The Task of Mourning – A Reflection on Mourning and Melancholia through the work of Tomas Lundgren

Summary The Swedish artist Tomas Lundgren’s series The Task of Mourning (2019) consists of nearly-but-not-quite perfect reproductions of photographs from the first half of the twentieth century. Through painting inexact copies of photographic remnants from this time in European history, the series can be seen as a slow contemplation of this historical period. In this article, I discuss theories of mourning – as well as of the associated notion of melancholia – and explore ways in which these notions can be understood as processes that take place in the physical body as much as in the mind. In the same way, I look at the process of painting and the work of art as bodily acts. With Lundgren’s series as access points, the article engages with both mourning and visuality as embodied and affective processes – in which collective memory and personal experience co-exist within the same dimension. From this perspective, I discuss what takes place in the series as both a working-through, and a holding on to, ideas and affective associations related to this collective history.