Whether creating an acid portrait of Sweden, representing the nightmarish world of business offices, tapping into the desolate uniformity of petrified, petit-bourgeois neighborhoods, examining the state of marginalized peoples in a nation praised for its system of social protection, or exploring the strangeness of a town on the cusp of the Arctic Circle, Lars Tunbjörk has totally forgotten his black and white beginnings.

All his energy is now devoted to the exploration of color, which he approaches in the style of 1970’s American photographers. This is his starting point for questioning the world, a series of interrogations more than observations, which he develops without pessimism but with an undeniable affliction softened by a biting humour. Over time, his approach has become radicalized and purified by being less and less anecdotal. Consequentially, his series no longer represents characters but rather the often absurd track of their presence and their actions.

His works belong to the collections of museums like the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in Stockholm, the Centre Pompidou and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Museet for Fotokunst in Denmark or the Fotomuseet in Norway.

His photographic series were combined in several books like, among others, Office published by the Journal Editions in 2002, Home, published by the Steidl Editions in 2003, Vinter, co-published with the Musée d’Art Moderne de Stockholm by the Steidl Editions in 2007, I Love Boras, published by the Steidl Editions in 2007, or Every Day, published by the Diaphane Editions in 2012, where the photographer explores the city of Beauvais in Picardie.

His most recent work is Going Mobile (2014), where he documents the populations in the United States who chose to live in mobile-homes.

He passed away in 2015.

[Agence VU]