COVER UP

1998

Overgaden, Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
Photo: Planet Foto / Anders Sune Berg


Cover up means to conceal, disguise, obscure. It could also mean a cover story, in the sense of an alibi, when it comes to covering up the truth. Sometimes it may be necessary to hide ones deeds / misdeeds. Most people have tried to hide in one sense or another, concretely or on a more psychological level. It can even be a life-threatening act to keep one’s true self intact from the outside world. If you maintain the lie long enough, you may end up believing it yourself and thereby confusing it with the truth.

The cover story lies like a dynamically convincing and hard-hitting seductive drapery around a truth or reality that can be so frighteningly banal that it is incomprehensible. But the drapery also makes room for the place of fantasies, wishes, desires and dreams that most people cannot live without.