Maria Friberg’s photographic work Almost There #5 is installed in the Senior Executive Vice President’s Office at SSE. The image depicts a group of young men in business suits floating in a swimming pool. Suspended in water, neither rising nor sinking, they appear detached from gravity, purpose, and control.
The photograph’s painterly quality evokes Romantic and Symbolist traditions in art. It recalls 19th-century depictions of figures in water as metaphors for emotional and psychological states, most notably John Everett Millais’ Ophelia. Friberg’s figures, however, seem suspended in a different kind of uncertainty—between ambition and vulnerability, confidence and doubt, success and failure.
The suited male figure has long been a recurring subject in Maria Friberg’s artistic practice. Since the 1990s, she has explored questions of masculinity, power, and identity through carefully staged photographic and video works. Symbols associated with corporate and professional life often appear in unfamiliar or dreamlike environments.
Rather than reinforcing conventional ideas of authority, Friberg’s figures frequently appear reflective, uncertain, and emotionally exposed. In Almost There #5, the suit remains a symbol of professional identity, but that identity is literally adrift. The title suggests a state of anticipation: being “almost there,” while leaving the destination open to interpretation.
The men in my images are signs for men, trying to find their place in times of turmoil.
SSE holds four artworks by Maria Friberg in the permanent collection: Alongside Us #2 in room Estrid, Changed Positionin the northern staircase (the man sitting on a pile of shirts) and Somewhere else in the Board Room.
Through these works, Friberg contributes to broader conversations about identity, power, and representation, offering nuanced perspectives on masculinity and social roles.
Maria Friberg (born 1966 in Malmö, Sweden) is one of Sweden’s leading contemporary artists. She lives and works in Stockholm and Örbyhus and studied at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm between 1989 and 1995.
Working primarily with photography and video, Friberg’s work explores both personal and societal themes. Her images often examine isolation, vulnerability, and human relationships while reflecting broader social questions.
Friberg has held solo exhibitions nationally and internationally at institutions including Moderna Museet and Fotografiska in Stockholm, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum in California, Conner Contemporary Art in Washington, D.C., and Pi Artworks in London.
Her work is represented in numerous public collections, including Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Kiasma in Helsinki, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Denver Art Museum.
Maria Friberg
Almost There #5, 2000
Cibachrome mounted on glass
Edition of 6 + 2 AP
Exhibition copy (not for sale)
This display copy was produced for exhibition purposes and is not part of the numbered edition or the artist’s proofs.
Photo: Courtesy of the artist
