Artist:

Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg

Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, both born in 1978, are a Swedish contemporary art duo who have collaborated since 2004. Djurberg creates clay stop-motion animation, sculpture and visual worlds, while Berg develops the music, sound and electronic soundscapes. Art21 describes their combination of sculpture, sound and film as absurd, fairy-tale-like yet psychologically dark clay animations and installations.

Their work is distinctive: at first glance, it often looks cute and brightly colored, like a fairy tale or a world of toys. Look longer, though, and it reveals desires, greed, fear, violence, shame, and absurdity. Tanya Bonakdar Gallery also notes that their surreal narratives often explore themes of lust, greed, exploitation, and fear, with a sense of the absurd.

In 2018, Moderna Museet held their major exhibition A Journey Through Mud and Confusion with Small Glimpses of Air. Its introduction describes dreamlike animated worlds created through sculpture, music and moving images. The seemingly playful stories combine humor and darkness and can unsettle familiar moral conventions.

Simply put, they are rather like artists who turn “children’s clay animation” into a form of adult psychological theater. Their images can be sweet, strange, and cute, but at their core they address the parts of human nature we are reluctant to acknowledge: desire, worship, possession, loss of control, temptation, and that feeling of “I know it’s wrong, but I still want to look.”

Artwork title: Worship (Banana in Diamonds)

Poster size: W: 50*70cm

Original poster from an art museum

About the artwork: “Worship (Banana in Diamonds)”

The image on this Worship (Banana in Diamonds) poster is a still—a single frame—from the stop-motion animation Worship. The Moderna Museet product page explicitly states: “The motif is a still from the stop motion animation Worship by Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg”.

The title Worship means reverence or adoration, while Banana in Diamonds can be understood as a banana among diamonds or surrounded by diamonds. The combination is quintessential Djurberg & Berg: an everyday, even slightly comical fruit placed in a glittering, luxurious setting resembling a shrine or altar. It turns an ordinary object into an idol of worship. It is funny, but also sharply exposes modern society’s fascination with desire, commodities, symbols, and luxury.

This work can be understood from several angles:

First, it seems to satirize consumer society’s fetishization of objects. A banana is ordinarily just an everyday fruit, but surrounded by diamonds, it suddenly looks like a luxury item, a sacred object, a star, or an idol. The absurdity makes us wonder: do we actually like the object itself, or are we worshipping the value created by its packaging?

Second, it also carries a touch of eroticism and humor. In popular culture, bananas often suggest ambiguity, the body, and desire. Djurberg & Berg are adept at using seemingly cute things to open up more unsettling, awkward, or instinctive psychological layers. So this is not simply a “cute fruit picture,” but a slightly naughty fable for adults.

Third, it has a strong sense of contemporary visual symbolism. The banana brings to mind popular culture, Pop Art, Andy Warhol’s banana, and perhaps Maurizio Cattelan’s later banana work. But Djurberg & Berg’s version is more like placing a banana within a dream, an altar, and a psychological hallucination. It is not coolly detached conceptual art, but a strange sacred object emerging from clay animation.

Original poster; size and framing options are listed above.

Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg

Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, both born in 1978, are a Swedish contemporary art duo who have collaborated since 2004. Djurberg creates clay stop-motion animation, sculpture and visual worlds, while Berg develops the music, sound and electronic soundscapes. Art21 describes their combination of sculpture, sound and film as absurd, fairy-tale-like yet psychologically dark clay animations and installations.

Their work is distinctive: at first glance, it often looks cute and brightly colored, like a fairy tale or a world of toys. Look longer, though, and it reveals desires, greed, fear, violence, shame, and absurdity. Tanya Bonakdar Gallery also notes that their surreal narratives often explore themes of lust, greed, exploitation, and fear, with a sense of the absurd.

In 2018, Moderna Museet held their major exhibition A Journey Through Mud and Confusion with Small Glimpses of Air. Its introduction describes dreamlike animated worlds created through sculpture, music and moving images. The seemingly playful stories combine humor and darkness and can unsettle familiar moral conventions.

Simply put, they are rather like artists who turn “children’s clay animation” into a form of adult psychological theater. Their images can be sweet, strange, and cute, but at their core they address the parts of human nature we are reluctant to acknowledge: desire, worship, possession, loss of control, temptation, and that feeling of “I know it’s wrong, but I still want to look.”