“Humans, You Are Fucked” is a street artwork located on a brick wall on the outskirts of Stockholm, in Snösätra. The Swedish artist responsible goes by the name Herr Nilsson, he has a distinctive style of juxtaposing playful innocence with a message highlighting the most prevalent flaws in humanity.
Nilsson is famously known for his “Dark Princesses” street art installations across Stockholm in 2012, whereas his creation of “Humans, You Are Fucked” occurred later in 2018. His unabashed and direct style of street art, when combined with the underlying left leaning makes his work an unofficial attraction of Sweden by those who accidentally stumble past or those who go searching for it.
Jacqueline Millner, an art theorist, develops the notion that true street art has a message that is not normally noticed initially, but further inspection brings about self-reflexiveness, and awareness of one’s surroundings both natural and urban. This ideology is developed through Nilsson’s work as the initial thought aligned with the cartoonish nature illustrates a sense of fun and light heartedness. However, we soon see the bare, dystopian world that the character exists in is reflective of our human obsession with technological advancement and insatiable consumption thereof.
“I want my art works to be like punches with a smile, hard and precise” – Herr Nilsson
Nilsson’s “punch” is delivered in an attempt to wake society from the blissful ignorance we enjoy. Nilsson asks the viewer to reflect on the relationship between oneself, society, these global problems, and the future of the earth.
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