2023
body bags, metal, fabric, plastic hair
140 x 130 x 130 cm
Transcription from the audio guide written by Alina Kleytman:
Ladies in latex…
faceless Gentlemens
Before you stands… Nightmare Bell.
This bell doesn’t ring to warn of danger…
It reminds.
Reminds those… who dared to forget.
The red bow on top — is no decoration…
It’s the final attempt…
To pretend that everything is fine.
Nightmare Bell.
A gift…
from the one whose shadow is longer than empires.
Description/commentary
Suspended mid-air, NIGHTMARE BELL is a haunting, gothic structure fashioned from body bags, twisted metal, and synthetic hair. Evoking the silhouette of a monumental bell or broken chandelier, the sculpture hangs with quiet menace—its form both ornamental and ominous, like a ritual object severed from its original meaning. A crimson bow crowns the piece, adding a disturbing note of festive excess to an otherwise funereal presence.
Referencing the material language of death, mourning, and memory, the work resists easy interpretation. Kleytman’s accompanying text hints at a surreal narrative: a girl awakened by a bell that demands answers to impossible questions. These questions—”Is this profanation or exploitation? Mummification or memorization?”—echo through the form itself, asking whether trauma can ever be truly commemorated, or if our rituals merely aestheticize it. In NIGHTMARE BELL, beauty, horror, and absurdity are braided together, forming a silent alarm in a world increasingly numb to catastrophe.