Thomas Dellert Dellacroix
| Thomas Dellert Dellacroix | |
|---|---|
 Thomas Dellert in Les Miserables 1990 | |
| Born |
12 July 1953 Stockholm, Sweden |
| Nationality | Swedish |
| Education | Calle Flygare Teaterskola, Royal Swedish Opera, Royal Dramatic Theatre, Confidencen Royal Court Theatre, The Rocky Horror Picture Show |
| Known for | Conceptual art, Painting, Collage, Installation art, Photography, Short film, Ready mades, Music |
| Movement | Contemporary art, pop art, punk rock, crooner, anti-war movement |
| Website | www.thomasdellert.com |
Thomas Dellert-Bergh also known as Thomas Dellacroix and Tommy Dollar (born 12 July 1953) is a Swedish multimedia artist, painter, actor, singer, songwriter, poet, film maker, director, photographer, theater costume designer, and set designer.[1]
As a contemporary visual artist he has had over 100 International exhibitions during the last 30 years. He is represented in collections like The Absolut Vodka Collection, The Heinz collection and in several museums, like the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.[2]
Death and fame is a central theme in Dellert's works, and he uses irony and humor mixed with horror as one of his main tools. His work has a strong humanistic approach,and he works with strong images to show the horrors of war and genocide.[3][4][5]
He is a pacifist that works with different media to warn us about totalitarian regimes and intolerance. In his art, he also fights against all kinds of fanatical and fundamentalist thinking.[6]
On Stage
As an Actor
Dellert's stage debut (as Thotte Dellert) was in Lars Jacob's cabaret show AlexCab at Stockholm's fashionable Alexandra's nightclub in 1975, where Svenska Dagbladet singled out one of Dellert's songs (a Swedish version of Angel Eyes) as the show's best number.[7] That show with Dellert in it was also successful in Gothenburg.[8] He subsequently has worked with both Ingmar Bergman and Cameron Mackintosh. He has played both Strindberg and Shakespeare, and in the short movie Black Bird, he played the devilish Charles Manson. Dellert has participated in many Cabarets as both performer and presenter, and have also been involved in many Night Club acts, and the first ever Drag Show in Stockholm Sweden in 1973.
Punk rocker
He got in touch with the punk movement in 1975, while living in London. In 1977, Tommy Dollar got close to the members of the Sex Pistols, whom he later took care of when they came to Stockholm.[9] Then, he had already opened his Punk Gallery "Suicide" in the old town, Stockholm, with a mix of art galleries for punk expressions and a store for hand-made designed arty punk clothes by Thomas Dellert. At the same time, he started one of the first punk bands in Stockholm under the name of "Tommy Dollar & The Resistance", a short-lasting affair. He was portrayed in the cult movie PUNK a Kick in the as by the director and playwright Stig Larsson.[10]
He later hung out with the Sex Pistols in Paris, France, and one night was almost killed accidentally by Sid Vicious, the former bass player of the band.
As a Jazz crooner
As a vintage "Crooner" he has as well performed in legendary venues like La Bilboquet, Chez Maxims in Paris, France as in the trendy New York club Nell's, and the legendary Cabaret Club, and the Torture Garden (fetish club), all placed in London.
As a musical artist
He has played and sung principal parts in several large musical productions like (as Grantaire,[11] Babatabois, and Javert) (Link to Video of Les Miserable), Miss Saigon (the Engineer), Me and My Girl (Gerald Bollingbroke), and Two for the seesaw. In the cult musical The Rocky Horror Show he was involved twice. First as a costume designer in 1981, and later as the director and narrator at the China Theatre Stockholm in 1983.
As a songwriter
He has written and recorded as well a series of songs spanning from punk rock to vintage jazz as musicals, disco, house, rockabilly, and electro swing. Together with his partner and wife Agnieszka Dellert-Dellfina he created the duo "Dejavu". That duo made live performance and recordings of the French Rock Poet Serge Gainsbourg's songs in English adoptations by Thomas Dellert.
Contemporary fine art
Photography
As an art photographer, he has had as well over 50 international exhibits in museums and galleries, as many international art photography magazine covers, and extensive reportage.[12]
Photo Scandinavia did the biggest single reportage in the history of the magazine since its start, when on 11 pages, they showed 48 pictures of Dellacroix & Dellfina.
"Self-portraits have practically existed since the beginning of art, but to do "self-portraits of others" it seems to be something that Dellacroix and Dellfina are quite alone with on the artistic scene. Contemporary, it feels both visually and meaningfully wise. It is an art form on the borderline between reality and illusion."[13] Jan Almlöf, editor in chief of PHOTO (Foto) Scandinavia
Pop art
Art critic and historian Jonas Stampe writes in the book Reality and Illusion in 2006 that "Thomas Dellert-Dellacroix got to know Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring in New York in the 1980's. Before that in 1976 he had become friend with Andy Warhol who gave him the nickname "Tommy Dollar" because of his fascination for everything of American value at the time. The artistic exchange was mutual. Warhol got inspired by Thomas Dellert's camouflage silk screens and later did his own series of camouflage prints."[14]
And came to the conclusion that "Jean Michel Basquiat let himself be inspired by Thomas' way of stretching his canvases with ropes and in wood frames that crossed each other in the corners that Thomas used for his exhibit in New York in 1982 at the Lucky Strike Gallery in collaboration with Rainer Laakso. (...)
To discover an artist like Thomas Dellert-Dellacroix is not only exciting, it is surprising. Indeed, it is unbelievable that this Swedish artist has not yet been more appreciated in his homeland. The Swedish black hole is frightening. When he himself writes about his fascination for "the gap between fame and misfortune", I immediately think about his own artistry, but naturally also about so many other artists that did not get discovered. To pass by an artist like Dellert-Dellacroix is difficult. It is absolutely clear that he is one of the most interesting Swedish artist we have today. Probably he will become one of the more well known Swedish artist on the international art scene. Not only because his works touch us, or are artistically expressive or because they talk to us about our epoch and future. But mostly because they shine of that courage that carries art and life forward."[15]
The American art critic John Orr wrote in the Miami chronicle 1986 after the exhibition at the James Baker Gallery in West Palm Beach USA: "This young man who is all truth and every fiber a passionate artist, I took him to see the Rauschenberg exhibition at Helander Gallery, for this is one of his mentors. I shall review this exhibition soon, but upon my first glance his pictures and collages seemed to contain a very gentle beauty that made "my rebel" Dellert appear as a Titan by comparison. Perhaps age is creeping upon me too quickly. I handed this meteor over to Bruce Helander and as I drove away I felt spent and weary, incapable and sterile. The little energy that remained within me was drained with humble admiration for an almost unknown artist whose place in the history of art is already reserved and waiting for him."[16]
Collaborations
Rainer Laakso and Bruno Ehrs
Rainer Laakso and Bruno Ehrs are two of Dellert's oldest childhood friends that became the first to collaborate with him under the banner of XYZ. As such they created a series of hand printed silk screens in the Andy Warhol technic, made between 1980-82. These silk screens depicting Warhol were presented to him in his Factory in New York in 1980.
Balthazar Silveira
Thomas Dellert has also collaborated with artist Balthazar Silveira on a series of big art works depicting the Berlin Wall and the history of Berlin.
Agnieszka Dellert-Dellfina
In 2001 Dellert met Agnieszka that resulted in a passionate artistic, and personal relationship (see at Dellfina&Dellacroix), that propelled them into the contemporary art scene. With Dellfina at his side Thomas found a new language, a fruitful dialogue, and an exciting journey that followed, resulting in a long series of artworks spanning from photography, painting, 55 short movies, live performance, music and poetry, ready-mades and installations. The synonyms Dell-fina and Dell-acroix spun out of their family name Dellert, and the artistic logo D&D was created to represent their universe. After they got divorced Dellfina embarked on her solo career. Today, you find her Website at Dellfina.[17][18][19]
Selected Exhibitions 1981-2011
Around 100 exhibitions took place around the globe from 1981-2011 in e.g. New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, Paris, London, Berlin, Frankfurt, Barcelona, Stockholm…
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Personal life
Thomas Dellert was born in Stockholm. His mother Kjerstin Dellert[21] was at the time a famous opera singer and is today the director of the Royal Court Theatre “Confidencen” in Ulriksdal Sweden.
His father Carl Olof Bergh was a businessman, who was the director of the Dellert family company selling office supplies like pens and carbon paper, and created by his grandfather Oscar Dellert in 1922. Through Carl Olof Bergh, and his wife Carina, Thomas has a half sister Christina Bergh -Engström and a half brother Andreas Bergh.
His stepfather Nils Åke Häggbom is a former premier ballet dancer and director of the Royal Swedish Ballet. Today, he runs the Royal Court Theatre "Confidencen" together with Kjerstin Dellert.
Thomas Dellert grew up in a theatrical atmosphere and was exposed at a young age to world celebrities and the theatrical lifestyle. He would spend afternoons after school watching his mother in rehearsals at the Royal Opera. His mother has been a leading Opera star for over 60 years, singing with the most celebrated singers of her generations like Jussi Björling, Nicola Gedda and Birgit Nilsson. Kjerstin Dellert is still performing at the age of 86, recently in the role of Maria Callas in "Master class " and in 2012 in the role of Miss Julie in the play by the same name by August Strindberg. Thomas Dellert as a child would spend weekends with his grandmother Elisabeth Dellert-Askell and it was she who brought him to the Modern Museum over and over again to look at modern art. This made a strong impression on him, and he soon fell in love with pop artists like Rauschenberg, and Warhol, and surrealists like Marcel Duchamp, artists that would contribute to his later art and lifestyle.
Thomas also learned a lot by studying the Russian Avant-garde with artists like Alexander Rodchenco, and later his new heroes Joseph Beuys and Anselm Kiefer.
Thomas Dellert-Dellacroix's own works of art have been exhibited in both modern art museums and photo museums and in well known galleries around the world, and International art fairs like Miami, Basel, and Le Grand Palais in Paris.
"In my art I do not try to explore the spectra of artistic colors, nor the density between different materials or surfaces, and I find no interest in playing with perspective, or form. My passion lies in a total different artistic expression- in my fascination for the playfulness within trends and "isms", and the gap between fame and misfortune. Although my art often takes a recognizable form, it never strives to copy - to the contrary. After the first impression when coming across any of my works, you will find a playful and intellectual dialogue with different artists and art movements of the past. By using a well-known language of expression I bridge the familiar of the past with the unknown of the future." Thomas Dellert-Dellacroix
At age 10 he would make his first modern art paintings and collage, already then depicting war and suffering.
Being born only eight years after the end of WW2 Thomas was living in a post-war atmosphere full of stories and war documentaries that he watched on one of the first TV sets in Sweden. This would also become a great influence for his art form he today calls "Documentarism". Having heard many stories from his grandmother who had lived through two world wars, and his grandfather who participated in the Berlin Olympics in 1936, he became interested in history and storytelling. Thomas was also at an early age exposed to the first documentaries from the liberation of concentration camps and death camps like Dachau and Auschwitz.
Later that would become one of the main themes in his art and created a need to tell that story to future generations. He has worked on his "Shoah" art trying to tell the story of the holocaust for over 30 years. He was chosen to exhibit at the first Holocaust conference held at the Stockholm Culture house and in 2008. Therefore, he had Auschwitz Birkenau closed down for one day to be able to make his short movie "Silent white hell".
Thomas Dellert has been married twice, first to Tatiana Dellert-Diem and the second time to Agnieszka Dellert. He has two sons - Bengt Oscar Lazer Emanuel (Creative director, Video artist, Light designer, Occult researcher) and August Neon Montgomery (Photographer, Writer) - with Rosie Björkman–Ulfsdotter.
Today Dellert lives and works in Berlin.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thomas Dellert Dellacroix. |
References
- ↑ "Famous Swedes' Exhibit Draws Swedish Royalty". Palm Beach Daily News. March 30, 1986. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
- ↑ Strouk, Marcel (2007). X-Posed. Paris: Galerie Rive Gauche. ISBN 978-2-35532-014-9.
- ↑ Zafman, Deborah (2007). is art dead? conceptual terrorism and sabotage art. Paris: galerie deborah zafman. p. 80.
- ↑ Mann, James (2004). Peace Signs: The Anti-War Movement Illustrated. Edition Olms. p. 208. ISBN 978-8181580092.
- ↑ S., L. (April 2003). "Dóna una oportunitat a la pau". Diari De Terrassa (10th April 2003).
- ↑ Kuschner, Tony (2005). The design of dissent. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Rockport Publishers, Inc. p. 241. ISBN 1-59253-117-2.
- ↑ Re: Lisbeth Borger-Bendegard (Sept. 14 1975 p. 20) Svenska Dagbladet's section I vimlet
- ↑ Pseud. Lasse (Nov. 21 1975) Göteborgs-Tidningen (Gothenburg) p 16
- ↑ "Student Kåren Stockholm Sweden July 28, 1977". Retrieved July 5, 2012.
- ↑ "Stig Larsson - PUNK a Kick in the as, docu". Retrieved July 5, 2012.
- ↑ "Swedish Cast "Les Misérables" 1990". Retrieved July 5, 2012.
- ↑ Qudiz, Barbara (Winter 2003). "Thomas Dellacroix and Agnieszka Dellfina". Eyemazing (1): Cover, 40–51. ISSN 1572-3119.
- ↑ Almlöf, Jan (2006). Illusion. Art Photography 2001-06. Göteborg: Gallery Fahlnaes. ISBN 2-35237-006-X.
- ↑ Stampe, Jonas (2006). Thomas (Dellert) Dellacroix. Retrospective 1979-2001. Göteborg: Gallery Fajlnaes. p. 3. ISBN 2-35237-006-X.
- ↑ Stampe, Jonas (2006). Thomas (Dellert) Dellacroix. Retrospective 1979-2001. Göteborg: Gallery Fajlnaes. p. 4. ISBN 2-35237-006-X.
- ↑ Orr, John (2006). Thomas (Dellert) Dellacroix. Retrospective 1979-2001. Göteborg: Gallery Fajlnaes. p. 24. ISBN 2-35237-006-X.
- ↑ Herzyk, Eugenia (September 2005). "Dellacroix & Dellfina". foto (09): 56–65. ISSN 0324-8453.
- ↑ Photoicon (June 2008). "Camera Obscura". Photoicon (06): 24–29.
- ↑ Carlson, Ulf (2010). APART by Agnieszka Dellfina & Thomas Dellacroix. Malmö: Gallery Final. ISBN 978-91-978325-0-2.
- ↑ "A working class hero is something to be". Verket Museum. 2008. Retrieved June 26, 2012.
- ↑ IMDB. "Kjerstin Dellert". IMDB. Retrieved June 26, 2012.