Erik Olof Wiklund
(b. 1989, Alfta, Sweden)
Världens minsta Dalahäst, 2025
[The World’s Smallest Dala Horse]
Platinum on aluminium, display glass, concrete and photo wallpaper
In an investigation and reconsideration of traditions and ingrained ideas, Erik Olof Wiklund moves freely between materials such as oil, bronze, wood, blue clay and even gingerbread dough. He questions individual and collective patterns with playfulness and precision, allowing new perspectives to emerge in the borderland between the popular and the personal.
Wiklund’s visual world brings together the traditional and the contemporary, and familiar symbols are given new meanings. The cultural heritage surrounding the artist’s native region has been a recurring theme in his art over the years. The exhibition includes Världens minsta Dalahäst – a 7-micrometre-long sculpture, carved in platinum using an ion beam in a scanning electron microscope. The sculpture is presented in a glass display case on a podium, flanked by a photograph taken with a microscope.
By making this icon of Swedish folk art so small that it can barely be seen with the naked eye, the work raises questions about tradition. Is it its physical form that defines the tradition, or the narrative and the value we ascribe to it? By minimising the size of the Dala horse, the artist has paradoxically strengthened its importance.
Latest update: 2025-06-17