The Shaman
"Swedish Art 1900’s, Part 3, Sweden’s public art association"
By Mårten Castenfors
Despite the same expressive surface, the artistry of Kent Karlsson is considerably more muted and restrained while it at the same time is engaged in dealing with the vital questions of life. Karlsson began his career in the 1980s as a painter, but during the 1990s he changed into working with absurd and thought provoking objects that seemed to emanate from a zone between dream and wakefulness. With the same freedom as Beuys and Hägg shows towards the material, Karlsson often recurred to different vanitas symbols, for instance, "Time devours the room" from 1992, the grandfather clock with plastic skulls and broken mirror glass, car lights and black synthetic mould, or "Solips" from 1993 where shoes cast in concrete are gathered round a solitary couple carrying tall, lit candles. Karlsson's work often conjures sacred thoughtfulness when they at the same time possess a silent but effective critique of the state of affair; a world in chaos. In a poetic manner Karlsson visualizes a sort of awakening humanism all the while the rain of soap bubbles, his music-playing art chapel, plays the last screeching notes of existence.
"Swedish Art 1900’s, Part 3, Sweden’s public art association"
By Mårten Castenfors
Despite the same expressive surface, the artistry of Kent Karlsson is considerably more muted and restrained while it at the same time is engaged in dealing with the vital questions of life. Karlsson began his career in the 1980s as a painter, but during the 1990s he changed into working with absurd and thought provoking objects that seemed to emanate from a zone between dream and wakefulness. With the same freedom as Beuys and Hägg shows towards the material, Karlsson often recurred to different vanitas symbols, for instance, "Time devours the room" from 1992, the grandfather clock with plastic skulls and broken mirror glass, car lights and black synthetic mould, or "Solips" from 1993 where shoes cast in concrete are gathered round a solitary couple carrying tall, lit candles. Karlsson's work often conjures sacred thoughtfulness when they at the same time possess a silent but effective critique of the state of affair; a world in chaos. In a poetic manner Karlsson visualizes a sort of awakening humanism all the while the rain of soap bubbles, his music-playing art chapel, plays the last screeching notes of existence.
title: Vanitas Memory
medium: accordion, soap bubbles, seat, engine
year: 1994
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medium: accordion, soap bubbles, seat, engine
year: 1994