If you think a sculpture is all about bronze, Henry Moore and an outdoor plinth, think again. For the Swedish artist Love Hultén, sculpture is about recreating a version of the past in the present, a playful vision that incorporates video games, synthesisers, amplifiers and unlikely record players. If you want a synthesiser that looks like at first glance like an old valve radio, then Love Hultén should be your first call.
Love Hultén is an in-demand artist, with commissions from the likes of Eminem and Danger Mouse. He’s told interviewers: "In a world filled with touch screens and over-thought menu diving, I think everyone is in real need of simplicity, tactility, and physical feedback." So in one way Love Hultén’s work is part of the analogue revolution, a return to the tactile and to actual physical buttons to control sounds and games. Your vinyl and cassettes will be right at home on the vertical 'HifiWall 2.0', for instance,
All and everything is made at his studio in Gothenburg, without assistants. This is no factory Damien Hirst operation. A video game console with a lever and buttons to control - among thousands of others - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is home made, in a neat wooden box and has a signature witty title: 'R-KAID-R'. ’The Singer’ lines up three working 1970s toy sewing machines with Moog Mother-32 and Strymon Magneto synthesizers. It’s like nothing else you’ve ever seen, yet evokes nostalgia, albeit for the unknown.
It’s the individuality of these pieces that appeals in a mass produced world. "Commercial products go through strict and compromising processes,” Love Hultén has told interviewers, "that eventually kill the product. I’m a small-scale, one-man studio. I don’t need to compromise.” It’s hard to imagine a large electronics company coming up with anything remotely like ‘Y - 1 7’, a bright yellow synthesizer, incorporating a window with fluids that respond to the notes. Yes, really.
Perhaps it’s the toy-like quality that appeals. Or the sidelong glances at films such as ‘2001, A Space Odyssey’, which is one of Love Hultén’s favourite films. ‘Leto' looks like a companion to Hal from the Kubrick masterpiece, except executed in the artist’s signature bright yellow and described as incorporating: "Mellotron M4000D mini, Pro-800, Nymphes, Warped Vinyl, Tensor, Tape Echo, Vongon Ultrasheer, QuadraMix”. You can see why musicians are repeat collectors.
You want a Love Hultén piece, we want a Love Hultén piece. Obviously. Luckily these retrofuturist working sculptures are for sale and as we’ve said the artist takes commissions. So you might be wondering what sort of price you might have to pay to have one in your home. Auction results suggest that - in art world terms anyway - they’re a relative bargain. An impeccable ‘Pixelkabinett 42’ - one of Love Hultén’s homemade video game consoles - from the edition of 50, sold recently for £2,700 at auction, for example. Our commission? A cocktail cabinet, with video games attached, please.
