AUTOMATA (phenomena) Often described as a moving mechanical device, made in imitation of a human being. However, many automata, such as those often encountered in haunted houses in theme parks and mechanical baby dolls, are designed to give the illusion to the casual observer that they are operating under their own power. The term is commonly associated with automated puppets that resemble moving humans or animals. Liveröd often returns to these type of phenomena with humour or fascination in lectures and works involving the uncanny.
Also see: Authenticity, CPR dummy, The dead on Mount Everest, Doppelganger, Fear, L’inconnue de la Seine, The lion of Gripsholm, Uncanny, Ventriloquism
ANIMISM (phenomena) Animism is a particular sensibility and way of relating to various beings in the world. It involves attributing sentience to other beings that may include persons, animals, plants, spirits, the environment, or even items of technology, such as cars, robots, or computers. All religions, from the simplest to the most complex, involve some form of animism. From Latin ’anima’, which means ‘breath’ or ‘soul’. The subject of animism has occupied Liveröd since childhood and plays an important part in many works. Also see: Automata, Uncanny, Hair, The lion of Gripsholm, Ventriloquism, Spirituality
ABSURDITY/ABSURDISM (idea, movement) An absurdity is a thing that is extremely unreasonable, so as to be foolish or not taken seriously. It originates from the Latin word absurdum meaning “out of tune”, and consequently irrational. The absurd refers to the conflict between the tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any. Accordingly, absurdism is a philosophical school of thought stating that the efforts of humanity to find inherent meaning will ultimately fail because the sheer amount of information as well as the vast realm of the unknown make certainty impossible.
Absurdist fiction is most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events that call into question the certainty of existential concepts such as truth or value. Common elements in absurdist fiction include satire, dark humour, inconsistency and the heckling of reason. Liveröd commonly uses absurdism as a tool in his works and texts.
Also see: Clusterfuck, Edward James, Entartete kunst / Degenerate art, Humour, Jorge Luis Borges, Ol’Dirty Bastard, Rube Goldberg Machine, Trickster / Joker
AD Reinhardt’s HOW TO LOOK SERIES (artwork) With titles such as How to Look at a Good Idea, How to Look at Creation, How to Look at Looking and How to Look at a Theme – the witty and overwhelming collages that Ad Reinhardt created in the 30s, 40s and 50s has been of great influence on Liveröd’s way of assembling ideas. The fact that Reinhardt was primarily a die-hard abstractionist painter adds to the rich complexity of these works.
These drawings and collages were mostly made for the daily newspaper PM between 1942 and 1947 and Reinhardt often used them, especially his How to Look at Art series, to advocate for abstraction and display a sharp wit about the art world. Both in subject matter and in influence, these works feel incredibly relevant today.
Also see: Biji, Lists, Composition, Collage, Collection, Humour, Paul Thek’s teaching notes
A HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE (book) Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marques’ book A Hundred Years of Solitude influenced young Liveröd immensely through its forceful, absurd and everyday surrealist form of storytelling. Traces of Marques’ magic realism can still be found in his work.
Also see: Jorge Luis Borges, Mexico, Escapism.
AIR LOOM (object) The Air loom is a fully detailed machine, described by the English patient James Tilly Matthews while committed, possibly on false grounds to the Bedlam Hospital in London in 1797. The Air Loom was a terrifying machine whose mesmeric rays and mysterious gases were brainwashing politicians and plunging Europe into revolution, terror, and war. The account of Matthews’ inner world is still cited as the first fully detailed case of what we now call paranoid schizophrenia, and in particular it is the first description of a “mind control machine”. The pioneer psychiatrist Victor Tausk wrote “On the origin of the influence machine in Schizophrenia” already in 1919. Today, it is quite a common belief that secretly operated devices is acting at a distance to control the subject’s mind and body. However, for everyone who has since experienced messages beamed at them by the CIA, MI5, Masonic lodges or UFOs, via dental fillings, mysterious implants, TV sets or surveillance satellites, James Tilly Matthews is patient zero. A Swedish example of an Air loom is author August Strindberg’s claims that his neighbour in his Paris apartment had a machine controlling the weather, which he used to terrorize Strindberg.
Also see: Outsider Art, Naive physics, Paredolia.
ALTAMONT FESTIVAL (event) Described as the moment when the fantasy of the sixties died, The Rolling Stones choice of staging a free festival at Altamont Festival race track in California in 1969 culminated in tragedy when the Hell’s Angels beat a young man to death in front of the stage. The festival was fuelled by hubris, greed, too many drugs and bad organisation and was destined for disaster. Altamont Festival embodies an American generations lost innocence and found despair, of growing up and coming down . It was the iconic photograph taken by Michael Maggia at the event that was the base of Liveröd’s book The Violence, and was also used in the work Altamont Festival wallpaper made specifically for a show at Raid Projects in Los Angeles, not far from the Altamont Festival site. The documentary by the Maysels brothers called Gimme Shelter, plays more like a war zone documentary than one of a music festival and Liveröd has used fragments of this for video loops such as Shelter.
Also see: Hubris, Drugs, Music, Desire
ALTERED STATES (states of mind) A state of mind that differs from the given, normal state of consciousness, typically one induced by drugs, hypnosis, or mental disorder. It describes induced changes in one’s mental state and is almost always a temporary condition. Liveröd has taken a large interest in altered states such as psychotic, ecstatic, sexually charged, fear-driven, drug induced and religious experience. An early art piece named after Elvis Presley’s song “All shook up” describes these states, but altered states can be found all through Liveröd’s work.
Also see: Drugs, Synesthesia, Stendhal syndrome, Stigmata, Lust, Fear
AMBIVALENCE (emotion) The doubt and conflicting feelings that ambivalence can raise in a person is something Liveröd has made frequent use of. How we relate to and understand the world around us when the positive and negative aspects of a subject are simultaneously present in the mind, is a state of heightened sensory perception. When speaking of his work, Liveröd says that it is not born out of conviction and progress but of doubt and questioning, of despair and wonder.
Also see: Desire, Transformation, Misunderstandings.
ANOMALY (phenomena) An anomaly is a departure from the common rule, type, arrangement, or form. It is something that does not fit in with the usual patterns. Whether it is an astronomical phenomena, a natural form or a social occurrence it is a form of irregularity. Liveröd has transferred the anomaly as an idea into a number of works. Also see: Weirdness, Wunderkammer, Friction.
ALCHEMY (idea, science, magic) Alchemy has frequently been a subject of interest for artists, often in the form of alchemical thinking (applying the ideas of magical transformation) or the practice whereby you transform an image or object’s meaning and importance to another, simply by combining it with other objects or placing it in other contexts. Alchemy is one of the best models for understanding the contemporary aversion to full logical or rational sense. Though alchemy played a significant role in the development of early modern science, it differs significantly from science as we understand it today, in its inclusion of principles and practices related to mythology, magic, religion, and spirituality.
Also see: Ritual, Transformation, Naïve physics, Mystiscism, Occult.
ARCHITECTURE (self-explanatory) One can (although with some difficulty) live an entire life without being influenced by arts or literature, but no-one can avoid the emotional complexity of architecture. Oppresion, comfort, happiness, frustration, hope, melancholy, hubris and emptiness – any emotion can be built into the walls, spaces and facades that surround us.
Liveröd has a huge interest in the borderlands of architecture, the areas we sometimes don’t even consider buildings and constructed space. Architecture is common in Liveröd’s drawings and sculptures and is a recurring theme in his articles and essays. The show Neverlands revisited at Rogalands Kunstsenter ,which he curated together with Lukas Feireiss focused of the borderland of fictional and factual architecture. Also see: Malm’s whale, Casa Malaparte, Winchester mystery house, Collyer brothers, Narcotecture, Interiors.
ART HISTORY (concept) The entire history of art is as long as the history of mankind and Liveröd regularly relates to an abundant variety of different details, aesthetics and stories from art history. Examples such as Greek theatre masks, the supremacist movement, medieval cathedral construction, Bauhaus textiles and Abyssinian architecture are but a few subjects that influence and inform Liveröd’s work. Also see: Modernism, Punk, Architecture, Style, Degas’ Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, Ad Reinhardt’s How to series, Monument.
ATHANASIUS KIRCHER (person) Also known as the last man who knew everything. With his enormous range of scholarly pursuits, the 17th century polymath Athanasius Kircher has been hailed as the last Renaissance man and “the master of hundred arts”. Among the subjects he studied we find Egyptology, geology, music theory, oriental studies, geology and medicine, astronomy and alchemy. Some of the aspects of his production which have interested Liveröd is Kircher’s wunderkammer collection, his involvement in the Voynich Manuscript, his musical theories and analysis of Babel’s tower. Not to mention how he lowered himself into the active volcano Etna, simply because he hadn’t seen a live volcano from the inside before. Also see: The Voynich Manuscript, Collectors, Alchemy, Code, Wunderkammer.
AUGUST NATTERER, MY EYES AT THE MOMENT OF THE APPARITIONS (person, art piece)
Outsider artist August Natterer’s drawing of his own eyes as he experienced his first visions, is an image Liveröd has been obsessed with for years. Liveröd has made a faithful reproduction of this drawing in his own piece My eyes at the moment of the apparitions. August Natterer himself explained what he saw on April fool’s day in 1907: “I saw a white spot in the clouds absolutely close – all the clouds paused – then the white spot departed and stood all the time like a board in the sky. On the same board or the screen or stage now images as quick as a flash followed each other, about 10,000 in half an hour… God himself occurred, the witch, who created the world – in between worldly visions: images of war, continents, memorials, castles, beautiful castles, just the glory of the world – but all of this to see in supernal images. They were at least twenty meters big, clear to observe, almost without colour like photographs… The images were epiphanies of the Last Judgment. Christ couldn’t fulfill the salvation because he was crucified early… God revealed them to me to accomplish the salvation.”
Also see: Thousand Yard Stare, Outsider art, Belief, Drawing, Altered states.
AUTHENTICITY (idea, method) Liveröd has used the question of authenticity extensively in his work. Sometimes he applies it when establishing the vague borderlands between fact and fiction, at other times he uses it to present provenance, hoaxes, camouflage or as things pretending to be what they are not. All of these are based on the approach to authenticity, where Liveröd is fascinated by things he cannot define ( for example the Wunderkammer definition). This has become a method and reccuring idea in his artworks and texts. To place the spectator or reader in a situation where she is not certain of what it actually is that she is experiencing is ultimately a way of making the person more aware of things. Uncertainty creates heightened awareness. This can also be seen in his recurring use of the uncanny, states between life and death and so forth. Also see: Uncanny, Wunderkammer, Hoax, Camouflage, Provenance, Things pretending to be sculpture
BAROQUE (movement, idea, method) A curator once called Liveröd’s work ”Dirty Baroque”; a term which stuck with him. Baroque is the 17th century style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, theater, and music. But it can also be translated as an idea of overwhelming the senses, of choosing not to take away but rather to add. Much like Punk, Liveröd uses Baroque more like a state of mind and method rather than a direct reference to the original Baroque. Also see: Hubris, Gesamtkunstwerk, Punk.
BELIEF (idea) Religion and art have always been related, since ritualistic cave painting through to the Catholic church use of art as a visual power tool. In recent years Liveröd suggests that art has in some ways taken over the role of belief from organised religion. Belief as a tool, as a state of mind, as a metaphor, as a projection, a psychosis or as a genuine emotion, are all variations which occupy important space in Liveröd’s work. Also the ambivalence, confusion and doubt of lost faith/belief is an interesting state to Liveröd. He has dealt with belief in many ways, possibly most regularly with what he calls charging the objects, wherein he as a result of his own loss of belief, ”fills” his artworks with a home-spun, constructed version of this power. His interest in relics, rituals, sub-culture and cults are of course closely related and possibly all included under the subject of belief.
Also see: Ritual, Cult, Sub-culture, Relic, Ambivalence.
BISPO DO ROSARIO (artist) Brazilian artist who, through an immense myriad of materials and objects (including embroidery, jackets, and flags) tried to explain the world to God, whom he thought – much like a parent of a teenager – did not understand his human creation anymore. Do Rosario spent the majority of his life in a mental institution but was given full freedom to express his creative sides.
Also see: Outsider art, Judith Scott, Textile, Crotchet, Rio De Janeiro, Altered States, Belief.
BIJI (concept) A genre in classical Chinese literature which roughly translates as “notebook”. A book of biji can contain anecdotes, quotations, random musings, philological speculations, literary criticism and indeed everything that the author deems worth recording. Also see: Mind map, collage.
BLACK (colour) For many years Liveröd worked mainly with black as the dominant colour, and in his drawing, black ink was the only colour used. In the past few years he has distanced himself from the colour as he noticed that the reading of the artworks became slightly one-dimensional, and that talking about difficult subjects became more interesting in vivid colours. However, black still remains a key ingredient in his drawing. Also see: White, Fear, Magenta.
BOOZE/ALCOHOL (drug/state of mind) Drinking culture, both consiously and unconsiously has an influence on Liveröd’s work. It features as a metaphor or as physical object in different works, including the sculptures Grand Mal and Flotsam and Jetsam where bottles are featured. The drawing Perückenbock was the first real artwork Liveröd created while drunk, before that no artworks were made while under the influence. Also see: Altered states, Disintegration, Drugs.
BROKEN/CRACKED (phenomena) Dent, damage, fragment, flaw, glitch – all the mistakes, accidents and distortions play an important role in Liveröd’s work and method. He uses the contradicting energies in an object and the potential of its intense past. Many of his works are intentionally damaged or in other ways distorted, in order to add a friction and a certain conscious randomness and unpredictability to the artwork. A cracked vase is usually more interesting than a flawless one, most obviously illustrated in Liveröd’s sculpture Cracked Urn. Also see: Awkward, Stain, Friction.
BONSAI (technique, ritual, object) The art of shaping Bonsai trees comes from Japan but has a devoted following across the world. The culture of the Bonsai is as rich, obsessive and complex as the world of art. However, the Bonsai includes nature being forced into becoming sculpture rather than using nature to create sculpture which is the case in art. It is an extremely slow use of force, where the ritual of creation becomes a test of patience between grower and tree. Liveröd has used Bonsai in several drawings and other 2D works. Also see: Ritual, Sculpture, Plant, Desire, Exotisism, Time.
BURNING/FIRE (method, material) A burnt object of any kind carries a strong impression of both physical and emotional intensity. Yves Klein’s use of a flame thrower on canvas has been of later interest to Liveröd but the most obvious use of burning was in the installation Idiot island at Ystad Museum of Art, where a large number of wooden logs included in the architectural environment were burned both for the potent smell and blackened appearance. Also see: Stain, Wood, Ephemeral, Disintegration.
CAMOUFLAGE (technique) Commonly associated with military and hunting contexts, but also well known in the natural world of flora and fauna. The idea of concealment by ”hiding in plain sight” has been used by Liveröd in the context of installations. Furthermore, the patterns, symbolism and colour schemes as well as the odd solutions in camouflage has been of interest to him. An example is his fascination with the English magician Jasper Maskelyne’s inventions of camouflage and use of stage magic in the desert war of Egypt in the 1940s. Also see: Jasper Maskelyne /Magic used in war, Hidden/Concealed, Code, Palimpsest, Dazzle.
CANNIBALISM (phenomena) Cannibalism in this context is meant both in its literal meaning as well as the idea of cultural cannibalism. Cannibalism can also represent the attempt to gain power over and from the other through consuming its body or ideas (mind). Cultural cannibalism can be viewed as the way contemporary culture is consuming itself and its own past in an endless re-use and re-appropriation. Liveröd has also been interested in the architectural ploy of entrances shaped like mouths, and why people want to be swallowed or spat out by an entrance/an opening. Also see: Vanuatu, Mouth-shaped entrances, Doppelganger.
CASA MALAPARTE (architecture) The villa of Curzio Malaparte sits on a steep cliff above the waters on the island of Capri. The house was conceived around 1937 and Malaparte built it himself with the help of a local stonemason. Its form, isolation and name makes the building an iconic image of emotional architecture. Casa Malaparte was abandoned and neglected after the death of Curzio Malaparte in 1957 but is now renovated to its original form. For Liveröd, it embodies the idea of architecture as an entity rather than just a simple structure. This notion is emphasized as Casa Malaparte is what could be considered a main character in Godard’s 1963 movie Contempt. Also see: Corbusiers obsession with Eilee Grays E-1027, Escapism, Architecture, Composition/Form, House of Mirrors, Winchester Mystery House, Modernism.
CATHEDRAL (architecture, ritual, environment) Having been interested in religious architecture since his teens, it was the first time Liveröd experienced the Dome of Cologne in Germany that had the most lasting impact on his work. Since then, the interior, concept and form of cathedrals has continuously turned up in his work. The interior of cathedrals often make use of a combination of materials and sculpture in a spatial way resembling contemporary art. Oppression as enlightenment is equal parts built into the stones of cathedrals, as manifested by the Christian notion of the cathedral as a physical connection between heaven and earth. The idea of the cathedral as a space of awe can also be translated to, for instance, crystal caves or the icy waters under the Antarctic ice, cloud formations and huge barns. Also see Ritual, Architecture, Censer, Gesamtkunstwerk, Relic.
CAUSALITY/CAUSE & EFFECT (action, method) Causality is the relation between an event (the cause) and a second event (the effect), where the first event is understood to be responsible for the second. Causes and effects are typically related to changes, events, or processes and Liveröd uses the idea of cause and effect literally in sculptures where one thing leads to another, or in the painterly photographic works where the developements and accidental actions during the creation help lead to the final results. It is, of course, also the key element and purpose of the Rube Goldberg machine. But it can also be a chain of events in dialogue, thought or exploration. Also see: Rube Goldberg Machine, Duration.
CENOTAPHS (phenomena, object) A cenotaph is an “empty tomb” or a monument erected in remembrance of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been interred elsewhere. The expression originates from the Greek kenotaphion, kenos, meaning being “empty”, and taphos, “tomb”. Also see: Roadside memorials, Stain, Projection.
C’ETAIT UN RENDEZVOUZ (film) A short but incredibly intense film by Claude Lelouch. The film shows an eight-minute high speed drive through Paris in the early hours of the morning in August 1976, accompanied by sounds of a high-revving engine, gear changes and squealing tires. With the camera mounted on the front of the car and shot in a single take, it is an example of cinéma-vérité without any type of safety or control beyond that of the driver who does not brake at any stage. Red lights are ignored, one-way streets are driven up the wrong way, center lines are crossed, the car drives on the sidewalk to avoid a rubbish truck. It is a desperately fierce piece of footage, with an almost spiritual level of urge and desire in the breakneck speed through the streets of Paris. However, it ends at Sacre Coeur in a rather tacky final scene, where Lelouch gets out of the car and embraces a blonde woman on the steps, with the classic view of Paris behind them. Liveröd has used the film on various occasions, for example as a part of the installation Dawn, Colour et al in the show Scratch n Cut at MADE in Berlin.
Also see: Julius Eastman, Desire, Duration/ Time, Causality.
CHAINSAW (tool) The electric jigsaw is an important tool in Liveröd’s practice, but the chainsaw has taken on an even more central role, combining its practical use with the symbolism both of its violent, blunt marks as well as an object with an energy difficult to control. Also see: Duct tape, Wood.
CHINESE SCHOLARS’ ROCK (object) Chinese scholars’ rocks, also known as scholar stones or viewing stones, are naturally shaped rocks which are traditionally appreciated by Chinese scholars. They often resemble sculpture and are presented as if they were created by human hand, and in this transformed view the stone is elevated from natural form to intellectual object. By the Tang dynasty four principal criteria had been identified for judging scholars’ rocks: thinness (shou), openness (tou), perforations (lou), and wrinkling (zhou). Liveröd has used scholars’ rocks as inspiration for the drawing Insel messe and has in general been fascinated by their existence between culture and nature, conscious sculpture and random form. Also see: Things that pretend to be sculpture, Paredolia, Bonsai, Projection, Provenance
CHINESE WHISPERS (game, method) A traditional children’s game, where the participants are seated in a circle and the leader begins by whispering a sentence in the ear of the person next to her. Whatever the listener thinks he has heard he then whispers in the ear of the next person. When the whisper finally reaches the original whisperer, this person says what she has heard out loud. This always leads to mishearing and humorous misunderstandings. Liveröd has used the game of Chinese whispers as a method in several works, using misinterpretation as a way to develop and mutate an idea. Also see: Misunderstandings, Provenance, Humour, Absurdism.
CHOREOGRAPHY (method) Choreography is the practice of designing, gathering and organization of movement ( motion or form or both) into order and pattern. Mostly used in referal to dance and dancing, Liveröd often speaks of the choreography of art works. He spent a large part of his young adult years in club culture and underground dance scenes, so dance has been an integral part of his being. He has also been interested in dance as a socio-political tool or ritual expression. However, choreography in this context is similar to the original description of gathering and organization of movement but adds objects, thus making it gathering and organization of movement and objects. Sometimes what he describes as choreography could be called composition or compilation. But he talks of the added element of dynamic energy and sense of motion that is an important part of his choreography element in the art works. Sometimes it can also refer directly to dance choreography, when sculptural elements seems to have a dance dynamic. Also see: Degas the little dancer, Duration / Time, Gesamtkunstwerk, Michael Jackson, Riod De Janeiro, Ritual, Scenography / Diorama, Swayamb, Tropicalia.
CIA AND THE CULTURAL COLD WAR (event, idea) During the 1950s the CIA figured modern art could be a strategic weapon against the communists so they secretly funded and launched abstract expressionism to the world. The plan was one of the most successful PR- strategies of the cold war and the Soviet aesthetics and cultural domination never quite recovered after that as we see in the expressions of art today. Also see: Camouflage, Jasper Maskelyne/Magic used in war, Air loom, Modernism, Voyager Golden Record.
CLOSURE (phenomena, perception) The principle of closure refers to the mind’s tendency to see complete figures or forms even if a picture is incomplete, partially hidden by other objects, or if part of the information needed to make a complete picture in our minds is missing. For example, if part of a shape’s border is missing people still tend to see the shape as completely enclosed by the border and ignore the gaps. This reaction stems from our mind’s natural tendency to recognize patterns that are familiar to us and thus fill in any information that may be missing. Closure is also thought to have evolved from ancestral survival instincts, allowing our ancestors mind’s to automatically complete a partial sighting of a predator, giving them time to react to potential danger even if not all the necessary information was readily available. A typical example of this is when we are viewing ancient sculptures were the arm has broken off, and we unconsciously ”see” that there is or has been an arm although it is absent. Most obvious is Liveröds use of closure in the exhibition with the same name at Värmlands Museum. But this tendency is generally used in parts of Liveröd’s work, and of course has frequent occurrence in the greater context of contemporary art, where importance is often ascribed to what is left out of the work. Also see: Accidental images of Jesus, Loss/longing, Endless column, Paredolia.
CLOUD/MIST (natural phenomena) The majestic, yet untouchable nature of clouds and the other-worldly and unnerving phenomena of mist has entered several of Liveröd’s drawings. The early 19th century English artist John Constable’s obsessively and meticulously painted cloud studies have also been of influence. Also see: Ephemeral, Shine.
CLUSTERFUCK (term/ expression) Military term for an operation in which multiple things have gone wrong. Related to “SNAFU” (Situation Normal, All Fucked Up”) and “FUBAR” (Fucked Up Beyond All Repair). In radio communication or polite conversation the term clusterfuck will often be replaced by the NATO phonetic acronym “Charlie Foxtrot”. Today, clusterfuck is commonly used to descriptively generalize any situation with a large scale of disarray. Also see: Friction, Anomaly, Frustration, Causality
CODE (method) Hiding information within patterns, sounds, systems and numbers is an ancient custom. Within the art world this is one of the unspoken but most common of practices – most artworks at least pretend to carry a code of its own content. It can also take the form of the patterns of a Persian carpet or the ornaments of a building, in magical tattoos of the South Pacific, alchemist writing as well as the Enigma which code marvel Alan Turing cracked wide open in WW2. Liveröd uses code both literally and as a diversion in itself. Also see: Ornament, Crotchet, Camouflage, Hidden, Palimpsest
COLLECTIONS/COLLECTORS (idea, practice) The tradition of collecting and organizing the world is probably as old as mankind itself. It seems to be a natural state, within the world of children it is very common, starting with things like stones, shells, dolls, toys and such. Many adults continue this, books and music have been common collection items but cars and art are also fairly usual subjects of fascination. Beyond this there is of course a whole universe of things that collectors take a special interest in, but the common denominator of all collections is usually an intense and obsessive urge and focus on the collection, sometimes bordering on the pathological. It is a highly subjective way of curating the world and Liveröd acts both as a collector himself as well as using it as a theme in many of his works and projects. Examples are his curatorial works with museum collections such as Bohusläns museum and Värmlands museum and of course his own museum and collection Den Liverödska wunderkammaren. Also see: Edward James, Marianne Lehmanns Voudou collection, Wunderkammer, Desire, Lists
CORBUSIER’S OBSESSION WITH EILEEN GRAY’S E-1024 (architecture, emotion) In the late 1920s, the modernist designer and architect Eileen Gray designed and built a landmark piece of modernist architecture on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France. The E-1027 house was built to share with her lover, the critic Jean Badovici. The name of the house sounds impersonal, but it is in fact a numeric code for their joint initials. The famous french architect Le Corbusier was obsessed and haunted by E-1027 and over the decades, he sought to possess her house in a multitude of ways. It may even have been the last thing he saw before dying of a heart attack while swimming off the rocks beneath E-1027 in 1965. In a bizarre act resembling a dog pissing to mark his territory, Le Corbusier once broke into the house and, working bare-naked, he painted a number of murals around the house. Eileen Gray was infuriated by Corbusier’s alterations of the villa, especially the murals which she felt had vandalized it. She never returned to the house after that, and even in her nineties it was said that she was still fuming about it. Also see: Casa Malaparte, Architecture, Hubris.
COLLYER BROTHERS (persons/architecture) Homer and Langley Collyer were born a few years apart in late 19th century New York and brought up in bourgeois surroundings in Harlem. But after being abandoned by the father and eventually the mother, and as the neighbourhood started taking on a new population of Afro-americans, the two brothers isolated themseves and started constructing a world within a world in their brownstone house. As the years went by, the brothers had diminishing contact with the outside world and were at best considered an oddity in the neighourhood.
It would turn out later that what Langley was doing was constructing a new house within the building, with small grottoes and tunnels resembling a labyrinthian rabbit hole. In march 1947, the police received an anonymous call that claimed the stench of a dead body coming from the Collyer house. The police where met by an impenetrable construction, made out of waste materials. Packed throughout with a mass of diverse junk, it took them several days of removal to get into the house. Among the more unusual items found were human pickled organs, the chassis of an old Model T Ford, fourteen pianos (both grand and upright), hundreds of yards of unused silks and fabric, the folding top of a horse-drawn carriage, 13 ornate mantel clocks, and more than 25,000 books. It was proto-hoarding on a scale unseen, before or since. The deconstruction of the Collyer garbage palace took weeks, finally a total of 136 tons of junk was removed from the building. Intentionally or not, the brothers had transformed their home into an architectural garbage heap. Liveröd has used the Collyers both as subject-matter in essays for the publication Eskapism and in newspaper articles, as well as in the curatorial project Neverlands revisited for Rogaland Kunstsenter together with Lukas Feireiss. Also see: Collector, Anomaly, The Winchester Mystery House, Site-specific.
CPR DUMMY (object) Rescue Annie as she is nicknamed was invented in the 1930s to practice life-saving. As a morbid twist the face chosen for the doll was modeled on the death mask of L’Iconnue de la Seine, the anonymous young woman who committed suicide by drowning in the river Seine in Paris. Somewhat poetically, through the CPR doll it is as if we keep on trying to save the Seine woman from her death again and again. The CPR dummies come in all shapes and sizes but all have that uncanny and awkward appearance of simultaneous life and death. There is something very sculptural about her figure, both as a complete body or when the doll is just a torso. Anyone who has been forced to try these out as a kid will not forget it – the smell of the rubber mouth, the hints of earlier users’ saliva, the soft yet hard and foreign feel of her silicone skin. Liveröd has used both Línconnue and Rescue Annie in several works, most recently in the two versions of the sculptural installation Flotsam & Jetsam.
Also see: L’inconnue de la Seine, Uncanny, Simulacrum.
CULT (phenomena) The idea of the cult can be described as a system of belief which differs and distances itself from the rest of society and where the members feel a close bond through this outsider perspective. However, it is hard to define exactly when and what constitutes a cult but some which have in particular interested Liveröd is the David Koresh Waco cult, Heaven’s Gate, the Cargo Cults of Vanuatu, The Jonestown, the Shakers, The Jesus Freaks and a number of others. Dedication, isolation, obsession, passion, bizarre belief systems, strange ritual and destructive madness are general ingredients in these, with the exception of the Cargo Cults which have a natural if slightly odd form in Vanuatan society. Also see: Ritual, Cargo Cults, Procession, La Difunta Correa, Shakers.
CUT-UP (method) The practice can be traced to at least the Dadaists of the 1920s, but became well-known when it was developed in the 1950s and 1960s by writer William S. Burroughs. Cut-up is a method where one takes a text and by cutting it into pieces and rearranging the individual words to form new meaning. Tristan Tzara described in his short text, TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM. But this can be applied to many materials and situations. Liveröd has thought of it as a way of rearranging the world around oneself, creating new meaning, context and appearance. In his artworks he mainly uses Cut-up as an influence on how he constructs parts of his installations/environments and sculptures. Also see: Hans Christian Andersen’s paper-cuts, Serendipity, Alchemy, Transformation, Ephemeral, Wisconsin Death Trip.
COLLAGE (technique) Usually associated with artworks made from a number of different images but can be applied to most actions and modes of thought. The technique of assembling and combining various materials, subjects or ideas into a new whole is collage. A journalist once responded to Liveröd in an interview saying that his way of talking was like a collage – she had counted seven different subjects within just a few sentences. Also see: Cut-up, Drawing, Mind map, Biji, Punk
DAMNATIO MEMORIAE (phenomena) Practiced mainly in ancient Rome, Damnatio memoriae is a Latin phrase literally meaning “damnation of memory”. The intent was to erase someone from history, a task somewhat easier in ancient times, when documentation was much sparser. This meant for instance recutting marble statues with the damned’s face into someone else’s facial features. At times this has given some odd results, as in the case of a bust of Caligula being recut into Claudius, but leaving Caligulas haircut on top of the head. The practice is not only restricted to the Romans, examples can be seen throughout history with Erasmus being censored by the Catholic reformation through crossing out of his face in encyclopedias, or Trotsky being erased from photos during the Stalinistic era in the Soviet union. This can be compared to what teenagers do when they rip a photo of an ex-lover into little pieces or cut away a former friend from a photo. Liveröd has used Damnatio Memoraie as a literal concept in several works, both the photographic, woodcuts and drawing as well as in text.
Also see: Provenance, Sculpture, Projection, Hidden, Marble, Entartete Kunst/Degenerate Art.
THE DAUGHTERS OF EDWARD BOIT (painting) John Singer Sargent’s portrait of the four daughters of Boston business man Edward Boit contains a strange set-up. Depicted in the family’s Paris apartment in 1882, the children’s poses form a remarkable and enigmatic composition. One of the girls is placed squatting on the carpet as by chance, another stands with a strong gaze far out on the right side, while a third is semi-obscured in the deepening darkness at the back of the room. The fourth and final girl is turned away from the rest of them, leaning on an enormous Chinese vase she is loosely painted as if almost a ghost. They are all wearing clothes of play and loose hair styles rather than the elegant dresses one would expect. It is a psychological portrait rather than a straight forward portrait and touches the ambiguities of adolescence, with an almost Dorian Greyesque sense to it. The painting is life-size and is permanently exhibited at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts together with the actual Chinese urns that are included in the portrait, lending it an even more potent uncanny atmosphere. Contemporary works related to this painting are the films Picnic at Hanging rock and The Virgin Suicides.
Also see: Degas’ Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, Ambivalence, Ludwig II of Bavaria, Michael Jackson
DAZZLE (effect) Used in World War two, dazzle is the effect when intensely distorting the viewer’s vision and thereby confusing her by use of strong patterns, lights and colour. Stage magician Jasper Maskelyne used dazzle effects when making the Suez canal ”disappear” from the sight of the Nazi bombers. Also the experiments with painting almost Op Art-like patterns on American battle ships to make them hard to define by the enemy were known as Dazzle ships. The mirrorball is a direct descendant of the dazzle techniques of Maskelyne. Liveröd has used the dazzle effect in parts of works as a psychological effect in order to make them harder to understand spatially and regularly uses the mirrorball in his works. Also see: Mirrors, Mirrorball, Magic used in war, Naive Physics, Camouflage.
THE DEAD ON MOUNT EVEREST (phenomena, object) On the slopes of Mount Everest increasing amounts of victims of the enormous mountains hard conditions are left resembling frozen sculptures. As it is both very hard and equally costly, the bodies are often left where they fell. This shows as equal parts cynicism and megalomania when the mountain is approached by an increasing number of high-paying but inexperienced climbers. The dead have in themselves become part of the terrain as some of them are now used as geographical markers, for instance the corpse of a climber nicknamed Green boots has become a marker for the path of the final push to the top. Also see: Death,Things that look like sculpture, Mountain, Hubris, Fear, Anthropology
DEATH (definite phenomena/ event) In no way can the influence of death on Liveröd’s work be underestimated. However, he does not consider himself or this interest morbid, but rather view it as an obsession with the most definite, natural, everyday, extraordinarily unknown phenomena in the world. In particular the diverse cultural practices, habits, customs and relations to the dead throughout history interests him, and has been the subject of the book project The Vanitas Papers. Liveröd hosts a public library of death and funeral literature and a section of objects related to death culture as a part of his museum, Den Liverödska Wunderkammaren. Also see: Vanitas, Louise Hagberg, Postmortem photograpy, the Dead on Mount Everest.
THE DEATH OF MARAT (artwork) The 1793 painting by Jean-Louis David of the murder scene of the french revolutionary leader Jean Marat has haunted Liveröd since his teens. It shows the stark image of the dead Marat slumped in his bathtub after being stabbed, still holding a piece of paper with his last notes on the revolution. The way the painting deals with empty space and a minimal amount of decoration in its composition, as well as the use of direct political content potentially makes it the first modernist painting in history. It has influenced a number of Liveröd’s drawings throughout the years.
Also see: The raft of Medusa, Sleeping Hermaphrodite, Modernism.
DEGAS LITTLE DANCER OF FOURTEEN YEARS OLD (artwork) The formal portrait in the sculpture Little Dancer of Fourteen Years is in itself not a very interesting one. It is of a fourteen year old girl, caught in the middle of a precise and blissful ballet step. However, when Edgar Degas makes the choice of adding an actual ballet skirt and an equally authentic silk hair band to the cast bronze figure, it is the first time in art history that ”real” materials are combined with sculptural materials. Although her size, which is roughly a third of life-sized girl of her age, means that Degas has had these clothes made especially for this. Despite this, they still ring true and give her an uncanny life-likeness. Like in Oscar Wilde’s The portrait of Dorian Gray, the little bronze dancer stays eternally young while her ballet skirt and hair band age and fade. Liveröd has kept the Little Dancer in mind when creating several sculptures throughout the years and she also appears as a detail in the drawing/collage Jerusalem. Also see: Uncanny, Sculpture, Glyptoteket, Props, Fetish, Duration/time.
DESIRE (emotion) Desire in all its forms, whether destructive or obsessive, empowering or desperate, is part of the spectra of intense emotional states that Liveröd has often returned to in in his work. Also see: Loss, Shame
DICE/ PLAYING CARDS (object) Dice and playing cards hold similar qualities as symbols and references within the realms of Liveröds work. Connected to chance, as gamers tools they suggest trickery, desperation, the concealed, both loss and triumph. Both are also used in stage magic and illusionist tricks, something which lends an extra dimension to them. Also see:Joker, Desire, Hidden, Hubris
DISINTEGRATION/DISSOLVE (phenomena) The law of entropy tells us that all processes in the known universe strives towards disorder. The atoms want to get mixed up, everything naturally strives towards disintegrating structure. Liveröd has used entropy, disintegration, dissolving, and straight-forward melting as a means to express all things ephemerality and transformative nature. Also see: Transformation, Alchemy, Cloud/Mist, Casuality
DIVINATION (ritual, phenomena) Has its origins in Latin: divinare “to foresee, to be inspired by a god”, and is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occult, standardized process or ritual. Divination can be seen as a systematic method to organize what appears to be disjointed. According to Liveröd, the practice of divination (at times) has many similarities to the making of art. This has to be said within a broad context where devotion and the divine has taken on new aspects and the process can be one of trying to undo system and order in order to reach other goals. Various European ancient divination practices involve the interpretation of shadows cast by objects. For example the practice when a random shape produced by pouring molten tin into cold water is interpreted by the shadow it casts in candlelight. Also see: Starling formation/Ornithomancy, Shine
DIY (method) The term Do it Yourself describes a traditional method of making things yourself, but it is also an aesthetic, where things look obviously handmade and at times slightly imprecise, lending the object life. Liveröd uses DIY as an ingredient in most works, but in many ways this is influenced by his love for folk art and grassroots aesthetics. Also see: Folk Art, Outsider Art, House of Mirrors, Embroidery, Judith Scott
DOPPELGANGER (phenomena, myth) In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger (German for look-alike, literally a “double walker”) is a paranormal double of a living person. It also describes the sensation of having glimpsed oneself in peripheral vision, in a position where there is no chance that it could have been a reflection. Doppelgängers are often perceived as a sinister form of bilocation and are regarded by some to be harbingers of bad luck. In some traditions, a doppelgänger seen by a person’s friends or relatives foretells illness or danger, while seeing one’s own doppelgänger is said to be an omen of death. Used by Liveröd in several works, sculptures and drawings in particular. Also see: Mirrors, Uncanny, CPR Dummy
DRAWING (method) The act of drawing is one of the most intimate methods of art making, also one that requires the simplest tools and materials, it can be done just about anywhere. In 2007, Liveröd made up a set of rules for drawing. These were created in order to give drawing boundaries and set choices, as a way of not having to make all the decisions conceptually and materially which he does in all other areas of his work. The rules were simple: only black pen on white paper with no critical decisions of holding back in visual choices. The rules were kept until the end of 2011 when he began on the two works, Jerusalem and Unstill-life, which was an attempt at fusing his different modes of work into one ( except for drawing they included sculpture/found images/collage). During these years his technique of drawing has been heavily influenced by etching masters such as Piranesi and Doré. Also see: Paper, Veve, Henry Darger, Restrictions, Piranesi, Etching, Found images
DRUGS (object, phenomena) Throughout human history, drugs has been used for recreation, religion and ritual. On occasion drug references and ideas has entered the work of Liveröd. From the mescaline visions of Henri Michaux, via Larry Clark’s speed freak documentation in the book Tulsa, to Ken Kesey’s wild headed acid tests with his band of Merry Pranksters, through the ecstasy revolutions of the dance movement of the late eighties and nineties, have all in different ways influenced parts of his work. The Explorer, the Fucked-up, the Holy, the Otherness, the Darkness and the Feverish are all characters manifested in drug culture. Hallucinogenics, amphetamines and a number of other substances have had an impact – directly and in-directly – as an expression of the intense states of being that Liveröd is interested in. Also see: Narcotecture, Altered States, Sub-culture, Synesthesia, The Stooges, Weirdness, Hallucinatory, Mexico, Meth-lab.
DUCT TAPE/GAFFER TAPE (material) Duct tape was invented by the Americans during WW2 to repair anything while in field. Cars, clothes, guns, shoes – everything could be immediately, yet temporarily, fixed with the strong and elastic tape. The use of duct-tape has expanded and mutated, and even as it is now a household object, it also is used in more violent situations such as sado masochist sex and criminal acts of force. Liveröd used it as a combination of symbol and material in a range of works but most prominently in the show Permanent Daylight #5 – Oviloläge at Kristinehamns Museum of Art where he used more than a kilometer of black gaffer tape.
Also see: Duct tape, Restrictions, Expanding foam, DIY.
DURATION / TIME (phenomena, method) Time and the aspect of passing/passed time is highly present in Liveröd’s work. At times the patience of monotonous work can be an extra dimension within the work such as in the 8000 individual pieces of wood handmade in the sculpture Crystalwood, or as seen in the tens of thousands of lines in some of the larger drawings. Also, in the early embroidery works, time is clearly an aspect as it is a time consuming and patient craft. On the contrary, some of his sculptures, the ones he calls the quick sculptures, are made with rapid and immediate precision, where composition and time is direct and defined. The aspect of PROVENANCE also includes the obvious time aspect as an object’s or image’s history is present and important to its current meaning. CASUALITY is also intimately related to Liveröd’s work with time. Many of his larger constructions only exist during a limited period of time, and this temporality adds a dimension to the content of the work. Longing, loss and desire are all subjects that Liveröd deal with that concern time aspects. Also see: Casuality, Loss, Crotchet, Desire.
EDWARD JAMES (person, architecture) Born of incredible wealth Edward James had a good start when involving himself in the surrealist scene of Europe in the early 20th century. Portrayed by Magritte and the man behind Dalis Lobster telephone, he supported and bought many of the surrealists works at early stages of their careers. However, his own fantasies where acted out in much larger scale – as architecture and environments. First with his Monkton Hall in rural England, a delirium of colour, shapes and tricks and later with Las Esposas, a hidden place in the Mexican djungle where he tried to create his ultimate surrealist joke and dream. Las Esposas is a place of labyrinthic and confusing elements and like Ferdinand Chevaliers Palais Ideal and Clarence Schmidts House of Mirrors, it is the manifestation of one persons attempt at utopia. Also see Utopia, House of Mirrors, Absurdism, Labyrinth, Folly
ENDLESS COLUMN (sculpture) Brancusi breaks through an entirely new barrier in art when he creates the endless column.It isn´t endless of course but it represents open ended thought, as seen in CLOSURE, an expression which tells of the human minds urge to fill in what it knows is missing in an image or object. Also see: Closure, Tower, Stylite, Sculpture
ENTARTETE KUNST / DEGENERATE ART (idea, art works) As Adolf Hitler grew into power in the 1930s Germany, his values of culture and aestethics were enforced on society as a whole. Increasingly, artists of all kinds were branded as Entartete Kunst ( Degenerate Art). Finally, these where collected and shown in an enormous exhibition at Haus Der Kunst in Münich, together with so-called primitive art and outsider art, in an attempt to discredit and heckle these modern expressions. Ironically and unintentionally, it became the first major survey of modern art, and also the most visited art exhibition to date in Germany. However, many of the works dissapeared and artists where persecuted and at times killed. Many of the works in the Entartete Kunst exhibition has been important as an influence on Liveröds work, both modern artists, so-called primitive art as well as Outsider art.
Also see: Joachim Ringelnatz Dachgarten der irrsinnigen, Outsider Art, Damnatio Memoriae
EPHEMERAL (term,state of being) Transitory, transient, fleeting, passing, short-lived, momentary, impermanent, temporary. The ephemeral and ever-changing is often an important part of Liveröds works, in particular in sculpture and installations. It can be used to heighten the awareness of a piece as it won´t be around to experience for long. It can also function together with fragility which is also recurring, in particular in the sculptural objects. The sculptures often have a sense of ephemerality about them even in the cases when this is not true. Sometimes an ephemeral atmosphere or event appears in the drawings as a dissolving, burned-out, or transforming image. The installations are by rule always ephemeral as they are meant as a temporary work, the re-use of materials and objects in new ways for each installation makes them at once recognisable and ever-changing. Also see: Clouds / Mist, Fragile, Transformation
ESCAPISM (idea, method) It has to be said that the desire to escape the mundane is a driving force behind Liveröds work. Once asked for one word to describe why he makes art, to his own surprise he answered ”Adventure”. Escapism has a lot to do with dreaming, desire, vision, utopian ideas, fiction, tale and is certainly not a negative notion, but rather an active catalysator of new ideas.
Also see Desire, Utopia, George Meliés, Edward James, islands
ETCHING (technique) Etching is the collective name for a range of techniques where acids are used to cut into metal. In relation to Liveröd’s work, it is the method where the artist scratches off the ground with a pointed etching needle where he or she wants a line to appear in the finished piece, so exposing the bare metal. This is a technique which creates surface, light, form and three-dimensionality through the simple use of etched lines. Liveröd has in particular looked at etchers such as Doré and Piranesi when he develops his drawing. Also see: Drawing
EXPANDING FOAM (material) Expanding foam is a chemical construction material that Liveröd has used in a number of sculptural works. It is a very unstable and toxic material which when leaving the container forms a sticky, expanding foam which hardens in time. Hard to control in form, Liveröd has used it as both a filler, a material of transformation and decay as well as a mock substitute for ”proper” sculptural materials such as plaster and marble. Its morally ambigous chemical composition adds an extra disturbing dimension with the knowledge that the russian mafia uses it as a instrument of torture and execution. Also see Duct tape, Plaster, Fake, DIY
FAILURE (idea)
Failure is one of the most taboo subjects there is, yet it is something we all have to relate to on a daily basis. However, the result of a so-called failure can often be more interesting than the original intention. Liveröd has worked with failure and the fear of failure in a large number of works as well as workshops and lectures. Also see: Nauru, Frustration, Fear, Friction, the Lion of Gripsholm, Hippolyte Bayard
FAKE (also includes dummy, hoax, replica)
Liveröd has been very interested in the idea of the fake, as it presents an unsureness of what a thing actually is. Also, the almost religious preoccupation with the original within art has been a topic he has returned to. Things that aren´t what they pose to be are always interesting, and a typical example in Liveröds work is the sculpture Cracked Urn which pretends to be ceramic while wood, pretends to be a badly faked Ming Vase while still preserving its original form as a unique artwork, confusing the viewer at best. Another example in Liveröds work is the recurring use of fake designer scarves, in particular Hermes scarves. Also see: Jasper Maskelyne, Hidden, Folly, Napoleons hat, Mimesis, Trickster/ Joker, Camouflage, Ming vase, Authenticity
FEAR (emotion / state of mind) Fear of the dark, fear of Failure, fear as entertainment, fear of God, fear of man. As fear is unwanted but unavoidable, Liveröd finds it a natural and awareness heigtening state. On both a personal level as well as a general phenomenon, fear is always close at hand in his works. A typical example of fear is the sculptural piece Grand Mal, which was first shown on the day before the elections that would slowly but surely plunge Sweden deeper into the fascist tendencies already flooding Europe. In Grand Mal, the fear was not something that was immediate, but rather it oozes out of the sculptures’ deceptively bright colours. Also see: Frustration, Loss
FETISCH (object) A fetish is an inanimate object viewed to have religious or mystical qualities. It is an object regarded as being the embodiment or habitation of potent spirit or as having magical potency. Liveröd has taken interest in traditional fetishes, both on a spiritual plane such as voudou dolls, christian relics and shamanist tools, but also on a more everyday level involving souvenirs, love gifts and inherited objects of affection. He views many of his sculptural pieces as a sort of fetishes, charged with a mystical energy, both for himself and the viewer. Also see: Relic, Mysticism, Provenance
FLAG / BANNER / STANDARD (object) The flag or banner (sometimes called a standard) as a carrier of visual imagery and symbolism has a strong historical presence. From the Fante Asafo people of Ghana who create complex flags of storytelling, via homespun nationalist symbolism in folk art, to the banner carried at the front of every demonstration, ritual procession and military march. Liveröd has used the flag as an object both in drawing and in sculpture, in particular in the flag piece which was made with black on black felt textile application based on a Rorschach test and the gigantic textile banner based on the same image which is called Two artists creating a sculpture, or two junkies with monkeys on their backs. Also see: Rorschach test, Textiles,Iconography
FLOTSAM & JETSAM (object, idea) Flotsam is floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo. Jetsam is part of a ship, its equipment, or its cargo that is purposefully cast overboard or jettisoned to lighten the load in time of distress and that sinks or is washed ashore. Also see: Spolia, Props, Loss
FUR (material) Liveröd uses only second-hand furs, but this in itself is a paradoxical certainty as all furs have once belonged to an animals body and therefore in any case is in secondary use. The act of putting on a fur is an uncanny act, resembling the way shamans transformed themselves into an animal by donning its fur. The fur is similarely to the hair used in some sculptures and installations by Liveröd a material that speaks of an awkward state between life and death, animate and inanimate.
Also see: Taxidermy, Transformation, Uncanny, Hair, Perückenbock
FOLKLORISM (idea) Invention or adaptation of folklore; including any use of a tradition outside the cultural context in which it was created. This is something that has been a major part of Liveröd work for a long time. He has been interested in Folklorism both with his writing as well as lecture and as a part of his artwork. At the release of his book Permanent Daylight in 2012 he had a conversation with pioneer Situationist and Folklorist Bengt Af Klintberg about the contents of the publication which at times borders on Folklorism. Also see: Louise Hagberg, Anthropology, Folk Art, Kibbo Kift
FOLK ART (tradition, movement) From knitted textile works to churches made of matches via sculptural environments, punk fanzines printed on copymachines, demonstration banners and ship models made of human bones, folk art of all kinds influence Liveröds work and at times are integrated into his sculptural environments. The popular arts as it is sometimes called has all the qualities of un-restricted and dedicated enthusiasm, skilled handcraft and at times intriguingly odd creative solutions. Liveröds private museum and collections include a large number of folk art works, notable is the “section of informal sculpture” in his museum. Also see: Outsider art, Crotchet, Hihokan, La Diffunta Correa, Mythology, Syncretism/ Ecclecticism, Subcultures
FOLLY (architecture) A mainly British phenomena where fantastical architectural buildings without any purpose, but suggesting through its appearance some type of purpose, or merely appearing to be so extravagant that it transcended the surroundings they were built in. Typical 18th century folly buildings included roman temples, Chinese pagodas, pyramids, fake ruins and tatar tents.
Also see: Architecture, Authenticity, Tower, Edward James, Absurdity
FOUND IMAGES (object, phenomena) Found images has always been an important part of Liveröds work. Collected from libraries, flea markets, the internet and random finds, found imagery are used both as an image in themselves (examples can be found in the publication The Violence or in the installation Dawn, Color et al, as collage such as the glass work Visualiana and Simultaneously, a history of the world. Or as reworked material such as in the photoworks, or as reference material for the drawings. Liveröd stresses how vital collected images are for his work, that much of his art would not be realised without these image archives.
Also see: Iconography, Collection, Turconi archives, Painterly, Syncretism / Ecclecticism
FRAGILITY (emotion, appearance) Many of Liveröds three-dimensional works have a sense of fragility about them, even when this is not the case. They seem as if a rough touch would make them break and that their components will not last very long. This is an intentional method to make the awareness and experience of these objects heightened. It is also a way of through things describe a human emotional state, and how one tries – and fails – at power and force but become more interesting through not succeeding. Also see: Failure, Porcelain
FREAK BROTHERS (characters) The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers are a trio of underground comic strip characters created by the American artist Gilbert Shelton.The trio are anti-heroes, consuming large quantities of drugs and consistently defying authority. The freewheeling and anarchistic storytelling and aesthetic, and the clumsy yet cunning approach has had an influence on Liveröds work and thought.
Also see: Absurdism, Ol´Dirty Bastard, Mike Kelley, Drugs, Altered states, Edward James, Weirdness, A hundred years of solitude
FRICTION (phenomena) You find friction everywhere that objects come into contact with each other, but also in the way ideas, dialogue, situations and events do not quite fit or run smoothly. This is an effect that Liveröd seeks actively, finding friction to be present at the moment when things get interesting. Also see: Frustration, Swayamb
FRUSTRATION (emotion) The use of frustration as a tool for creation of interesting cultural products has been known ever since Paul Gaugin shouted his way out of France, aiming for the South Pacific. Since then politics, boredom, rules and poverty have spurned a huge amount of fierce creativity. Liveröd has experienced his fair share of frustration and uses it regularely as fuel for his works, sometimes making frustration the actual content of the piece. Also see: Desire, Fear, The Stooges