ny bok av LENA MATTSSON : in the eye of the beholder

 

Lena Mattsson

 

In the Eye of the Beholder

Hardcover, 26 pp, 21x28 cm
 
Moderna Muséet. Malmö 2014

 

 

John Peter Nilsson : Moderna Muséet/Malmö
 

 Lena Mattsson : In the Eye of the Beholder…

…is the title for a video triptych by Lena Mattsson that portrays legendary publisher amd writer Bo Cavefors.

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The concept of the “the eye of the beholder” refers to the how beauty is subjective. But the term can also be used when someone who is sentenced to death is offered a blindfold before the noose is tightened.

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There lies thus both beauty and death in the eyes of the beholder, something that Lena Mattsson’s piece is very much about. The piece reminds me of the 80^th century philosopher Thomas de Quincey’s aestethic  point of view: a work of art depicting a murder shall not tell of the murder but rather be the murder in itself.

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 She (Lena Mattsson) does not regard Bo Cavefors as a victim… Lena Mattsson’s focus lies elsewhere. She claims she is examining the rock’n’roll myth: “All three video pieces are synchronized to a surreal rock’n’roll triptych that envelops the viewer and both visualizes and illuminates the myth.”

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Bo Cavefors is a nomadic free-thinker who is impossible to pin down and easily pigeonhole. Without entering into specifies , he has never  shied away from extreme opinions found in both left- and right-wing politics, both personally and professionally. When, on top of that, he throws in taboo questions regarding sexuality and religion. Cavefors is easily perceived  as a controversial and politically incorrect intellectual

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The installation becomes a place where anything can happen – where anything is allowed to happen. Just like the place Bo Cavefors himself created with his wayward publishing house. A place not taken for granted but one which must be conquered and reconquered time and again.

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John Peter Nilsson (born 1957) is, since 2012, director of Moderna Museet Malmö.
 

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Lena Mattsson : In the Eye of the Beholder

 

In the Eye of the Beholder is a sculptural video triptych that examines the rock’n’roll myth.

All three video pieces are synchronized to a surreal rock’n’roll triptych that envelops the viewer and both visualizes and illuminates the myth about the man and the human being Bo Cavefors; writer, director and last but not least legendary publisher of literary works by Ezra Pound, William S Burroughs, Friedrich Nietzsche, Salvador Dalí and many others. One politically controversial example is the publishing of texts written by the Red Army Faction (RAF), which resulted in litigations and much dislike. The publishing house filed for bankruptcy in 1982. Bo Cavefors tells us personally, in this piece, about his life and way of living.

In one of the films the role of the beholder is played by Ola Åstrand. Ola, the curator of the exhibition I Want to Hold Your Hand at Borås Museum of Modern Art, is an interesting and diverse artist, curator and musician. The third party, who contributes with newly composed music, is Conny C-A Malmqvist, musician, philosopher and art critic.

Right now you are probably thinking ”What has Cavefors got to do with the world of rock’n’roll?”

Many people near and dear to me has been involved in both the rock’n’roll scene and the literary scene, and to me these both worlds are strongly connected. When I got invited to I Want To Hold Your Hand, the first person that came to mind and that I could not get out of my head was Bo Cavefors

Bo Cavefors is to me, in spite of his claim of being totally unmusical and belonging to another cultural field, a person who, as we say in Skåne, ”rockar fett” (totally rocks). What is rock’n’roll really, who can be rock’n’roll, and how can the expression be different from the commonly conveyed?

Welcome to an installation about the man, myth and human being Bo Cavefors. Sex, books, drugs and rock’n roll!

Lena Mattsson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lena Mattsson

http://www.lenamattsson.com

http://lenamattsson.blogspot.com/