Items · Mediation in the Digital Age: Emotion, Memories, and Values

Map

Here Arosenius expresses the brevity of life in the short distance between voluptuous life and skeletal death.

An owl with the hollow eyes of a skull gazes over a twilit rural landscape. In this late work, Arosenius envisions death as a silent, watchful, and patient predator.

Trollkarlen och kvinnofågeln

This most desolate item from a narrative group of paintings depicts Arosenius in Orientalist garb as a young wizard, his bleeding heart being plucked out by a carrion bird.

Det brustna hjärtat

A callipygian fairy, standing in for actress and Arosenius crush Ester Sahlin, makes off with the artist's heart. He sits dismayed and spurting blood, as blood-spraying demons swoop in from behind.

Självporträtt på moln

This most stylized and abstracted of Arosenius's works is something of a mystery. The inscription reads, ""Fan, vad jag är begåfvad!", roughly translated: "damn, how gifted I am!" What are we to make of this commentary? The distorted Arosenius sits on a cloud. Is he dead, or merely disconnected from the cityscape below? Is it a position of elevation, alienation, or confusion? Is he dead?

Solnedgång

Arosenius, in his typical long coat and shabby hat, summons a host of devils and serpents with his flute. A red rising sun and pair of six-pointed stars drip blood as a cityscape on the horizon burns.