ULF WAHLBERGMÄLNINGAR OCH TECKNINGAR02 - 21.11.973

Galerie S:t Petri
S:t Petri Kyrkogata 5
Lund
046/14 78 00

ULF WAHLBERG
2 – 21 November 1973

“The Car – The Human Being – Nature”

For the past eight years I have devoted myself almost exclusively to attempting to depict “the car, the human being, and nature” in my art.
The car, as a symbol for all our technical thinking.
The human being, representing society.
Nature, representing our origins and our possibilities.

In some way, the human being has created his own likeness in the car.
Nature is transformed by man into a car, which then in turn seeks to reunite itself with nature. The car lives its own life, in part quite similar to that of a human. When new, it is caressed with foaming shampoo and soft cloths, polished and admired with proud eyes. After its short service to humankind, it is perhaps removed to one of the huge car cemeteries, or abandoned in a forest clearing. There is something hopeless and beautiful about these cars, which are slowly swallowed up by nature. Grass and flowers penetrate the damaged parts, shrubbery grips the steering wheel.

Car graveyards are perhaps the most expressive monuments of our time. To wander among them is like experiencing a vanished culture, while being in the midst of it. The desolation and timeless atmosphere surrounding these cars makes us unaware that this is only a generation’s work. What humanity once, at the dawn of technology, acclaimed and felt proud of, now lies in great heaps as a burden to our conscience. The car, which has come to man as a plague, an insect, a fossil.
A chrome bastard with heart and nervous system.
An invention of man – man’s own creation – which long ago left him lost and irrational behind it.