1996

I was invited by Johan Lindeberg to New York to meet up with gallery people. Johan was living there to start up 12 Diesel shops in the states. I had my new brochure The wonderful world of Christian Beijer printed. So I went all over NY to talk to people in galleries. It was fun and scary, as I saw so many good artists exhibit everywhere, but I also saw some mediocre so I fell that I could fit in the middle somewhere maybe. One gallery in SOHO was really interested and said -WOW! It´s so European! about my style, which was interesting as in Sweden I often heard by the people that didn´t like my stuff that it was so American.

This was the pop art gallery that had Roy Lichtensteins and Andy Warhols first exhibition, and they came with an offer. They wanted me to move to NY, get a studio/ apartment close to the gallery so they could visit and see what way I was going, maybe point out the direction and so on, and I could have an exhibition in 1 - 2 years. I immediately understood that this would mean leave my family and two sons, get a huge loan, get a small and very expensive studio in SOHO Manhattan. Made me think that my family and my freedom was far more important. So after a few weeks of thinking I just said -Fuck it.

Ah, this story leads me to another. 1997 ...