Leif Eriksson

He moved to Malmö in 1966 and became closely connected to the city's experimental art milieu. Galleri St. Petri in Lund, run by Jean Sellem and Marie Sjöberg, was an early and lasting influence, orienting him toward conceptual and Fluxus-adjacent practice. It was in the 1970s that Eriksson established himself firmly on the Swedish art scene, working with graphic editions -- etchings, lithographs, and screenprints -- in which appropriation and irony served as tools for analyzing the art market and the mechanisms of artistic authorship.

In 1976 he launched the project Commercialized Art Center Lund, Sweden, a conceptual framework through which he borrowed advertising language, copied famous artists' signatures, and sold the results as his own work. The same year he began a series of etchings that circulated widely in the Swedish conceptual milieu. One of the most discussed works of his career came in 1977, when he took a lithograph by the Malmö artist Max Walter Svanberg, inscribed critical text across it, and incorporated it into a series of his own. Svanberg sued for copyright infringement and the case reached the Supreme Court, which acquitted Eriksson. The ruling became a legal precedent that shaped the status of idea-based and appropriation art in Sweden.

In 1978 Eriksson founded Wedgepress and Cheese, a publishing house based in Bjärred outside Lund. Between 1978 and 2010 he published approximately 130 artists' books through the imprint, including work by Bengt Adler, Lars Vilks, and international artists connected to the mail art and Fluxus networks. He also built SAAB, the Swedish Archive of Artists' Books, an extensive collection of Swedish and international artists' books that was acquired by Ystads konstmuseum in the early 2000s.

Among his most recognized series is Han själv parafraserande Rauschenbergs verk Monogram, in which Eriksson produced monumental photographic self-portraits casting himself as the goat in Robert Rauschenberg's iconic combine. Photographs, studies, and related works from this series have appeared frequently at auction. Other recurring works include the Tre skilling banco stamp editions, the Hommage Sture Johannesson series from 1976, and various Dali-related lithograph and weather-paper works.

Eriksson is represented in Moderna Museet and other major Swedish institutions. His work has been shown at Malmö Konsthall and at Ystads konstmuseum, among other venues. At auction, his works are almost exclusively handled by Crafoord Auktioner in Lund, reflecting his deep ties to the Skane art milieu. Sold prices range from 300 to 6,000 EUR, with photographic editions and etching series reaching the higher end.