Idaho
1999
MiniDV transferred to digital file, 5.10 mins.
In the video work Idaho, Conny Karlsson Lundgren paraphrases the campfire scene in Gus Van Sant’s movie My Own Private Idaho (1991), in which the character Mike expresses his love for Scott and his desire to kiss him. Through a double exposure, Karlsson Lundgren portrays both characters and pays gentle homage to drag culture by lip-syncing to the original soundtrack. The gesture brings him closer to the scene when the tender yet aching feelings are allowed to infuse his own body.
Idaho forms, together with Runner and Brest, a trilogy revolving around absent, rejected or imposed kisses between men on film. The other works in the series refer to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Querelle (1982) and were made by the artist during his studies at Valand Academy of Fine Arts in Gothenburg. These scenes were also crucial during his adolescence in the search for identity and affiliation.
The works are early examples of the artist’s interest in queer imagery and affection and mark a transition from a performance-centred practice to more of a film-based one, which has circled back again. Idaho is the earliest work in the exhibition I Kiss Your Eyes (2024) at Bonniers Konsthall and the theme of the kiss carries a nod and becomes a prologue to Karlsson Lundgren’s most recent installation and performance in the exhibition, I Kiss Your Eyes (A Year in Eight Weeks).