Photos courtesy of Hanna Antonsson
I flirted with you all my life was exhibited at Konstepidemin in Göteborg in 2023.
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I flirted with you all my life is an exhibition by artist Isabel Theselius that builds on myths around a diner, lounge, and bowling alley called The Red Mill, owned by Theselius’s husband’s great-grandparents in Detroit, Michigan, through the 1950s and '60s. Theselius grew interested in the diner after learning that it burned down twice under shadowy circumstances.
Through photographs and postcards of the interior, collected by her husband’s family and memorabilia found online, Theselius has recreated images, objects and a video piece inspired by the diner as the fire begins. The series dives into ideas of a mythic American past during the post-war boom years and the realities of loss and repeated tragedy, with more sinister undertones of mounting civil unrest and the Detroit Riots in 1967, as the second version of The Red Mill burned to the ground during the riots/rebellions.
The title I flirted with you all my life is taken from a Vic Chesnutt song, where the singer reveals his complicated relationship with death. In Theselius’s exhibition, the line from Chesnutt’s song refers to her longtime fascination with fire as a simultaneous destructive and seductive force. For Theselius, the symbol of flames can stand in for current and historical disasters, but it also symbolizes renewal and the potential for new beginnings.