Qualis Artifex Pereo

Beskrivning

Qualis artifex pereo – translated What an artist the world loses in me, was the dying words of the infamous Roman emperor Nero. The phrase here marks what Bo I Cavefors and Martin Bladh through their performance-series The Theatre of the Decadence of Cruelty for several years have manifested: the close proximity between staged debauchery and oppressive violence transformed through artistic self-exploration; how humiliation can be handled when converted into enjoyment, sexual absolutism and a strict acceptation of its most profound consequences: sperm, blood and the crack of the whip; and in the end, the question: what is sensation in itself? One answer that is presented in this work is that sensation is a violent physical overload, an attack on the nervous system best handled completely naked, when one is bleeding and disappearing into sexual ecstasy.
STYX förlag presents
QUALIS ARTIFEX PEREO – a book and a DVD.

The book includes:
– a manifesto
– essays by the artists
– in-depth interviews: Cavefors on Cavefors by Johannes Flink

– Bladh on Bladh by Peter Sotos
discussing the nature of their art and their drives
– 9 color collages by M.Bladh
– a poem by M.Bladh
intersected by a text amalgam
based on works of Georges Bataille
– original action scores for the performance pieces
– the work INJURY

The DVD includes two performance pieces:

QUALIS ARTIFEX PEREO
(40 min) performed and filmed in Malmö, 8th of June 2008.
Actors: Bo I. Cavefors, Martin Bladh, Erica Li Lundqvist, Johanna Rosenqvist.
Film: Aryan Kaganof.
African Noise Foundation in association with Grymhetens Teater Dekadens
Music: Martin Bladh
Sound engineer:
Mikael Oretoft

QUALIS ARTIFEX PEREO – FINIS
(27 min) performed and filmed in Norrköping, 12th of June 2009.
Actors: Bo I. Cavefors, Martin Bladh, Johan Adolphi, Mikael Oretoft.
Film: Peter Andersson,
Lars Bosma
Music: Martin Bladh

Plus the extra feature:

INSULT – a video work
by Martin Bladh (15 min)

We are offering a limited special edition of 25 copies, numbered and signed by Bo I Cavefors and Martin Bladh and containing one unique original artwork by Martin Bladh, in size and spirit similar to those reproduced in the book.

The price for the special edition is 500 SEK, 55 EUR + postage.

Martin Bladh is a Swedish artist of multiple mediums. His work is dark, visceral, hypnotic and disturbing, laying bare themes of violence, obsession, fantasy, auto-eroticism, self-mutilation, domination, submission, narcissism. Shane Levene. Contact: mjbladh@hotmail.com

Bo I. Cavefors = persona non grata in Swedish cultural life, grown in England, writer and legendary publicist, director, performance artist. Contact: bo.cavefors@swipnet.se