Doppelganger
National Public Art Council Sweden yearbook 2006
Text by: Johan Croneman
(trans. Peter Birch)
A man stands in the Roxen.
Kent Karlsson’s sculpture Doppelganger stands beneath me, a couple of hundred metres out in the lake Roxen. Constructed in iron and nine metres tall. Two identical profiles that perpendicularly intersect. The place required something gigantic, it became something fantastic. In an email I asked Kent Karlsson what this was and he gave me a few suggestions: "The man signalling an approaching pedestian crossing, a wandering apparition, Mr Walker, the white man with blue underpants who lives in Bengal? Because it is a man, isn't it? Hard to tell from such a distance", writes Kent Karlsson in his reply.
Bo Olls, artist, project manager and the driving force behind "Visions by the water" stands beside me, pointing and explaining. He tells me they were required to seek the assistance of the engineering corps to erect the four tonne Doppelganger. The place's military traditions are not to be denied. We discuss relationships, how does the Doppelganger relate to its surroundings? The lake, its lock and the forest landscape. It is not uncomplicated. In the past it was necessary to maintain a sense of proportion, now one speaks increasingly of large proportions, greater dimensions, even within art circles. How much can the surroundings absorb? Bo Olls and Kent Karlsson speak instead at length about how the place and the materials talk to each other. Perfect agreement was unnecessary, just a reasonable understanding. Correspondence. There is also something appropriate with the choice of materials, the iron and the perforations. The connections point to heavy industry, machines, workshops, milling, clatter, hard labour. The perforations may seem cosmetic in a sketchbook – optical effects. In reality the iron is "at home" in the area. To be sure, the academically inclined city of Linköping with its university is close by, but the iron – tough, even rough – evokes the region's industrial communities like Norrköping, Motala and the Göta Canal.
Bo Olls has engaged the only remaining fisherman on the Roxen to take us by boat out to the Doppelganger. From up here on the lock Kent Karlsson's creation appears quite small, thin and simple. He grows even as we approach the small harbour and getting closer, he literally towers above us. Doppelganger stands on a natural wavebreak, a small shoal, and Kent Karlsson writes that "it is all an attempt to create a significant navigation mark that also works from the shore". We bob along in the fishing boat. From the water, looking towards land, Doppelganger changes and constantly so. It twists slowly and beautifully, optical effects exposed, the sun, shadows, the light shining in and through the rather large punched holes, a new picture, another new picture and yet another picture. Out in the lake you understand why it appears as a lonesome silhouette as seen from land: to be able to move, on the water of course, to leave, perhaps if someone were to get too close. It is impossible to know where it is heading.
National Public Art Council Sweden yearbook 2006
Text by: Johan Croneman
(trans. Peter Birch)
A man stands in the Roxen.
Kent Karlsson’s sculpture Doppelganger stands beneath me, a couple of hundred metres out in the lake Roxen. Constructed in iron and nine metres tall. Two identical profiles that perpendicularly intersect. The place required something gigantic, it became something fantastic. In an email I asked Kent Karlsson what this was and he gave me a few suggestions: "The man signalling an approaching pedestian crossing, a wandering apparition, Mr Walker, the white man with blue underpants who lives in Bengal? Because it is a man, isn't it? Hard to tell from such a distance", writes Kent Karlsson in his reply.
Bo Olls, artist, project manager and the driving force behind "Visions by the water" stands beside me, pointing and explaining. He tells me they were required to seek the assistance of the engineering corps to erect the four tonne Doppelganger. The place's military traditions are not to be denied. We discuss relationships, how does the Doppelganger relate to its surroundings? The lake, its lock and the forest landscape. It is not uncomplicated. In the past it was necessary to maintain a sense of proportion, now one speaks increasingly of large proportions, greater dimensions, even within art circles. How much can the surroundings absorb? Bo Olls and Kent Karlsson speak instead at length about how the place and the materials talk to each other. Perfect agreement was unnecessary, just a reasonable understanding. Correspondence. There is also something appropriate with the choice of materials, the iron and the perforations. The connections point to heavy industry, machines, workshops, milling, clatter, hard labour. The perforations may seem cosmetic in a sketchbook – optical effects. In reality the iron is "at home" in the area. To be sure, the academically inclined city of Linköping with its university is close by, but the iron – tough, even rough – evokes the region's industrial communities like Norrköping, Motala and the Göta Canal.
Bo Olls has engaged the only remaining fisherman on the Roxen to take us by boat out to the Doppelganger. From up here on the lock Kent Karlsson's creation appears quite small, thin and simple. He grows even as we approach the small harbour and getting closer, he literally towers above us. Doppelganger stands on a natural wavebreak, a small shoal, and Kent Karlsson writes that "it is all an attempt to create a significant navigation mark that also works from the shore". We bob along in the fishing boat. From the water, looking towards land, Doppelganger changes and constantly so. It twists slowly and beautifully, optical effects exposed, the sun, shadows, the light shining in and through the rather large punched holes, a new picture, another new picture and yet another picture. Out in the lake you understand why it appears as a lonesome silhouette as seen from land: to be able to move, on the water of course, to leave, perhaps if someone were to get too close. It is impossible to know where it is heading.
title: Doppelganger
location: Bergs slussar, Götakanal, Linköping, Sweden
medium: perforated sheet steel
size: height 900 cm.
year: 2006
location: Bergs slussar, Götakanal, Linköping, Sweden
medium: perforated sheet steel
size: height 900 cm.
year: 2006
title: Doppelganger
location: Bergs slussar, Götakanal, Linköping, Sweden
medium: perforated sheet steel
size: height 900 cm.
year: 2006
location: Bergs slussar, Götakanal, Linköping, Sweden
medium: perforated sheet steel
size: height 900 cm.
year: 2006
title: Doppelganger
location: Bergs slussar, Götakanal, Linköping, Sweden
medium: perforated sheet steel
size: height 900 cm.
year: 2006
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location: Bergs slussar, Götakanal, Linköping, Sweden
medium: perforated sheet steel
size: height 900 cm.
year: 2006