Documentation images of an attempt at recreating the cover photo of Darkthrone's seminal black metal album A Blaze in the Northern Sky (released February 26, 1992, which is also the day I was born), utilizing a leather motorcycle jacket treated with a high visibility automotive paint.

Ivar Enger was the rhythm guitarist of Darkthrone, and the subject of the original photograph. He left the band, and allegedly Norwegian society as a whole, in the mid 90s, though his reasons for leaving remain disputed: he left because he became misanthropic, or because his alcoholism led to a car wreck and a long hospital stay, or maybe it was due to his jealousy of the closeness of the two remaining bandmates.

Regardless, no one knows where he went.

This work is an exploration of utilitarian ritual spaces that, in my experience, are largely dominated by a specific form of performative male. The piece is a false floor finished in the kind of tile you find in rented out church basements and suburban VFWs; the form references the location of the final fight in the 1988 film Bloodsport, starring Jean Claude van Damme.

The film is ostensibly based on a true story told by the Canadian-American Frank Dux, who claims to have won a 1975 underground fighting competition, known as the Kumite, by way of 56 consecutive knock outs.

Rephotograph of Mickey Rourke being pulled off of Steve Powell during a 1991 boxing match. The gold shorts were tailored by Gianni Versace.