Visitors milling around central Stockholm this weekend may well pop into a strange convenience store called Mehmets’ Livs buried in the bowels of the earth. This shop, with its very own disgruntled and discourteous employee behind the counter, is not, however, a real retail unit but an installation by the Swedish artist Ilja Karilampi. The work, which opens this evening (25 September), is the latest in the celebrated Absolut art series (previous artists commissioned include Adrian Wong and Mickalene Thomas). But the piece is not just about dysfunctional shopping: a curtain at the back of the store leads into the President Room, a speakeasy dotted with Karilampi’s crazy neon signs and relief wall sculptures.“President Room is a continuation of Karilampi’s practice, which explores the individual’s relationship with urban environments and the socio-economics of street sub-cultures,” says a press statement. The immersive installation, which will host DJ sets and live music events, is open during the Absolut Art award ceremony weekend (25-26 September) when this year’s winners, artist Frances Stark and writer Mark Godfrey, will be honoured.
