Nordiska museet
Strindberg vs Youssef

Surreal Exploration — delving into August Strindberg’s ‘Inferno’ through artist Daniel Youssef.

At the Stiftelsen Nordiska museet, artist Daniel Youssef explores August Strindberg’s “Inferno” through scrambled words, hand sketches, and neon in his work, combined with Strindberg’s painting “The Wave”. Using Google Translate, he creates a labyrinth of scrambled words from translations between Swedish, English, and Arabic. The exhibition “Strindberg vs. Youssef” showcases Youssef’s neon portrait of Strindberg and “THE WAVE VIII” from 1901–1902. Simultaneously, Youssef explores the idea of living in the linguistic interstices, examining linguistic identity and what it means to live within and between multiple languages and cultures.

Vanessa Gandy, the curator whose passion for art shines through in every meticulously curated detail. The foreword is written by Dan Wolgers, the essay by Mustafa Can, and the texts about August Strindberg and Artur Hazelius are written by Cecilia Hammarlund. Art direction and design by Anders Nord Studio.

Original photograph by August Strindberg: from the collections of the Strindbergsmuseet.