White Men Can't Jump is largely about incompetence, abuse and the inability to create a functioning existence. I like the title for several reasons, but mainly because it points out incompetence in a nice and clear way. It is a key to understanding the people depicted in the exhibition. Showing them as incompetent is an act of tenderness, to look at those closest to them and realize that they are incompetent beings. Primates who have not succumbed to self-domestication, which in many ways would have been the easy way out.

Picking up a drunk at daycare still has its charm, it's not a privilege, on the contrary everyone sees and knows what's going on and no one does it without feeling ashamed. But the urge is still stronger than anything else and with a grip harder than diamonds it takes its host animal and its surroundings on a journey.

What you can see in the catalogue and in the exhibition are parts of such a journey, fragments that I remember clearly. Memories that have followed me through life and shaped many of the choices I have made. It is what it is and nothing that I would choose to do away with. These experiences have certainly not made life easier, but they have put things into perspective and for that I am grateful. I also feel that the space for those who do not conform to the order is constantly shrinking. Here we really have something to learn from the drunkard. Even if it happens that the drunkard has not chosen to stand up for anything, rather the opposite, they still act as a brake on a social development that is heading towards control, bureaucracy and other boring things.

Henrik Ekesiöö

Henrik Ekesiöö, born 1983 in Stockholm, Master's degree from the Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University 2010.

Ekesiöö's artistic work is characterized by storytelling in various forms. His practice encompasses sculpture, performance, music and video.

In 2019, Henrik Ekesiöö received the Academy of Fine Arts' exhibition grant from the Folke Hellström Lind fund. The grant includes an exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts, funds to carry out the exhibition, and an exhibition catalogue. The exhibition, which opens on 29 January 2022, will feature several bronze sculptures.