Voodoo Gong: the Apeman Walking Backwards to Hell

an exhibition of drawings, photographs and collages 
by Merl Fluin and Paul Cowdell
 

at Arkitektvägen 44, Stockholm, Sweden
Saturday 24 November, 14.00 –18.00
Sunday 25 November, 12.00 –15.00
Other times by appointment: arkitektvagen44[at]gmail.com or +46 736 17 20 20

Merl Fluin and Paul Cowdell are members of SLAG (the Surrealist London Action Group) and sometimes also of the Stockholm Surrealist Group. They are also the joint directors of the Bureau of Surrealist Ethnology. They have participated in Surrealist explorations and events internationally, including in Athens, Chicago, Istanbul, London, Prague, Reading (Pennsylvania), Santiago de Compostela and Stockholm.

The title of this exhibition was suggested through objective chance in a letter to Merl and Paul from their friend John Andersson. The images presented are all the results of investigations into automatism, dreams, objective chance, interpretive delirium and mad love.

Under a branch of acutely observant owls

Weary, trying to pass under a branch of acutely observant owls, I leaned back in horror to grab my ankles.

"Turn back!" the fattest of the birds cried, rising as to warn. But it was going nowhere, since the odd and cursed follower of my strayings had already seized it by the legs.

And as that composite beast, half light, half shadow, casually introduced himself to the dreamer´s hearing, saying: "Your posture now embodies the correctly conducted procedure of self-observation according to me, the abominable Piltdown Man", the horrified owl was screwed on to my neck while violently flapping its wings, thus propelling a bristly appearance to my soon externally materialized  ears. 

At the same time a certain dimness and immobility set in to restrict my hitherto unbounded headless vision. And as bedazzlement shortly befell the synergy of our as yet unspecialized imagination, we were one.

No longer weary, the carriage could pass under the branch and roll into the woods, to the bleating glee of cheerful comrades.

Where are they now?

/ NN