Falkman's international museum-exhibition coming to Europe

Johan Falkman is an internationally recognized artist, working as a portrait painter, sculptor, photographer, and writer.He was educated at the Pratt Institute in New York.He has held several major museum exhibitions, including at Kulturen and the Skissernas Museum in Lund, Sweden, as well as the San Ildefonso Museum in Mexico City, Museo Espacio in Aguascalientes, the National Museum of American Diplomacy in Washington D.C., and at the new MUNI Museum in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.He has portrayed several prominent individuals, including Pope Francis, Secretary James A. Baker III, Ernest Hemingway, Eugenio Lopez, founder and owner of Museo Jumex, the Dramaten actor Johan Rabaeus as Martin Luther, and the Bergman actor Börje Ahlstedt, as well as the writer Nawal El Saadawi.His breakthrough came with "The Face of Medicine," an exhibition featuring one hundred portraits of doctors in Lund and Malmö in 2006. The exhibition was also shown at the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City between 2011-2012, when Paloma Porraz was the museum's director.

His latest exhibition has a biblical theme and was created with one hundred models from Zulu villages in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and in Sweden, with models from Malmö City Theatre and Malmö Opera as well as young people with immigrant backgrounds, between the years 2017-2021. It has been shown at five museums in Mexico between 2022 - 2025: Museo de la Cancilleria, Museo Espacio, Museo de la Universidad de Guanajuato, Caja Real in San Luis Potosi, and MUNI, Museo Universitario UASLP. The exhibition is planned to be shown in Scandinavia and the rest of Europe as well as South Africa. The exhibition's title is: "From the Sphere of Nothingness." The exhibition was made in collaboration with Star for Life and entrepreneur Dan Olofsson.

In 2018, Falkman's group portrait "Twelve Roles Seeking a Director" premiered at Malmö Opera. It depicts the star director Ronny Danielsson and his artists. For the inauguration, Danielsson created a gala performance with artists Sarah Dawn Finer, Dan Ekborg, Lindy Larsson, Lill Lindfors, Maria Lundqvist, Marianne Mörck, Sanna Nielsen, Charlotte Perrelli, Johan Rabaeus, Ola Salo, Rikard Wolff, and Oliver Palm. The portrait was donated by director Anders Jarlskog, Euro Finans, and Finansfabriken.Falkman's latest public sculpture depicts Saint Maurice, the first black saint in Christianity. The bust was made in an edition of three. The first was placed in Magdeburg Cathedral in September 2024, and the second version in Domkyrkoforum, adjacent to Lund Cathedral.

Several TV features and documentaries have been made about Johan Falkman for Sveriges Television and TV4, as well as Mexican TV UNAM and Channel 22, most recently Guadalupe Alonso Coratella's film "Desde la esfera del vacío, Johan Falkman" for TV UNAM. The film premiered at Museo Soumaya, Mexico City, in connection with the unveiling of Rafael Tovar Lopez-Portillo's portrait, who is the current rector of the University of the Cloister of Sor Juana. The portrait was unveiled by the museum director Alfonso Miranda. The head of TV UNAM, Ivan Trujillo Bolio, was interviewed in connection with this since TV UNAM has been following Falkman since 2009. Falkman created two murals for the Port of Trelleborg for its anniversary. The murals were inspired by muralist Diego Rivera's "History of Mexico" in the Presidential Palace, as well as by Siqueiros and O'Gorman. The murals received international attention and were highlighted as important examples of the influence of Mexican muralism on international artists. When the Mexican Revolution celebrated 200 years, the paintings were included in the anniversary book "Scenes of Independence and the Revolution in Mexican Muralism," written by Leticia Lopez Orozco. Lopez Orozco later became Falkman's agent in Latin America, and the exhibition "Otherness in the Mirror: Expressionist Portraits by Johan Falkman/Portraits beyond Portraiture" was shown at the Centro Cultural Metropolitano in Quito, Ecuador, as well as at the Museo Antropológico y de Arte Contemporáneo in Guayaquil.The exhibition catalog also featured contributions from the legendary American art critic Robert C. Morgan (1943-2024) with the text that gave the exhibition its title: "Ecstasy in Painting: Portraits Beyond Portraiture."

Falkman's new art project involves Sweden, South Africa, and Mexico.Falkman is currently active in Malmö, Sweden, where he has a studio at Regementsgatan 14, as well as in Roma Norte, Mexico City, where Falkman has a studio on Guanajuato and Jalapa.