HÄXKITTELN at Carlsberg Byens Galleri & Kunstsalon

Artists: Alfred Boman, Erik Hällman, Anders Johansson, Albin Looström, Gustav Wideberg

Exhibition title: HÄXKITTELN

Venue: Carlsberg Byens Galleri & Kunstsalon, Copenhagen, Denmark

Date: April 28 – May 28, 2017

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Carlsberg Byens Galleri & Kunstsalon

I could barely hear her over the crashing sounds caused by the quaking and shifting flesh, but I could tell that she sounded content. I was still shrinking and she couldn’t see me on her own nipple.
I looked up and saw the nipple rising over me. No. I wasn’t even on the nipple. I was merely a parasite on her areola. I continued shrinking as I watched the reddish-brown landscape expand around me.

Dwelling in a landscape of perpetual risk, where even the most benign-seeming substances, bread, water, a sofa – may harbor danger, the subject confronts not only a barrage of conflicting information and disinformation but a specter of a dangerous lack
of information that should guide the most commonplace – yet potentially deadly – actions.

Imperceptible drops of sweat now showed as small ponds to me. I marveled at this alien world I found myself in and looked up. In the far distance, barely even perceptible, hung the faces of my sisters. They were so large; they looked like watching moons hanging in
the sky. I heard dull rumbling and saw the hazy satellite that was my sister orbiting this new world open her mouth to speak. I could barely understand a single word she said.

You ever feel yourself getting dumber while looking in the mirror?

What about reality shattering fear? Or reality shattering confusion? Or reality shattering shame? Especially that last one.
One time I thought I had become The Earth, as in the planet. I felt uncomfortable, so I moved to a better position… causing horrible
earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. Millions of people died. And I just felt this cosmic shame. Like the whole universe was disappointed in me.

The wind, smelling like lager beer and some sort of energy drink caught me off guard and was so strong that it caused me to fall down the other side of the ridge I’d just climbed. I screamed in surprise and fear as I fell much further than I’d climbed. There
was a canyon on this side of the ridge of nipple flesh. I tumbled uncontrollably down the slope of flesh until I crashed into knee-deep liquid at the bottom.

While sleeping I have this bizarre dream that was so realistic I could have sworn I was awake. I was part of the crew on some bomber plane during WW2 in the pacific theatre, we’d crash-landed in the jungle at night and I’m hiding by myself in some bushes, lying
in the fetid mud in the dark waiting for a Japanese patrol to pass by.
All I can smell is my farts.
My farts smelled like a plane crash.
Mixture of broken machinery, jungle, and dead bodies.

Did my flatulence transport me into a previous life?

Text by Zoe Barcza