"So Much Delights" from "Delights of an Undirected Mind"
Signed certificate included in lot. Executed in 2016. Fabric, filling, wire, epoxy resin, silicone, paint, wood 60 x 70 x 55 cm.
Lisson Gallery, London.
Private Collection, Luxembourg.
The sculpture 'So Much Delights' depicts a crocodile posing on a black pad with a baby rattle in one hand and a whip in the other. The character plays a role in Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg’s video piece 'Delights of an Undirected Mind' from 2016. The video was shown at the Lisson Gallery in London, in a group show with the same name, in August 2021. Millie Walton visited the exhibition on behalf of the Guardian and was attracted by the intricate history of the piece: “The narrative plays out mainly in a child’s bedroom, where a little girl is being put to bed by an elephant in a dressing gown, but it’s when a tiger starts suckling at a cow’s teats that things get really out of hand. In comes a giraffe, a gleaming black octopus, a unicorn, a pair of cucumbers spooning, a mouse caressing a piece of cheese with legs and a crocodile wielding a leather whip. There’s a lot of caressing and writhing around on the bed, and then a can of condensed milk spills its sticky contents all over the sheets. It’s a humorous and hedonistic scene that vividly illuminates the darker undertones of children’s fairytales, but also makes reference to modern–day greed and the hypersexualisation of culture.”