SUPER CELLS
Lars Bohman Gallery, Stockholm
11.04—27.05.1992

 

Super cells are among the strongest weather phenomena, which exist in the world. When a series of thunder storms connects, and reaches an altitude where the jet stream affects their circulation, the outcome can produce violent storms and in some cases even tornadoes. In the exhibition, Super Cells, at Lars Bohman Gallery in Stockholm, the title refers to different energy systems that connects in a cogwheel-like chain throughout the gallery.

In the first room, the sculpture Rescue Party is placed. It consists of six figures dressed in rescue suits with screen printed plants and flower. A kind of inverted camouflage, which covers a series of biotopes: from a cactus desert over a mangrove swamp to arctic tundra. The group forms a human landscape, as they stand casted in concrete like thrown in the water by gangsters. The saviors themselves placed in a tricky situation.

On the way into the second room, one passes through an automatic sluice made by thick plastic. It is similar to curtains that separate spaces in a slaughterhouse.

On the inside the presence of the protective sheet become imperative. There, on a small aluminum podium a white shiny rhino is placed. Out from perforated openings in its body, a thick moist steam is pumped out into the gallery space. The humidity is suffocating and the smell indicates that the space might require renovation afterward.

Due to audio effects, the content of the third room is revealed prior to one enters. The loud noise of crumbling porcelain is bouncing between the concrete walls. Even though the ongoing earthquake is contained inside an inflated incubator, the power threatens to spread out into the gallery. Round the transparent dome a couple of openings with plastic gloves inserted. One might think that it is possible to use it to arrest the escalating trauma. But there is no way to halt the rumble, and the difficulty of the human strive to tame forces of nature becomes clearly visible through the semipermeable skin that divides the catastrophe from the lukewarm gallery space.