Lars Jonsson
World cup 94 got me fingered

Exhibition at Stefan Stambolovo 36th Street

I hit my head. Calibrating. Switching from lime to lemon. Stadium. Half full and off the rails, listening to a guy, third to the left, fifth row, talking. About the damage someone can do to another during a football match. Ironic, isn't it. The failure of watching a football match, then passing out, as if I had something to do with it.

The Swedish football player Tomas Brolin’s coach, Olle Nordin’s grandchild, looks me dead in the eye. I’ve never seen him before as much as now. He whispers, “In Bulgaria, they call a threesome a ‘Swedish Table’”. Is he hitting on me?

Tension building. And then it happened. The ball curved low through a hole in their line. Not just a gap, but an invitation, a parted mouth of green grass and sweat-slick tension, where thighs pressed and bodies feinted. Where control meant touch and touch meant more than just the game, and as the ball slipped past the keeper with a glance like a promise, the crowd held its breath, the net opened like a moan, and somewhere beneath the stadium’s roar, the night exhaled slow and full — as if the goal, that pulsing hole, had been waiting for his penetrating bliss all along.

The goal ripped through the pitch like a dirty secret, and before the net had even finished trembling, they were on him. Teammates piling up, hands everywhere, pressing into that sweat-soaked crease with the same reckless hunger that sent the ball through that aching, open hole made earlier. It was victory, yes, but also something rawer. Hips grinding in celebration. Bodies tangled like lovers in a freefall of glory, and in that instant, under the sun-bleached sky, football forgot itself, and the hole — be it goalmouth, gap in defense, or clenched and conquered flesh — became the altar of their triumph. He got fingered by his celebrative comrade.

The grandchild snapped me out of the rabbithole. Euphoria gone as his eyes turned black. Holy sanctuary. There goes gravity. Fifth to the left, third row. Whole and alone again. Team building. A wet dream that happened. - Lars Nordby

Lars Jonsson (b.1990) is a Swedish artist based in Bergen/Umeå. He is educated at the Art Academy in Umeå, Escola Massana in Barcelona and holds an MFA from the Art Academy in Bergen. He is interested in structures related to identity, relationships and memories. Based on an investigation of different phenomena and ideas, his practice is materialized through performance, installation, video, sound and objects. And in that process humor often appears as a tap dance between irony and sincerity. Recent exhibitions include: ODP3; Copenhagen, USF-Visningsrommet; Bergen, Pragiedrek; Panevėžys, OTTE; Copenhagen, Gallery PADA; Lisboa, and Bergen Kunsthall, among others.

The exhibition is supported by Bergen Municipality, Mobility grant - art consultants in Västerbotten, and Tequila Bar Fnky Mnky.