historical ubuweb

Bengt af Klintberg, Sweden | b. 1938 The Cursive Scandinavian Slave (1967, Great Bear Pamphlet, Something Else Press) [PDF, 536k] Bengt af Klintberg the Swedish poet and folklorist, was born in Stockholm on Christmas Day 1938, a Sunday. In 1962 he became interested in Happenings and was one of the first to perform them in Sweden, at the Athena Theatre in Stockholm. Later the same year he met the Fluxus group in Copenhagen and contributed, in 1963, to Flux-Concerts in Dusseldorf and Stockholm. The same year he composed his "Orangerimusik 1963" for such instruments as buckets, wooden boxes, lettuce and carbonic-acid snow tube. In April 1965 he exhibited ice in a forest, and in December he contributed a Christmas Calendar to POEX 65 at Copenhagen. During the Autumn his play "Lidner" (later awarded as the best private theatre play of the year) was shown at the Pistol Theatre in Stockholm. Since 1963 he has performed events in Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen and other Scandinavian cities, and since 1964 he also has produced folklore programs for the Swedish Radio. Together with his wife Katarina and son Dan he lives in a big red wooden house, surrounded by the forests and fields that appear in these events, and are situated by a lake 30 kilometers from Stockholm. The closeness of the relationship between Bengt af Klintberg's events and the Swedish folklore which is his chosen field of professional study is highlighted by the two extracts, printed at his suggestion on pages 8 and 9, from works on folklore, the first extract from a book of magic formulas and processes published by af Klintberg himself, the second from a famous collection of Swedish folk riddles. (Written in 1967)