Bo I. Cavefors – an exhibition curated by Leif Elggren and Kent Tankred.

Bo Cavefors is a legendary book publisher and writer. From 1959 until 1979 he ran the book publishing house Bo Cavefors in Lund, by several people regarded as the most important publishing houses in Sweden during the 20th century. During this period the company published no less than 850 titles. The publishing house made a priceless contribution by showing a wide range, openness and intellectual vigor with no counterpart in Swedish publishing history. They also introduced, presented and translated several writers, philosophers and phenomena from a great number of cultural fields. The publishing is characterized by a unique boldness and a determinedness that stimulated a lot of people and still does. For Swedish intellectuals its value can not be overrated.

However, in 1979 this work was ruined by the Swedish bureaucracy of the time, by a Swedish insecurity of how to value what is unique and special in this country: a hard blow for Swedish culture and a hard blow for Bo Cavefors. Following these events he moved to Italy. From there he ran Verlag Bo Cavefors that had it centre in Zurich, and where he published books in German as well as Swedish. For a time in the early 90s he became visible in Sweden again with the highly concentrated magazine Svarta Fanor (Black Flags), a powerful energizer in the Swedish cultural climate. Svarta Fanor have also continued (and continues) as a digital magazine. During the late 90s and the beginning of the second millennium he published around 200 titles in a series of books he calls Waist Coat Pocket Books. Books out of the ordinary, or Artists’ Books, that he himself compiles in his computer, prints, cuts, glues and publishes in small limited editions.

Now it’s a great pleasure for Färgfabriken to be able to show a selection from this series and give a comprehensive overview of Bo Cavefors’ work in the form of catalogues, magazines and articles – through this exhibition put together by the artists Leif Elggren and Kent Tankred. It runs parallel to the project ”The Expanded Book” in which professors and old and current students at the Swedish Royal University College of Art have worked with the book as phenomenon in contemporary time.