The Secret
National Public Art Council Sweden yearbook 2007
Text by Karin Widegård
(trans. Peter Birch)
Kent Karlsson's studio in Eriksberg, Gothenburg, is located in what was once the shipyard carpentry workshop. The high ceiling gives a cathedral-like feeling. Several meters up in the air hangs a kayak that he has made. It is built of fine-meshed wirenetting, its hull open like a sieve. In this exciting room Kent Karlsson experimented and developed the artwork that stands outside the entrance to the art museum in Eskilstuna. The sculpture consists of approximately one centimetre thick slates of glass that are glued to each other with an adhesive that hardens with UV light. The interior of the sculpture features a female form, a hare with unusually large ears, a crescent moon and some round balls. Maybe moonrocks or something, says Kent. The observer is lead to believe that the objects have been placed within the glass. Yet there is no hare in there. The eyes are deceived. The forms are shaped by emptiness. How has this been done? The figures were firstly drawn on paper and then converted to files on the computer. This was then connected to a mill that cut out the holes in the sheets of glass. The empty spaces in their respective forms came into being when the sheets of glass were placed upon each other. It is a confounding thought that what we see consists of emptiness. We would rather believe that the body is solid and that emptiness, space, is what surrounds us. Kent Karlsson has also challenged our habitual ways of seeing things in other works. He starts with something that appears to be well known but he adds something unexpected. In a bog outside Vännäs he has, for example, placed an eight metres high glass church, its mirrored walls reflect the surroundings.
National Public Art Council Sweden yearbook 2007
Text by Karin Widegård
(trans. Peter Birch)
Kent Karlsson's studio in Eriksberg, Gothenburg, is located in what was once the shipyard carpentry workshop. The high ceiling gives a cathedral-like feeling. Several meters up in the air hangs a kayak that he has made. It is built of fine-meshed wirenetting, its hull open like a sieve. In this exciting room Kent Karlsson experimented and developed the artwork that stands outside the entrance to the art museum in Eskilstuna. The sculpture consists of approximately one centimetre thick slates of glass that are glued to each other with an adhesive that hardens with UV light. The interior of the sculpture features a female form, a hare with unusually large ears, a crescent moon and some round balls. Maybe moonrocks or something, says Kent. The observer is lead to believe that the objects have been placed within the glass. Yet there is no hare in there. The eyes are deceived. The forms are shaped by emptiness. How has this been done? The figures were firstly drawn on paper and then converted to files on the computer. This was then connected to a mill that cut out the holes in the sheets of glass. The empty spaces in their respective forms came into being when the sheets of glass were placed upon each other. It is a confounding thought that what we see consists of emptiness. We would rather believe that the body is solid and that emptiness, space, is what surrounds us. Kent Karlsson has also challenged our habitual ways of seeing things in other works. He starts with something that appears to be well known but he adds something unexpected. In a bog outside Vännäs he has, for example, placed an eight metres high glass church, its mirrored walls reflect the surroundings.
title: The Secret
location: Eskilstuna Konstmuseum Munktellstaden, Sweden
medium: flat glass glued
size: 450 x 120 x 120 cm.
year: 2007
moreover: cavities of the glass sign forms
location: Eskilstuna Konstmuseum Munktellstaden, Sweden
medium: flat glass glued
size: 450 x 120 x 120 cm.
year: 2007
moreover: cavities of the glass sign forms
title: The Secret
location: Eskilstuna Konstmuseum Munktellstaden, Sweden
medium: flat glass glued
size: 450 x 120 x 120 cm.
year: 2007
moreover: cavities of the glass sign forms
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location: Eskilstuna Konstmuseum Munktellstaden, Sweden
medium: flat glass glued
size: 450 x 120 x 120 cm.
year: 2007
moreover: cavities of the glass sign forms