MARI KETO

SLIGHT DELIRIUM

SEPTEMBER 12 – OCTOBER 3, 2015

In the exhibition Slight Delirium, Galleri Sebastian Schildt presents Mari Keto for the first time in Sweden. The exhibition is a complete overview of all of her different kinds of artistic works.

The exhibition title refers to a state of mind where it is impossible to distinguish real from unreal, or fact from fiction. There are three central themes in Keto’s art: the glittering surface of popular culture and our obsession with celebrities, the desperate quest for status symbols and lastly, death. Death is manifested in microcosms with skeletons of mythological creatures.

Mari Keto explores the societal obsession with celebrities in her images of famous pop icons made in precious materials and coloured glass. The theme “Fashion Victims” highlights our pursuit of luxury and various status symbols in a game of high-end brands and trophies. Keto also examines our lost faith in mysticism in a world constantly demanding scientific evidence. She creates microcosms inhabited by angels, fairies and mermaids. These little creatures have been captured and left to die in curiosity cabinets.

Her works refer to the memento mori of antiquity, the Renaissance and the Baroque era but also to the pop art of the 1960’s and 70’s with elemental symbolic expressions. Keto’s classical training as a jeweller is clearly visible in her choice of materials and the extreme precision of execution, using materials charged with meaning.

Read more