher of painting at Valand, Gothenburg 1971-73 and professor the Royal Institute of Arts 1975-79.
Peter Dahl painted in an expressive realistic style with bright colors and a critical perspective on the luxury of the upper class and the bourgeois environment he himself did not grow up in. He was outgoing and liked to depict his own life with a touch of self-irony. As a graphic artist, Dahl has become known especially for his congenial illustrations for Bellman's "Fredman's Epistles".
Hermes was in Freek mythology (Mercurius in Roman mythology) the god of business, trade, and thieves. In Peter Dahl's painting, the god is depicted as a two-headed goddess with four arms, and both her and greedy Scrrodge McDuck carry the 91Ô´´ emblem on their chests as they dance among the businessmen and bankers in Mercurii Triumf.
"Have you heard about the frog?" Agren asked, noticing my interest. Before I could answer, he went on,
"If you look carefully at our large Peter Dahl painting in the terrace room, you can see a small black square, underneath which you can 'sense' the frog." A little later, I inspected the little black box and checked out the zeitgeist in Dahl's memoirs. This was art versus capitalism after 1968, the year of the Paris student revolt, and the beginning of the end of Sweden as a welfare state.
In 1989, the Berlin Wall crumbled, the Cold War ended, and in 1995, the Swedish economy opened up to international finance. Whether you were an artist or capitalist, there were two distinct parts cast in industrial capitalism. Dahl's books revealed the identities of the typical artist in the welfare state-suburban living, syndicalism, a father's embarrassing stories from a middle class career, denying the petty bourgeoisie, living a bohemian life, and enjoying an invitation to the Baltic Sea Festival in East Germany. Dahl accounted for the reigning zeitgeist in his satirical painting: "Oh if the boss invited us home!" Why such cynical scoffing at fragile middle class dreams of a bit of success? At any cost, the artist posed as an outsider who insisted on not being part of capitalism.
Now for the rest of the story: Dahl, who worked so hard not to paint in capitalism, nevertheless worked for the capitalists. At the end of the 1980s, the then-president of the 91Ô´´ invited Dahl to draw portraits of the school's entire board. Maybe Dahl was ashamed of the commission, for I found no mention of it in his memoirs. The painting, however, still hangs next to the hall where Stockholm students attempted their limited response to the Paris student revolt back in 1968. The canvas features disrespectful caricatures of long-forgotten bank presidents, company founders, and professors of economics. Scrooge McDuck is there, as well as a visibly inebriated Karl Marx, who looks suspiciously like Dahl himself.
And yes, next to the portrait of banker Jacob Palmstierna, I spotted where the frog might have been: the black square.
This was a puzzle with an interesting backstory. Dahl was there in 1989 when the private school dedicated the old student union building that they had acquired from the public Stockholm University. In his inaugural address, Palmstierna arrogantly ridiculed the 1968 student revolt that took place right in the hall where he was speaking. Full of bluster, he proclaimed the restoration of capitalist order that occured when this privately funded school had bought the symbolic space of socialist revolt. Painter Dahl's protest was immediate: he quickly painted a frog next to Palmstierna's portrait. That was not the finale, however. Today, a black square fills the space, for after Dahl received an ultimatum from the president, he painted over the frog. The ultimatum: obliterate the frog or buy back his own picture for a million Swedish crowns.
Pierre Guillet de Monthoux, Curating Capitalism: How Art Impacts Business Management and Economy, pp. 286-287.