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Om utställningen på engelska

Lucky Number 1 9 5 3 0 2 0 8 is a prompt. It's a question about how objects become lucky to us and whether this quality is transferable. Some will call luck skill, and others will favour determinism over randomness, certainty over probability, and anecdotes over causality. This choice unravels something about how we interact with the uncertainty of every day and perhaps what superstition means to the individual.

Numbers are a kind of language at this boundary – a compression toward order and control but also divinely coded as an expression of unchoked desire and value. There is Pythagoras, who found a sense of harmony in numbers and the fact that ten is arguably the most perfect of them all. There is also the devil’s triple and the lack of thirteens in stairwells. These numerical coincidences are folklore reinstated again and again with no fact but rather stories lost to memory. The Lotto. The Bingo. The Jackpot.

Jens Masimov presents eight numerical sculptures made in glass, carbon fibre, wood, and wax, to name but a few of the materials. The sequence is an heirloom from his father, who rearranged the numbers to wage bets on equine beasts with names like Capitalism At Risk, Don’task Don’ttell, Life in Shambles, Lion N Cheatin and Stealin’ Gasoline. Masimov is generous in his work with the Centre for the Fictitious Ante Facto, as sculptures can be won with a combination of luck + skill + a 10 SEK coin. So what guides your choices and strategy for winning here and beyond? Is it sentimentality, logic, material, value, or weight?  Is playing enough? Red, black, and roulette. And if you win, will a number mean something more?

Pick a number
1 9 5 3 0 2 0 8

Jens Masimov (b. 1993 in Hedemora, Sweden) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Stockholm. Through immersive and entangled installations, he explores the core idea of ritualistic distortion, wherein sculptural renditions of visual and cultural anchor points act as frameworks for social gatherings. Masimov has previously exhibited works at Galleri Passagen, Årjäng (2023); Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2023); Norberg Festival, Norberg (2023); Podium, Oslo (2022), as well as various independent exhibitions such as High Score Win Win (2024) and GROGGENHEIM (2023).

The Centre for the Fictitious Ante Facto is a fully functional para-institution and avant-garde white cube space based at Stockholm University. The Centre invites winner and loser situations. It celebrates public participation, hosts quarterly shows in experimental formats, and occasionally publishes. It is a part of Nathalie Viruly’s final degree project within Curating Art, International Master’s Programme at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University. Viruly is a curator and writer from Cape Town, South Africa. Her practice centres on manifestations of the curatorial and editorial, the absurd, and situational.

(w) https://centreforthefictitiousantefacto.cargo.site
(ig) @fictitious_ante_facto
(fb) https://www.facebook.com/events/1185749022661129
(e) fictitiousantefacto@gmail.com

Credits

Artist: Jens Masimov
Curator: Nathalie Viruly
Supervision: Martí Manen