Hycklarna (2026)

In the exhibition Begränsa dig. Inneslut mig. Luleå konsthall.

March 19, 2024. The daffodils are blooming. I’ve discovered a technique that keeps the flowers in their blooming state. It glistens under the shiny covering. A few days later, it loses its color, wilts, but without shrinking.

Flowers, George Bataille is so entertaining when he writes about them. He hates them passionately – or perhaps admires them? They are hypocritical about their origins. Because for a brief moment they try to escape their true nature. Striving, from the muddy ground, up toward the heavenly ideal concept.

Quickly they fall again. Flowers do not age honestly, he writes; they shrivel up and look ridiculous atop the stem that carried them up toward the clouds.* He is right. Nowhere among the processes in the boxes is the contrast so stark between the initially fragrant, beautiful rose and the stinking, slimy flower remnant.

*Bataille, Georges, Visions of Excess Selected Writings.