Exhibition text about Hedvig Bergman's solo exhibition 'Various White Eggshells And A Gun' at Galleri Skomakeriet (Feb 13 - Mar 15) in Stockholm, by C-print's Ashik Zaman. Photos by Corina Wahlin.
Photo: Corina Wahlin
She went to space with her first egg. Technically, looking at it, that one time in Tjörn, she did actually space out her giant-sized egg, you should know, I tell you. Think an egg seated in a sputnik-like cup and that’s how much she went down (up?!) direction space with t h a t one egg. I hear that egg even came about after a visit to the Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow, so space was up and down and round and round with that egg. Apropos of space, incidentally and as per mere spacey and trippy happenstance; Stepping on, stepping on. Left in night, aero tights and awe reads some favourite lines from the first couple of years of this millennium, courtesy of British electronic trio The Egg and their track The Wall. This is absolutely not about that though. At least not mumbo-jumbo planets-solarsystems-spaceships-in-galaxies-far-away-kind-of-a-matter-of space. No. But it is very much a spatial matter, if you get the difference? Space as something intangible, confined within walls, perhaps is more like it. The egg as a vessel (A carrier!), a room holding something in, is closer to the core of what your reading should be. Think of the egg as the most organic and life-inducing thing you could possibly think of; something that belongs in nature. Think then with a stretch of the imagination of the forceful transgression and intervention it is to put it as an object and spectacle inside a gallery room, and you are more than just a little close.
Bring then additionally dynamics and correlation into the equation, or to be mathematically precise; into the geometrics. The spatial dynamics of a small room finding itself inside a larger room. The further physical dynamics of one of these rooms being open, while the other is closed and bearing only a very ”conditional” point of entry. The delicate oval inside the solid cubicle. Or only half of that is actually correct. The ovoid inside the cube, to be factual. Semantics can be confusing, but then again, the egg is one big mystery of small wonder. But just to have said it once; let’s haul it out there as a disclaimer to safeguard the intellectual quality of this text; The capacity of the egg really is super vast, informing all sorts of metaphorical, political, art historical and factual ideas and references. It could here have been a question of the inherent dichotomy of inclusion/exclusion tied with the egg and some sort of analogy from there, towards the whitewalling in the art world (i.e. exclusion of “colour”). That might have been obvious from a certain stance. But the reality of this exhibition is even more obvious. To make a short story very long for once; there is a scene on view here. And you’ll know it almost at once, upon entering.
There is a gun pointing towards an egg. A suspension of a moment, in the course of a violent action, only yet to fully materialize. The moment before the crack and the wild disruption of a whole, into another state of being. That forced entry conditioning the release. To be or not to be, is not so much a question of rhethorics as it is of power and causal effect. Yes, amp it way up, the suspense and the drama! Burn down the disco, hang the blessed egg, only to liquidate it. Just bring the riot already!
A threat is a threat is a threat (Thanks Gertrude Stein). Its “beneficiary” is the room inside the egg. What makes up the space, held between near paper-thin walls. The potential of everything that could and might just be. Egg is life. Maybe that’s a very eggheaded thing to say, but that’s what it cracks down to, nevertheless. To the dominion of the egg as the image of all things living that can die and ultimately demise. Spot the train on its course and track towards an inevitable outcome. Choose. Choose low cholesterol. Choose rotting away at the end of it all. You have spawned to replace yourself. Spawning and choosing. What came first in the riddle? The chicken or the egg? You might think there is not a answer. False. There Is. Neither. And both.
Photo: Corina Wahlin
Photo: Corina Wahlin
Photo: Corina Wahlin
'Various White Eggshells And A Gun' opens February 13 At Galleri Skomakeriet (Högbergsgatan 24) and runs through March 15.
www.skomakeriet.se
www.hedvigbergman.com