Destruction and Depression

The Modern Museum in Stockholm shows off a large exhibition feauturing Swedish painter Dick Bengtsson (1936-1989) right now.

Bengtsson was truly a destructive artist. He destroyed himself and his own life through alcohol and depression, and he destroyed his own paintings by scratching them up, banging on them with different tools and generally subjecting them to all sorts of violence.

If he had a purpose with his art it's not easy to deciphered. His use of Nazi symbols, like the Swastika, was mysterious. He was obviously not a nazi, but his paintings don't seem to be about nazism at all when you look at them closely. It's perhaps not about authority and oppression in fascist society, but in every society.

The painting featured above is called Hitler and The Dream Kitchen, and I chose it because it seems extra relevant in these days of interior design fetischism.