(...)

Lindsmyr’s exhibition sees a figure of the mouth that is double-sided, both on the level of language and image. It plays with ideas of consumption, not only in the contours of a body having lost its form, but also in the slightly vulgar presence of an oversized popsicle. From the position of a miniaturized and partially internal spectator, this would indeed be a literal mouthful. This way of the double alludes to a certain linguistics of self-devourment. As, already in the etymology of the object, one finds the mechanisms of its self-consumption, lolly being another word for tongue.

 

The title Mère de Glace[5] makes reference to a chapter in Luce Irigaray’s landmark publication Speculum of the Other Woman. Appropriating the writing (and hence: language) of the Greek philosopher Plotinus, in a bid to subvert a discourse on matter which strictly dictates the gendering of bodies, Irigaray performs a deconstruction through the direct hijacking of authorship. The reference to this essay seems to lead us further towards a psychoanalytic relation to the ordering of language. Following this line of thought, the suggestively phallic appearance of the popsicle will play with the established understanding of the phallus as being the possessor of language and power. 

 

In its painted state of perpetual solidity, the popsicle also acts in lieu of the body; of the smooth and impenetrable surface of the ‘porcelain skin’ in much classical figuration. This conceptual abstraction––while suggesting an ailment to our symptoms––not only undermines any attempts at categorizing the artist’s position as ‘abstract painter’, but also pressures the porosity of such a position in the first place. The resulting juxtaposition is one that seemingly echoes Kristeva’s idea(s) of the abject in-between; a violent ambiguity that respects no borders or fixed positions.

(...)

 

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excerpt from exhibition text for A Mouthful, written by Emil Sandström

 

[5] Mère de Glace directly translates to ‘Mother of Ice’, a play on words with the French term ‘mer de glace’, meaning ‘sea of ice’, the name given to France’s largest glacier.