driving the doubts away

Driving the Doubts Away unfolds a driven narrative clockwork full of insight and surprise; it’s philosophical, poetic, humorous, and dramatic.

Added to the drama of the story, is the drama of its presentation; the Olof character on stage is as nervous as the Olof character in the script, keeping the audience in suspense: how will he get away with this?

Driving the Doubts Away presents the nervousness, doubts, and failures of Olof’s youth – especially in art school, but also in photography, philosophy, stand-up comedy, and as an altar boy. 

Olof’s story is mirrored in chapters with information: on the difference between high culture and low culture; on the sociology of the art world; on the Eucharist; on the theory of humour; and on Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), who failed to get into art school, spent his early career doing comic drawings for cheap magazines, and who only got his first retrospective at the age 76.

In the performance, Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain urinal ready-made (1917) stands as the centrifugal image of the almost-religious mystery of the concept of art, and of Olof’s nervous confusion in art school. 

On the one hand, Fountain represents the ultimate freedom to create – art can be anything. 

On the other, the mystery of art that Fountain represents – has become a parlour game for the rich, who as ‘collectors’ show off their sophistication of being ‘in’ on the discourse of ‘art’ over a vernissage communion-like glass of white wine, in amazement of a mere urinal becoming a million dollar art work.   

But maybe Duchamp simply intended Fountain as a joke?