Karl & Carl – Still No Response From The Void

The artist duo Karl & Carl (Karl Hedin and Björn Carl Perborg) offers a generous mix of animation, sculpture, video and photography. Bizarre and uncanny situations occur as the searchlight is directed towards human beings and their relationship to the planet, the universe, life and death.

»Still No Response From The Void« (»Ännu inget svar från tystnaden«) is the title of Karl & Carl’s sincere and surprisingly accessible exhibition. On a jumpy road from science fiction to broken hearts, the artists navigate through the wetlands of poetry in a dialogue, where misunderstandings bring about unexpected meanings and where new connections constantly appear.

– It’s important to stay close to the limits of your understanding of the existence. That’s where we try to go in all our works, Karl & Carl explains. The exhibition is a tribute to the pointless, the ridiculous, the pathetic and the ungraspable. It also pays tribute to the cosmic distances. Between people. (Before this distance was measured to 1,5 metres).

A cabinet of grief with a coffin (or is it a spaceship?), images from crematoria and a video where people queue to throw themselves off a balcony, is combined with a pulpit, where a curator recites empty phrases collected from the curatorial statements of international biennials.

Exhibition view from Galleri Box, Gothenburg, Sweden. Karl & Carl – Ännu inget svar från tystnaden 28/8–27/9, 2020.
Photo: Hendrik Zeitler
Exhibition view from Galleri Box, Gothenburg, Sweden. Karl & Carl – Ännu inget svar från tystnaden 28/8–27/9, 2020. Pulpet with curator.
Photo: Hendrik Zeitler
Exhibition view from Galleri Box, Gothenburg, Sweden. Karl & Carl – Ännu inget svar från tystnaden 28/8–27/9, 2020. Beware Of The God, Doghouse.
Photo: Hendrik Zeitler
Exhibition view from Galleri Box, Gothenburg, Sweden. Karl & Carl – Ännu inget svar från tystnaden 28/8–27/9, 2020. Basketball lamp.
Photo: Hendrik Zeitler
Exhibition view from Galleri Box, Gothenburg, Sweden. Karl & Carl – Ännu inget svar från tystnaden 28/8–27/9, 2020. Voyager II, coffin and animation cabinets.
Photo: Hendrik Zeitler
Exhibition view from Galleri Box, Gothenburg, Sweden. Karl & Carl – Ännu inget svar från tystnaden 28/8–27/9, 2020. Props, bird mask.
Photo: Hendrik Zeitler
Exhibition view from Galleri Box, Gothenburg, Sweden. Karl & Carl – Ännu inget svar från tystnaden 28/8–27/9, 2020. Handwritten note in display case.
Photo: Hendrik Zeitler

Year: 2020
Dimensions: 50 m2

Review in Omkonst by Olle Niklasson (in Swedish)
Karl & Carl discuss the exhibition in Box Pod (Podcast in Swedish)