Mats Hjelm: MAN TO MAN

“It is difficult to remember which images were used in Mats Hjelm’s video ‘Man to Man’, the second part in a trilogy about masculinity. The memory loss is not due to the low quality of the film, but rather the opposite. ‘Man to Man’ is a terribly beautiful mourning song, a non-linear story that constantly slips away in contradictions and reflecting images. As in the previous work ‘White Flight’, the dead fathers’ black and white documentaries are intertwined with the artist’s own. But now the diptych has been complicated further into a triptych. Two or three pictures constantly change in the same image area and slide together into a modern altarpiece. The comparison is not sought after, because like most altarpieces, ‘Man to Man’ is about the father’s inheritance to the son and about violence – be it religious, political or existential.”

Translated quote from DN, 2000-09-16, Ingela Lind. Read full text in Swedish.