The students’ art treasure becomes visible to everyone

AF-borgen is full of paintings that only companies that rent rooms in the building get to see. Now, the committee that defends the society’s art collection against the wear of time, as well as drunkards, want to make the art accessible to everyone.

Grand, important paintings that few students ever get to see hang in secret rooms on the second floor and underneath AF-borgen. For hundreds of years, the art committee of the Academic Society have preserved and handled the society’s extensive art collection.

When the collection was established, the committee bought new art and received donations. Nowadays, most of the money is used to take care of the existing collection.

“There are constantly paintings in need of new frames, or some other kind of restoration. Buying new art when we don’t even have the time to take care of the art we already have seems unwise”, says Olof Larsson, chairman of the art committee.

The society own around 400 works of art which, apart from in a securely locked archive, hang in various places in the building. Unfortunately, the common student rarely gets to see the paintings that hang on places like the second floor.

“It’s a shame. Showing the paintings would be great, but at the same time it’s very complicated.”

Some of the paintings are simply too big to be moved, and the rowdy student life can also be a problem when the rooms in AF-borgen are used for parties.

“Paintings have been ruined, sometimes even on purpose, at balls and things like that. We want to show the art, but in many places it’s impossible to hang things that aren’t behind glass.”

Olof Larsson’s hope is now that the students are going to be able to study the art online. Soon, the new website of the committee will be up. There, the students will be able to view the more difficult-to-find pieces, without the risk of some tipsy person spilling wine on anything worse than their keyboard. The works of art will be supplemented by descriptive texts in something like a digital guided exhibition. There are also plans of exhibiting a sample in a showcase at Café Athen. 

“Information about this collection really has been very bad, which is a shame, because in a way it’s the students’ own collection”, says Olof Larsson.

Text: Tor Gasslander

Photo: Andreas Lindbäck

Translation: Matilda Lundborg