Interview 1 (17 seconds)
B: It says “needs this stuff” and my question to you is, who needs this stuff?
L: I think that’s uh.
Interview 2 (14:13)
B:…from language and literature, and they have of course always kind of, whether it’s the toy department or the hobbyist, there is always a model (0:10) in it that they can erase all uncertainty and turns it into something “okay thank you, ya”. And I think that is then the quality or the hopes of what the material basically can engage the audience and his thought. I think that it’s better that it stays alive this gap of understanding. I think that’s what I really try to guarantee through different structures. Through overloading, understating, and confusing parallel structures, or I think that’s also responsibility where we have a few from the word to guarantee that as available.
L: Especially, though, when were talking the other day, with your selections of things, often because of their English translations, can have double meanings. Like the word “plot,” for example, wrestling over that word “plot.” And, you know, the stacked picture frames, these frames within frames within frames, I just think that…I don’t know whether it sort of falls into thinking about somebody like Wittgenstein, or that kind of thinking about language, and this idea of meaning, which for visual art has had this really…that’s what people look at art, they want to know what it means, when most artists aren’t interested in meaning of things, they are interested in something other than the meaning. Does that make sense, what I’m saying? I’m not asking you what your project means, but people come in and are confronted with art, are looking for meaning, they’re looking for something to tell them what it is.
B: They’re totally miseducated. This is an ongoing thing; that you go out there and tell them something. And I think it’s already the other way, that most of the artists are working that way, “this is this, and this stands for this thing,” and so we can forget about the material because this is only a symbol, a substitution for all other things they want to speak about, but that’s kind of an economy I don’t understand, and I don’t want to follow. It’s not wrong, but it’s totally neglecting the visualities. But also, even if it’s not visual…if there’s a brick then there’s a brick. What do you want to do with it, or about it? You and I find that they confronted that there’sa brick, and there’s a mirror, or the row of brick and then there’s the that orb (?) that wooden (?) orb (2:51) that is in a way embedded in this thing, that what do you want to ex….what do you want to ask? There’s nothing to ex… you have to look at it, and whatever you can understand something or you can do something with it. And I think that’s something that’s especially with our generation, or generations before, that you have “I’m always up for the discourse.” You could find enough people who would right now through my pages about the female warrior and the socialist Scandinavia, and this is, this can be one link. But you then you should also go back to the link, and forget about the link and what does it do? It stands there behind different sorts of the metal structure, and then this is the sword and this is, yeah and then you go back to back. And then you think that is very ordinate, to understand that content is a form of, only a form of what’s chosen.
L: Just out of curiosity, and I don’t know your biography so well, so I’m kind of cherry picking. When you went to university, can you talk about influences, things that influence the way you think about visual art? Your practice is decidedly different from. oh jesus, anybody…say, like Matthew Barney. I’m just trying to think of contemporaries who are the same age. And, in way, you’re both dealing with constructions, right? In one case it’s constructions of language, and in his case it might be constructions of identity. I’m kind of challenged to think about, on the one hand, thinking about German art, and somebody like Joseph Beuys comes to mind immediately for the way that he thought about the transformative possibilities of materials. Well, everything started with the materials, right? His whole art practice was based in a way on all materials coming into mythology. And sort of that, at the end of his life, his idea that anyone could be an artist. Which is an idea that he believed in…his self mytholigizing…
B: Yeah but that became the reception, and from that point Beuys is dead. Beuys is dead as Andy Warhol, and there’s a good reason why they are not alive anymore. Because they think that there’s not that much going on, and that’s maybe not their fault. But not even the discourse but the reception of it, in a way closed it down. Because you see these whatever these kind of bobs behind the _____ (5:18), I don’t know what the work is called, but you can’t look at them anymore because you are confronted with, not one bible, but three hundred bibles of what Beuys mean. That’s not a religion, that’s even worse. That’s a graveyard. And I think that’s why I never was interested in what Joseph Beuys is…but I can learn from it. But I think the positive thing, what’s basically more interesting, I think its kind of Protestant idea, you learn from everything. And the second thing, there’s not avant-garde. From that point you can pick things and put them together and see how far we get that one. And then look.
L: Wait, did you say there’s no avant-garde?
B: No. No, there’s no avant-garde possibility anymore. The field is in a way, through. And now you can reclaim the area. At the end of the day, you have always to confess “oh yeah, that guy did that before.” Then there is no claim of being first, second or whatever. And I think that’s so present still…
L: Yeah I mean it goes back to that idea of authenticity. That people still want to…or maybe it’s more about originality than authenticity. But people still hold on to that idea.
B: Then they should drive into Dolce and Gabbana. That’s exactly what it is!
L: No, I agree with you. I think this idea of claiming is a really interesting one, too. Because it is about artists positioning themselves to claim territories that have been mined before, but are doing it differently, without all the text or verbiage or judgment that had been passed before, but are trying to look at it in a new.
B: If somebody comes to the show and says, “oh, I have to think about ______ (says name) (7:30).” That’s not my problem, that’s that person’s problem, and the education. That you can’t think about everything else. Because the tiles were out there, and then somebody thought like, “name” and “oh let’s put them out there.” But now I can’t put Styrofoam tiles out there and be not confronted with the question that there’s a (name) out there? Nothing makes sense with that kind of perception. Nothing, besides education academic and that’s something you should overcome.
L: So what would be the ideal experience you would want someone to have in that project?
B: Probably, I don’t care. In the best case…what else should I do? Honestly, there is no…I can discuss things, I can encounter people, can share thoughts, and can also accuse people or we can have aggressive conversation about things. There are things laid out, and people can find out, but there’s not kind of a why are things there and there. Links are made so people can find out about them, but there’s no enlightenment that in away leads to something. Or there is no way, no hope, to what I would love to see. I don’t know, it’s definitely a word for a, a democracy for the words. I think it’s not uh…what is the term…if you are disappointed with the world…
L: Fatalist?
B: Yeah! I think that’s not what it is. That’s really the only utopia I have.
L: Fatalism?
B: No no no. This kind of idea that we have encounter material as a very democratic way of intercommunication. With an empty area but also afterwards with having seen that and shared that. I think that’s kind of a base, touching base.
L: I think that’s really nicely said. Um, I know this is sort of for my own edification more than it is for anything. You’ve been in the states a couple times now, do you feel like there are artists working today, I’m asking as an American, whose impulses and endeavors are complimentary? Do you feel an affinity with artists making work today that…I’m asking from an American perspective about American artists, not maybe like a Turkish artist working in America who’s really based in Turkey. I’m a little bit asking about issues of identity politics on the one hand, but I’m also asking you about your work, outside the studio, it is sort of exploratory in nature, and there are a lot of artists working like that, but I find them usually to be European, or Latin American. Do you see any sort of…um… syncopation with other artists working..?
B: I just saw David Hammond’s…this kind of thing where he has the _______(11:39), what he did for documentary 92. I just saw that eighteen years ago. Now after eighteen years I just saw it at the ___ (11:44) at the Whitney, at the collecting by ______(11:49). This is kind of a bit here and a bit there, so I don’t have an overview of what’s going on. I’ve seen the greater New York shows, but then I’m more concerned about making such an exhibition, but I think terribly wrong. But then I could also start about thinking things and learning from each thing, even if I don’t like it. There was this kind of tree down in the basement, with a kind of jungle thing. I liked it very much on a formal level, but then somebody tells me “think about the trees in Brazil,” then “oh, thank you.” I will use that kind of concrete thing and that plant. That’s something I take with me. But, bloody hell, why do I need the Brazil story? It’s always kind of an analysis, a kind of critical approach, of our learning and our understanding of what’s wrong and what’s right. That’s my input and my output. And then, there’s a lot interesting stuff, but exhibitions? I have seen much that are very interesting. But I haven’t been out in the suburbs. But that’s not so much, you have a life all the time and there’s not a separation being looking at art. I don’t look at art in that way. I look at exhibitions and whether they achieve something. And then, they are often artists used as material, in a not very interesting way. At least at the _____(13:20). I looked at the Whitney, that’s the Birchfield thing, I think also the performance thing, that was very uninteresting. But then there’s a lot of things to learn, even if I haven’t seen, if you think about Mike Kelly’s thing, I’ve maybe seen one photo, but hearing from the things what he did for, for performal (13:40) last year. There’s no way to say “Oh, I’m not interested” yeah, get it in. But I’ve seen probably 300 romantic comedies last year. And I don’t know what you do with that. There’s always a self-tes…What do you do with apes in a laboratory? It’s a self-testing.
Interview 3 (4:45)
L: ..Our particular location i.e. the gallery..and your work in it. So, the first image is, it’s kind of like Jeopardy, or something…is organizational overview. So if this is, doesn’t really matter what the image is so much. So I’m going to ask you a question, each of the questions I’m going to ask you has whatever language is depicted on it, the word in it, is what I’m going to ask you. For example, this is number one, can you describe the organizational overview of your project?
L: I think it’s from a very point on, even leaving school, I was always interested in creating a kind of institutional parallel. That would allow me in a way, if not in a way to contra the logic of things institutional and its organization, but at least having a parallel for the audience of how you mediate, or how you, in a way, suggest, ideas as a framework that is, basically, embedding the work.
B: So, um, maybe just to take this further, a little bit. To visualize the formal organization of the project, sort of takes the form of the garden, right? It has these plot type structures that one would find in a garden? Your project is Hortus Conclusis. Is that too literal?
L: That’s something in a way you organize…how do you do gardening? You probably, you have the two dimensions, then you have a third dimension. I think that’s how it works. You could, in a way, say that about any exhibition that is concerned about its…
B: …esthetics on the one hand.
L: yeah.
B: The next one is “factory direct.” Do your materials come “factory direct”?
L: I think that’s definitely a possibility. But I think that’s a luxury position nowadays that I in way reached through working materials through for a long period, at least, at university and years after. Even now going through new materials and new forms of materials that you in way get familiar with material. And through that kind of process you’re, in a way, have an experience or if you want knowledge that allows you, in way, to develop a _____ (3:40) in the encounter of material. But that’s more of an explanation. Why I see myself nowadays in that kind of position, to bring these things, going to Home Depot, making these 20 photos, and then knowing “okay, that’s the accessible material.” But then there’s also another part, like the found hairbands, stuff that is enriched with social history, or or…whatever
B: That are personal, and in some ways personal.
L: Not mine
B: Not your personal, but those are personal, decorative, functional objects, in a way.
L: But they can also be a focus of a perversion, too. That’s at least how far it can be. But that’s a perspective that can then be reflected on them.
Interview 4 (18:05)
L: Can you describe all the purposes of the Swedish warrior woman in the poster in two and half minutes?
B: I think that’s really one of the pieces, where you could in a way, where I would, that would be one of the points where I would be interested in starting a discourse, in starting a discussion in forming a frame around something where I find it makes sense. Because a lot of the material I wouldn’t have the discourse. That painting, war painting, was found in a house built probably in the early fifties, of a house of rental flats, at that time from brokers, and it’s basically greeting the people on the way in. But it is also a signature form of protecting. But on the way out it’s also the kind of place where it’s “oh that’s where I come in and out every day.” I think that’s the kind of territory, in a way, in a very traditional way, painted, in a kind of a bit like, not easy to understand, why this style, in this situation, in a then, at least, socialistic country. I think that’s a very nice, I think there could be something to really go into, and to think about that, where I would see the perspective of a discourse.
L: Do you see the possibility of the discourse being the same here, as it would be there, on that image? I mean we’re talking about the image being in a gallery in Connecticut, versus the image being in Sweden, and we’re talking about context, I know but…
B: It’s totally disconnected. It becomes that voliptous (1:43?) , what did you say, (voliptous) woman, and all that. But it’s still a kind of a female fighter, and some kind of projections possible. But I think it’s totally disconnected. So, in that way it would make sense to speak, to inform, or there could be a reason “oh, that’s the background, and…” No, I definitely see that as a kind of a marm, or Greek marm or figure, in the back garden of somebody in some Fairfield county villa, it doesn’t look differently. It’s exactly what it comes in as.
L: Okay. Okay, so this image, can see you see? It says “sodium free.” It says “sodium free vintage.” Many of the items here are vintage, are they “sodium free”, as well?
B: That’s very nice. That advertisement. What is it, is it boar head?
L: Boar head…Boar’s head! The meats, yeah.
B: They’re making advertisements…Oh! The government is asking to cut down sodium in the next two and a half years. Oh, we did that 25 years ago...(jokingly).
B: I’m not really sure whether that…vintage, yes, but in a very specific way with the hairbands. But that becomes vintage very, in a way, I think, “really, how long do I still have to go to the salvatory army, how can I bury that smell in there…” So, that word turns into perversion, if you want so. Then, the vintage thing, is a look. A lot of designers are having lines that are vintage. It’s kind of… I don’t even want to use the word fakey, even…
L: Fetish, maybe?
B: But it’s a kind of re-fetishizing, maybe, Dolce and Gabbana having been a vintage thing. Or you buy the Wrangler Levi’s checkered from 30 years ago. You can’t get it anymore, it’s been reproduced, and then costs much more than the actual Wrangler or Levi’s checkered.
L: It’s style. It’s about style, don’t you think?
B: I think it’s a very good idea to, in a way, rebrand yourself. It’s the same thing. The Adidas sneakers, I still have the original, since 25 years. Now I still have to wait anymore for them to make it as a vintage thing to get the original anymore. I don’t know what it is, yeah. It’s something that I’m aware it’s there. Now, I would now need a perspective of why you would think about vintage in the context of the work. Versus that vintage coming in, then, where would it make sense to use the term?
A: Well maybe it’s in part due to the fact that the term vintage has been cheapened, and of a set of things that has been made in 1995 that’s vintage. I feel like it’s a really…it’s a loose, fluid. It’s very fluid. It doesn’t just refer to something made in the 60s, and there are a lot of sort of repurposed older articles in the work.
L: But that idea of branding is really tied to, even to this image. The way that the formal layout of the image, the font face, this sort of complimentary effect that the connotation and denotation…the pictorial associations that we have with language by putting the word vintage with the font that doesn’t look contemporary or modern. It looks older, it conjures nostalgia, it’s asking us to think about authenticity, in a way. But you’re right, in a sense what’s interesting is that you could even look at that table, that modernist table that you used that had those chrome legs, feeling like it came from the 60s, to me, 60s style, low coffee table, stripped of any character, really neutral for the most part. But that makes me think vintage, that table makes me think vintage. But on the other hand that idea of the brand, if you’re using it in the context of design, like you used with fashion, to make Dolce and Gabbana, which is high couture culture, high couture fashion, and then rebranding and making things that are meant to look old, meant to look stylized, meant to look a certain way, kind of corrupts the meaning of the word in general.
Or maybe I’m a little off target there. But it’s a tough word, because its connotations are so specfic, don’t you think?
B: At least utopia is lost in a way, if you are in a situation that vintage is not necessarily close to a charity anymore. It’s not corrupt, but it’s usable. It became usable, people had an interest and made sense out of it. Then I would ask, what would be my economy, by using vintage? Then the point is if this is the news from yesterday, then what is it? Is it old? Then it’s vintage. So you have a diary where you describe the things, and you look back, and that is the first moment where something is vintageable, at least.
L: Vintageable, alrght!
B: Then it’s a question of your strategy and your economics, whether you want to put it out there or not. It’s just, it’s something for publication, where everyone is asked to contributed 150 pieces of A4 paper. And they get you to 100 feet of publication, and each contributor puts one page in there. And then I choose drawings from 98 that was called “Banner Ready ____ 97” (8:43), so expression 97, and that’s then 13 years ago. I think that’s definitely vintageable.
L: Vintageable….sodium. Sodium free
B: What is the sodium thing?
L&A: Salt.
L: Not everything in that installation is sodium free (laughs).
B: Sodium… I like the dust. So it’s not dust free. I like that that is kind of a trace, a dust over a lot of things and you see even the touches, of transporting the stuff up that people innovate, have contact with or over. That’s more interesting, than the sodium thing.
L: Okay. This was a hard image to ask one sentence about, but since you had salt in that show…this is an image that says “early history” on it. Can you give us an early history of the owl, or another object in Hortus Conclusus.
B: The owl before had a camera eye in, a little surveillance eye. So it looked at the people passing the shopping building in the street project. And that was in it the same time, and it presented in the moment, so that the people would, in the best case, see themself looking at the owl or at the same time looking at the monitor that was standing underneath of the owl. Then I have an amateur, a little interest in ornithology, so I at least know more birds with name, than probably 95%. That doesn’t mean anything for you.
L: What about the horn? The devil’s horn?
B: That’s an amputation.
L: Amputation? Huh? Gasp.
B: But it’s a trophy, too.
L: Yes. A bright orange trophy.
B: Hangs a bit low for trophy, I have to say.
L: It does hang a little low, it feels like it could impale somebody.
B: I never did that work, but somebody came up, “oh you did this reference to a hunter.” A weapon could be at first a tool, maybe, but it also could be a form to poke an audience. To put out something out to, “oh, you can get hurt here.” And I think what it stands there, in the way it comes out of a tree or tree situation or garden situation, and having these signal colors on. I couldn’t see anything that would lead away from the things that I mentioned.
L: Can you read that?
B: “For the birds”?
L: It’s “for the birds”. Do you think your organizational overview of Hortus Conclusus, your project, is for the birds?
B: I think I would describe it differently, but I think there is um, a right of existence of whatever…if you create something, and put things together and then you leave them, and they are out there, so they are existing even if no one comes in, they are out there. They have a right to exist. That’s something I always try to pinpoint in a kind of educational situation or discussion with students or artists I’m working with. Oh you did that thing, and now this thing exists, whether you want it or not, so it has its own right, its own status. That is something, oh the birds could look at, and you are not able to interfere anymore. And I think that’s kind of an understanding of autonomy. We have a responsibility to guarantee autonomy, or that I keep out of that. It exists without any audience. I think it would make sense to use that as a description, as a sentence.
L: This is another image from the basement. It’s a box that has a checkered flag and it says “Toy Department”
A: Could you consider your forays to the basement, trips to the toy department?
B: [pause] No. No, you send most of the ____ down the road. I think it’s diminishing the possibilities and the qualities that are down there. In that way I’m always careful by informing people…you can use that, for some audience it might be helpful, but in general I would like to see the stuff is there, it’s organized it’s put together, and it doesn’t need ____ (15:10) on it. And this toy thing can be helpful, but it can make it also kind of sweet and put sugar on things. Department is fine, yeah. But I think, because now what we said, “that’s the cheapest show I did” or let’s put it that…the whole show didn’t cost more than 50 dollars, if you think not about time. And then “toy department”…give me ten thousand and that becomes a site-specifc factor, and then we’ve lost something of ten thousand dollars. There’s no hierarchy, I think that’s important to keep things open and not end up in the “toy” division.
A: You said something really interesting before about how the devil’s horn was an amputation and a trophy. How do you mean that it was a trophy?
B: I think there’s always…one of the ground functions that works in centuries, in thousands of years, is that with the help of material, you picked your world. So then, it was first a trophy, and then somebody thought “oh I want to do a trophy.” Because if you want to get a trophy, you then you have to cut something off, or you have to do something, but this is an image of a trophy. But at the same time, somebody had to saw that stuff off, too, of something. As I said before, I don’t get out with that work. (pause) I can’t offer any widening, enlightening perspective for the thing. But that’s the thing that is very enclosed for me.
end.
