This is the very first caption in a series of drawings by Swedish artist Patrick Nilsson. In his Sensmoral or Death, “Patrick”, the artist’s alter ego, is struggling to express his excitement before a planned visit to Auschwitz. Unable to find the right words, he feels a growing reluctance. In the end, he is unable to find a good reason to go or a possible excuse not to go.

Nilsson’s collection of drawings entitled Sensmoral or Death consists of 12 parts. The drawings are in black crayon on paper, in different sizes, most of them between 50 cm by 70 cm, so relatively huge in size.

The work was completed in 2001 and was acquired by the Museum of Art in Uppsala where it was displayed in an exhibition during the autumn of 2009. The subject of the exhibition was – according to the official program – “memory, history and narratives after human trauma and its effect on us today”. Because it was displayed in the “White Cube” and was purchased by a public institution, Nilsson’s work automatically gained recognition as a bonafide work of art, a part of the official memory culture – regarded as a work of art that evokes critical questioning, thereby fulfilling a vital function within a democratic society.

Let us take a closer look at the series – which I shall, due to the language barrier –, render in a summarized interpretation. Let me also add that the series’ aesthetics, which I will not analyze any further, seems a conscious choice by an artist who otherwise clearly is an explicitly gifted drawer – and this choice can be seen as an intentional refusal of “Unwanted beauty” – as Brett Ashley Kaplan expressed the problem of beauty in Holocaust related art works.