"THIS WAS COOL." COME TO THE OPENING PARTY ON APRIL 29
Location: Falsterbo Photo Art Museum , Falsterbo Photo Art Museum 30, Falsterbo. Only 395 SEK.Note: Limited seating.
Time: Wednesday, April 29, 2026, 6:00–9:00 p.m.
The ticket includes
• Admission to the exhibition.
• A classic limited-edition fold-out poster.
• Artist Talk with the OKEJ photographers and legendary OKEJ journalist Jörgen Holmstedt.
• A glass of Cava or a non-alcoholic beverage and two canapés. Bistro Perspektiv will also be serving tapas and drinks throughout the evening and will remain open until 11 p.m.
• Lili and Susie will perform live around 8 p.m., singing “O mama,” “Bara du och jag,” “What’s the colour of love,” and their other timeless hits.
Contest: The best '80s outfit wins a prize during the evening
About the exhibition “This Was OK”
Welcome to a whole new kind of exhibition. “Det här var OKEJ” is a photo gallery featuring vibrant colors, flair, humor, and crowd-pleasing entertainment.
At a time when no other media outlets took the biggest pop and rock stars seriously, the magazines *Poster* and *OKEJ* produced elaborate photo shoots featuring the Sex Pistols, AC/DC, Kylie Minogue, Kent, ABBA, Samantha Fox, Pugh Rogefeldt, Noice, Iron Maiden, Depeche Mode, W.A.S.P., and dozens of other legends from 1974 to 2006.
Hans Hatwig, Göran Lindsjöö, and Ulf Magnusson were world-class photographers. Their photos were razor-sharp, well-composed, and meticulously lit, often featuring a theme and fun props.
A selection from their exclusive archive: Alice Cooper as Saint Lucia, Van Halen singer David Lee Roth swimming in Lake Flaten outside Stockholm, a crayfish party with Mötley Crüe on an archipelago boat, Lena Philipsson as a fairy-tale princess, the otherwise peaceful Peter LeMarc aiming a firearm, Ozzy Osbourne as a mad scientist, and the last photo of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton before he was killed in a bus crash in Småland just 12 hours later.
The photos, often of scantily clad people, were meant to feel a bit taboo and borderline indecent. They were designed to be eye-catching, stir up emotions, and even cause a bit of a stir. Hans Hatwig, who was also the editor-in-chief of these magazines, was the first in the Swedish media to realize that sex sells. Nowadays, almost all media outlets operate the same way.
OKEJ’s photos inspired readers to start playing music themselves. Ola Salo, the lead singer of The Ark, has said: “When we formed The Ark, we took a picture of ourselves and put an OKEJ logo in one corner of it. Then we hung the picture in the rehearsal room and thought that maybe someday we could be on an OKEJ poster.”
Here is what Aftonbladet music critic Markus Larsson wrote when *The Book About OKEJ – The Biggest Pop Magazine of the '80s* was released in 2010: “There is no better Swedish historical record of the 1980s and its most popular TV shows, artists, and hairstyles than OKEJ.”
OKEJ and Poster compiled a unique collection of images, from which we have selected 75 iconic photos for the exhibition “This Was OKEJ.”
A warm welcome from Falsterbo Photo Art Museum the entire OKEJ team!
