LandEscape Contemporary
A r t
R e v i e w
Anniversary Edition
NICOLAS VIONNET CLAIRE WILLIAMS GERD BROCKMANN LINDA PERSSON EVA ATHANASIADOU TAL AMITAI LAVI IVONNE DIPPMANN MILES RUFIELDS LIEN-CHENG WANG , 2016 six channel digital video installation at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery
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CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
C o n t e m p o r a r y
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Zinka Bejtic
Boris Eldagsen
Caroline Monnet
Tracey Snelling
Nicolas Vionnet
Carla Forte
United Kingdom
Germany
Canada
USA
Switzerland
United Kingdom/USA
I am a firm believer that I can only speak about the things I know. My own personal reality is always intrinsically weaved into my work. Personal experience is a stepping-stone in creating the work I do. I wanted the main character to be beautiful, eccentric and likable. I remember thinking that my grandmother was the most amazing and exciting woman. Only later I realized her eccentricity was hiding something deeper. She was hurt and displaced. Memories also feed imagination in my opinion. The authenticity of the story comes from a direct experience, but the fiction behind it allows for further possibilities in storytelling. The film tells the story of Roberta who left her native reserve to follow her husband in a suburban area in hopes of a better life.
Time is so relative. In film it
Vionnet’s preferred medium is acrylic on canvas. His chiefly large-scale works play with space and expanse. Although almost always realistic, his paintings have more in common with abstract images than real landscapes. He paints disruptive grey strips across his clouds and allows coloured surfaces to drip down the canvas in accordance with the laws of gravity. Vionnet is fascinated by such irritations: interventions that approach and create a non-hierarchical dialogue with the environment. This dialogue opens up a field of tension, which allows the viewer an intensive glimpse of both these phenomena. Through a variety of methods and different materials he creates worlds whose foundations are fragile and disinte-grating. These worlds seemingly materialize from concrete images yet they create a disturbing mental atmosphere.
My primary intent is to communicate my personal and social concerns, transforming them into a magical realm where anything becomes possible. Images, dialogues, silences and movement join to create a visual equilibrium, speaking for themselves. Within my cinemato-graphic work, movement is a key element for narrative and visual development; achieving a frame in motion from the image. Beyond an unorthodox narrative and aesthetic, my work focuses on experimenting new visual sensations through conflict: reflecting a world of emotions that can be both very near reality and on the side of the nonexistent, creating a parallel universe in which the palpable and the desired become possible at the same time. The 'immateriality' of the world is highly material, everything connected to domain, internet and so on.
My work is based on a wide scope of modalities ranging from design, photography, experimental film to video art. I am engaged in timebased visual communication and subjects of my work often explore dichotomies between inside and outside, the polished and rough, the physical and emotional, distant and passionate. Through experiments in video and sound, I search for new ways to study conceptual forms common for nonnarrative formats. In photography and design, I build on simple and surreal ambiances that serve as a platform for provoking visual narratives. My work aims to transcends the private case and addresses universal values with which any viewer
Eldagsen only works at night, with minimal equipment, an in-camera approach and without digital manipulation. Like a moth, he roams the streets searching for light, practicing what he has termed Inverse Street Photography: instead of exploring stories, a place or a person, he hijacks and transforms what he sees in front of his camera to become a symbol for the timeless workings of the mind. Eldagsen also stages images with models to create a portrait of the Collective Unconscious. To develop ideas and impulses for the shoot, he maps the overlapping areas of his and his model’s unconscious. Then he follows the dynamics of the shoot to move deeper down the rabbit hole.
may identify.
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can be used to present one minute of time happening in various ways, a lifetime happening in an hour, time being long and lasting seemingly forever, or time being so quick and then it's over. For Nothing, the tempo was so important, and was part of my original idea from the conception of the film. For most of the film, time drags on and the day seems to last forever. Then, upon Jane's realization that she is stuck in a dead-end life and must get out, the pace picks up quickly, and the sound follows. Once there has been the dramatic climax and and is free, driving on the road, things slow down to a regular pace as she stops to get gas.
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Nicolas Vionnet
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lives and works in Genéve, Switzerland
Linda Persson
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lives and works in London, United Kingdom
Tal Amitai-Lavi
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lives and works in Tel-Aviv, Israel
Lien-Cheng Wang
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lives and works in Taiwan
Gerd G.M. Brockmann 60 lives and works in Utrecht, the Netherlands
Claire Williams Tal Amitai Lavi
Linda Persson
Lien-Cheng Wang
Israel
Sweden / United Kingdom
Taiwan
Amitai-Lavi's work is straddling on the boundary between two-dimensional and three-dimensional. It is characterized by love of craftsmanship, sensitivity to details and an exploration of unusual materials. In her recent works Tal AmitaiLavi shows images that mark out elusive spaces of emptiness and fullness. Through a variety of methods and different materials she creates worlds whose foundations are fragile and disintegrating. These worlds seemingly materialize from concrete images yet they create a disturbing mental atmosphere. Her unique work succeed to transcends the private case and addresses universal values with which any viewer may identify.
My thinking and making goes through different materials and processes and i am, by putting my body in motion to go to places and landscapes given experiences, by actually moving, and that is quite a radical thing in itself, and this forms my visual output. I pick up on things related to our senses like smell, light and dark, dry or moist sonic atmosphere, which are all deeply sensorial and experiential. It's not just about responding to the things already in existence but bring to front the absence in the produced world. This can create hard-to-follow image sequences or mediums chosen, yet it, if successful, can create curiosity or better; a sense of euphoria. Our world shrieks of mobility, interaction, exchange, flexibility however it only applies to a fair few, but mainly it applies to money. Actual moving bodies has created new walls to be built, harsher entries and exits of and into certain countries.
My works involve the use of interactive devices with sound performances. Devices often utilize a volume approach to achieve a specific physical erception, while images in the sound performances are generated real-time to materialize corresponding forms. In recent years, I have been committed to the seamless combination of images and sounds created through computer algorithms. In my work, I want to convert the Internet data—the 1s and 0s—into the CD-ROM drives’ physical ejection and retraction, thus making the activity of logging on to the Internet both visible and audible. Audience stands in front of a wall linked by CDROM drives, they get sensation as if placing bodies in the data stream. It gives audience in a grand informational torrent materialized by a collective of actions.
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lives and works in London, United Kingdom
Miles Rufelds
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lives and works in Berlin, Germany
Eva Athanasiadou
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lives and works in London, United Kingdom
Ivonne Dippmann
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lives and works in Berlin, Germany Special thanks to Haylee Lenkey, Martin Gantman , Krzysztof Kaczmar, Joshua White, Nicolas Vionnet, Genevieve Favre Petroff, Sandra Hunter, MyLoan Dinh, John Moran, Marya Vyrra, Gemma Pepper, Michael Nelson, Hannah Hiaseen and Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Miya Ando, Martin Gantman , Krzysztof Kaczmar and Robyn Ellenbogen.
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Nicolas Vionnet Lives and works in Baselh, Switzerland
An artist's statement
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ionnet’s preferred medium is acrylic on canvas. His chiefly large-scale works play with space and expanse. Although almost always realistic, his paintings have more in common with abstract images than real landscapes. He paints disruptive grey strips across his clouds and allows coloured sur-faces to drip down the canvas in accordance with the laws of gravity.
Vionnet is fascinated by such irritations: interventions that approach and create a non-hierarchical dialogue with the environ-ment. This dialogue opens up a field of tension, which allows the viewer an intensi-ve glimpse of both these phenomena. Vionnet uses the same approach and the same strategy for his installations. Irritation and integration. A fundamental confrontation with the history of a place leads to a subtler and more precise intervention of the object. Take for
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example his man-made grass island at the Weimarhallen Park (Weimar, GER), which ironically inten-sified the park’s own artificiality. In ‘Close the Gap’ (Leipzig, GER) he bridged the space between an old-town row of houses with a printed canvas image of the now much frowned upon prefabricated buil-ding. A reference to changes in time and aesthetics. Nicolas Vionnet lives and works in the Zuricharea. He graduated from the Hochschule fürGestaltung und Kunst Basel. He graduated in2009 from the Bauhaus-Universität Weimarwith a Master of Fine Arts degree after studyingon the university’s Public Art and New ArtisticStrategies programme. Vionnet has partici-pated in various exhibitions at home and abroadsince 1999, including at the Kunsthalle Basel,the Neues Museum Weimar (Gallery marke.6)and the III Moscow International Biennale forYoung Art.
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Maya Gelfman
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LandEscape meets
Nicolas Vionnet An interview by Julian Thomas Ross, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com
Multidisciplinary artist Nicolas Vionnet's work explores the relationship between the Self and the collective consciousness, highlighting the unstable relation between these apparently opposite aspects. In his works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, he unveils the connections between our perceptual process and the elusive nature of our bodies' physicality yo accomplish the difficult task of drawing the viewers into a multilayered experience in which they are urged to rethink about the stages of the soul, spirit and body from before birth to afterlife. One of the most convincing aspect of Vionnet's approach is the way it condenses the permanent flow of associations in the realm of memory and experience: we are really pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating artistic production. Hello Nicolas, and a warm welcome to LandEscape To start this interview would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there any particular experiences that have impacted on the way you currently produce your artworks?
I grew up in the region of Basel, Switzerland, and have completed my education at the University of Art and Design Basel and at the Bauhaus-University Weimar. During the first few years I have
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been mainly dealing with painting. Decisive for my current artistic practice was my twoyear stay in Weimar, where I graduated from the Public Art and New Artistic Strategy master’s program. During this time I was given the chance to realize my first major interventions in public space. It was an exciting and very intense time where I mainly learned to perceive my environment in a completely different way, to react and to undertake artistic interventions. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?
The principal approach in nearly all projects is quite similar, but the final work can differ greatly. In the context of an exhibition I often get a proposed specific place or I have the freedom to choose from a range of different locations in public space. My process usually begins with photo tours and walks where I am trying to become familiar with a place. Important questions for me are: how do the citizens use the place, what is its function and what role does it take in everyday life? Are there any
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special circumstances or other conspicuous issues? In the next stage I start an exhaustive research, go to the library or the city archive and try to clarify the historical background of the site. During this period I normally have the first clear ideas and I start to do visualizations with Photoshop. If an idea is strong enough and can survive for several days or weeks, I move to the final phase where I start to test and to work with the needed material to finally realize the work. Now let's focus on your art production: we would start from A New Found Glory and Men after work, one of your earlier pieces that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit your website directly at http://www.nicolasvionnet.ch in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of these interesting projects? What was your initial inspiration? The first project you mentioned, A New Found Glory, was realized together with my friend Wouter Sibum from Rotterdam. We both graduated from the Public Art and New Artistic Strategies program in Weimar and since then, often working together as a duo. For example we realized the work Colour me surprised as part of the III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art in 2012. A New Found Glory was conceived one year later in a closed public toilet known as the M¸llloch (litter-hole) next to the Herdbr¸cke at the Donau in Ulm. For years, this non-place is closed off for the public. It gathers more and more garbage and is overgrown by weeds and wild flowers over the years. We were looking for a funny
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Nicolas Vionnet
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Nicolas Vionnet
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response to the still unresolved problem and decided to install a fountain in the middle of the forbidden zone. A fountain that was only just visible for the passersby, but once looked into the hole reveals to be filling the space completely. Thus, not only surprising the passersby - at the same time also a touch of festivity and glory returned to the old city wall in Ulm. The second work, Men after work, was a minimal intervention that I have realized in the project room of WIDMER + THEODORIDIS contemporary in Zurich. The room consisted of a long, dark passage, which finally ended in a courtyard in the heart of the old town of Zurich. On the one hand, I was referring on the exhibition title Men at work. On the other hand, the small but noticeable road construction warning light has flashed in unfamiliar red light through this dark alley and had a magnetic effect on passersby. I have to underline that we only know road construction warning lights with yellow appearance in Switzerland. Therefore the red light was irritating and many of the passers-by saw it more like an indication of a red light bar. Furthermore I found the idea of a road construction warning light very charming and narrative: it is clocking-off time; the light is set to red. Come on in! One of the features that has mostly impacted on me of Jacuzzi, is the way you are effectively capable of recontextualizing the idea of the environment we live in, which is far from being just the background of our existence: you Art in a certain sense forces the viewers' perception in order to challenge the common way to perceive environment... so I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?
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It is indeed the case that my work tries to sensitize the people for their immediate environment. My works are often restrained, unobtrusive and directly embedded in the landscape – my work would not be readable without a specific surrounding. So it is always about this dialogue, the positioning, interaction and what can come out of these situations. This forces the viewer to perceive the environment from a new perspective. Unimportant and inconspicuous becomes suddenly important and intrusive. Now to your question: Our experiences shape us throughout life. I see this like a simple classical conditioning. Our experiences are a key factor of how we perceive our world and how we behave in certain situations. You thus always have an impact, even if we are not always aware. In this sense, I don’t think that a creative process can be really disconnected from experience. Multidisciplinary is a recurrent feature of your artistic production and I have appreciated the effective synergy that you create between different materials, as in the stimulating Extent of reflection: while crossing the borders of different techniques have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?
I must admit in all honesty: Yes, I actually work with synergies, but it was never intended to do so. I very often rely on my gut instinct and just try to bring the work to a coherent state. One advantage of your mentioned interdisciplinary approach is that a work, through the interaction of different techniques, automatically focuses on several aspects and thus can be read on
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Reagan Lake
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Nicolas Vionnet
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several levels. However, I am not consciously looking for these multiple layers. In 2011, I have realized the installation Out of sight, out of mind in a former Stasi prison in Chemnitz, Germany. The work consisted of a huge mountain of shredded paper, with which I have filled a former interstitial space knee-high. As additional audio-element there were hectic noises of steps and shredding machines. The whole work addressed the last days of the Stasi shortly before the fall oft he wall in 1989. The Stasi tried to destroy as many secret documents as possible. Even today, there are thousands of bags with shredded paper remnants that are now reassembled laboriously by hand. A hilarious story. In this sense you can see my work as a staging of the last hectic hours of the Stasi in 1989. Another interesting work of yours that have particularly impressed me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitled Warum Denken traurig macht, and which is a clear example of what you have once defined as "nonhierarchical dialogue with the environment". By the way, although I'm aware that this might sound a bit naif, I can recognize such a socio political aim in your Art: a constant stimulation that we absolutely need to get a point of balance that might give us the chance of re-interpreting the world we live in... and our lives, indeed...
My work often focuses on the topics of integration and irritation. In other words, I'm trying to integrate something new into the existing environment and thus to irritate at the same time. However, the confusion should be subtle. The phrase "nonhierarchical dialogue with the environment" describes my conviction that the artwork itself may never be dominant. Indeed, there should be no hierarchy. Ideally, there is a balance between work and environment. This balance allows the
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viewer to perceive both components simultaneously. The installation Warum Denken traurig macht in my view is an oddity among my works. This project was shown in the socalled art box, a typical white cube in the shape of a container that is shown in different locations in the city of Uster. Due to the physical presence oft the box, there was already an existing hierarchy, which I could not prevent. However, I wanted to follow a particular path. Many artists before me have used the box a simple white cube to showcase their existing works. In no case I wanted to do the same. I have decided to give the box a new residential function and to turn it into a retirement home. The whole room was papered, the walls were decorated with old family photos and at the door there was a cloak hanging. In between, the phone rang and you could hear the radio. The people have actually thought that the box is inhabited. By the way: the work's title referred to the same-named book from Georges Steiner, an American literary critic, essayist and philosopher During these years your works have been exhibited in several important occasions, both in Switzerland, where you are currently based, and abroad: and I think it's important to remark that you took part to the III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art... It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if an award -or just the expectation of positive feedback- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...
Absolutely. An artist needs an audience; I
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think that's probably one of the most important things. I want that my work can be seen! Art is destined to be shared! It is not that much important to me that I can sell my work, however, I am more interested to exhibit my work in a professional context and on a regular basis. Sales may of course also have a negative influence on the artist's way of working. Many artists argue that they are completely independent - I see that as utterly false. Let's be honest: If you feel a large interest and for example you can sell a complete series of works at once, there is a high probability that you go back to your studio and start working on similar pieces again. I think this is quite normal. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Nicolas. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?
I would like to thank you for your interest. My work is currently shown at several locations. At the Kulturort Galerie Weiertal (Winterthur, ending on September 7,2014) I present two installation works in a magnificent park (one of the works is the above mentioned Jacuzzi). Furthermore I participate in a group show entitled Small Works at Trestle Gallery (Brooklyn, New York, July 18 – August 22, 2014). There will be a group show entitled Trovato, non veduto at Ausstellungsraum Klingental (Basel, November 1 – 16, 2014). Moreover I am very excited to do another project together with Wouter Sibum (Rotterdam). We will present a major intervention in the sea as part oft he 4th Biennial Aarhus exhibit called Sculpture by the sea. This show will start in June 2016. You are cordially invited to visit my website www.nicolasvionnet.ch, where you can find more information and all exhibition dates.
Linda Persson Linda Persson is a Swedish artist living and working between Sweden and United Kingdom
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ver the last 4 years I have occupied the role of the female explorer going to desolate landscapes, to questioning measured science and history of archive and knowledge production as we know it by putting the [female] body in motion. I recently went to the Australian desert and the opal mining industries to look at landscape / stones / before and after human interference. It’s a film that uses economic, colonial, ecological, gender concerns juxtaposing unlike images forming a sort of radicalism by using imagination as method.
http://www.lindapersson.org/ http://thelastwoman.moonfruit.com/ http://5months.moonfruit.com/news-month-by-month/4581073543
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LandEscape meets
Linda Persson An interview by and
, curator , curator
Multidisciplinary artist Linda Persson's work rejects any conventional classifications and is marked with freedom as well as rigorous formalism, when encapsulating a careful attention to composition and balance. She questions our contemporary society of economic growth ways following a close examination of reality, yet refusing traditional features that mark out documentary cinema: in an age in which globalisation and commodification impinge on every aspect of our lives, Persson uses her kaleidoscopic approach to investigate about language, mobility, and transformation. One of the most impressive aspects of Persson's work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of unveiling the ubiquitous connections between microcosm and macrocosm: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production Hello Linda and welcome to LandEscape: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your multifaceted background? You have a solid formal training and after having degreed with a BA from the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, you nurtured your education with a MFA from the prestigious, Winchester School of Art, Southampton University. How do your studies influence your evolution as an artist? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?
Hi LandEscape Art Review, thanks for having me.
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Linda Persson
Linda Persson
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I like that you use the word substratum to form the question to connect cultural and aesthetic, as it means an underlying layer, specifically a layer of rock or soil beneath the surface of the ground. One could use that meaning to describe my practice; it is a careful yet inquisitive handling of materials and information that takes place within an embodied relation to archival and historical data through the actual experience of landscape. I'd like to think that my relation to culture is similar to the way that indigenous cultures often talk about culture. That it is alive and therefore more complex, as one can't easily divide it into past, present and future as in the Western tradition. It's instead all of this, entwined, simultaneous and ongoing, living. As Russell Means (also known as Oglala Lakota) said "Indigenous epistemology is fluid, nonlinear and relational. Knowledge is transmitted through stories that shape-shift in relation to the wisdom of the storyteller at the time of the telling." I have had an extremely nomadic life both by coincidence and by choice. It has accentuated my understanding of white privilege despite being a woman and from a working class background. Leaving Sweden for the UK in 1999 was a choice of possibility for a different future, as the EU accession treaty happened in Sweden 1995, and so studies abroad wouldn't incur hideous costs for me as a student, I could do it even though I didn't come from or have any money. Being situated away from the country where you were born can assist in questioning the notion of belonging and helps one to see how the system of language relates to cultural behavior, e.g. how the dominant noun-based nature of English language accentuates the outcome orientation of the world. Being a 'foreigner' creates both a sense of loss and a sense of freedom. I studied at Chelsea College between 99-02 at the sculpture department. It was great as there were so many foreigners, cultures, languages, behaviors, crashing into each other and at the same time one had to follow the rigid English academic system. Following my BA I later applied to Winchester School of Art, as I was very keen to gain access to the ISVR INSTITUTE situated in Southampton University. ISVR stands for the
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Institute of Sound and Vibration Research. It's a scientific department that investigates the impact of frequencies, vibrations around us, and how this also can be used scientifically for example in warfare etc. This wasn't totally supported by the arts department, but I learnt and experienced a lot, both in navigating the academic rules as well as shifting my practice, pushing the boundaries of making art within a quite conservative set-up, but I exited with a first class distinction. Winchester had a great moving image library with lots of footage available that would have been hard to access anywhere else due to loss or the neglect of certain artistic experimental practices. At Winchester I first encountered Michael Snow's work, Meredith Monk, Mary Lucier, as well as transgender, LGBT and hermaphrodite rights through writings in theoretical academic work, music and video recordings; and it all fully unlocked my interest in things seen as peripheral, marginal and 'other' (but that shouldn't be). In 2011 I moved back to Sweden as I had been accepted to the Mejan Resident programme at the Royal Institute of Arts in Stockholm. I did an artistic research year there using the thoughts of Derrida and in particular his writings on the spectre/ ghost to try and expose conventionally defined connections between the physicality of an artwork and the space and movements that produce and reiterate it by trying to devise new associations in-between. I used the place of Berlin and specifically the Berlin Wall and its historical trauma between East and West, looking at it as an object, withdrawn from its history but at the same time historically reiterated in space as one thing, neglecting the nuances of living through these times. I became acquainted with Beelitz, a suburb of East Germany, a forgotten place which became the protagonist for cinematic experimentations through celluloid film and high definition digital technology to set those two types of entropy against each other: digital entropy and physical entropy. It really forced the question of bringing the body back into action and to reinforce a physical and cognitive memory alike. This work became an immersive multiple moving image and sound work called CHromaTiC AdaPTation MATriX, an umbrella title for the various works that is taken
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Linda Persson
Linda Persson
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from the chromatic scale that transform the colour to be read accurately from screen to eye as part of the system in a MAC computer. You are a versatile artist and over these years you have gained the ability to cross from one media to another: your approach reveals an incessant search of an organic symbiosis between a variety of viewpoints. The results convey together a coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.lindapersson.org in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such multidisciplinary approach is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.
No, having a multidisciplinary approach is absolutely not the only way, but it is a way that I use and feel most engaged with now. As I said earlier, my practice is fluid and nonlinear and it's directly related to place and experiences of relations, but it simultaneously interweaves academic western vernacular, wanting to challenge the hierarchal systems in place. And it's a troublesome task of crisscrossing cultural epistemologies. It’s about paying attention to our discomfort as this can be an indication that we are feeling the tension that coexist when one is going against the grain. My thinking and making goes through different materials and processes and I am, by putting my body in motion to go to places and landscapes, given experiences by actually moving, and that is quite a radical thing in itself, and this forms my visual output. I pick up on things related to our senses like smell, light and dark, dry or moist sonic atmosphere, which are all deeply sensorial and experiential. It's not just about responding to the things already in existence but bringing to the fore the absences in the produced worlds. This can create hard-to-follow image sequences or mediums being chosen, yet, if successful, it can
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create curiosity or better a sense of euphoria. Our world shrieks of mobility, interaction, exchange, flexibility however it only applies to a fair few, but mainly it applies to money. Actual moving bodies have created new walls to be built, harsher entries and exits from and into certain countries. My relation and use of material goes hand in hand with my movements. For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected Zeus Tears, that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of this interesting transdisciplinary research project is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of Zeus Tears, would you shed light on your usual process and set up?
Over quite a few years now I have incorporated a role that could be compared to the female explorer. I've been going to desolate landscapes to question our relation to measured science and our history of archiving and the formation of knowledge production as we know it by putting the female body in motion. The prompt for this work started with my interest in landscape and its relation to the human body and time. Landscapes sometimes acquire a reputation of being cursed or where people claim to have seen aliens. Lighting Ridge in New South Wales, Australia is one of these places. The research I was concurrently undertaking in Sweden a few years ago, was about a well known cursed island on the east coast of Sweden called the Blue Maiden, on which the stones hold a curse. By studying the early myths and legends around this island I also came across other mythical stories related to sea and stones such as black opals. These were said to also have been the tears of Zeus when he sacrificed his son to not lose his power. So I looked up black opals and found that they only exist in this particular place in Australia called Lighting Ridge (original name Warrangulla). It got its name in 1906 when the first farmer settled with his 200 sheep, only to be struck by dry lightning, which killed most of the
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Linda Persson
Linda Persson
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stock and the family. Now, people live there and dry lightning does happen. This is a necessity for the opals to be formed. They need water and high charge electricity, instant heat, to then form beautifully over thousands of years. In this way they form in relation to the ironstone base and together with silica and water (like the method of making glass) the opals form particular facets that can diffract light in the most magical way. As I have incorporated both old and new technology in my earlier work, the way I make film, merging celluloid with HD or when I construct devices such as hand built projectors collapses different time aspects and I had this idea that by using an opal stone I could make a lens for a projector that could show time, slow and deep time, geological time as the black opal has had thousands of years in its making but still carries a high content of water and therefore potentially still is a changing life form [theoretically], especially as water is connected to life, both scientifically and symbolically. Do you think that your being a woman provides the way you question our contemporary society of economic growth with some special value the way, with some additional meaning?
Well, I couldn't do it any other way as I am a woman and have grown up in a gender specific society. By legitimate indigenous and feminist methodologies in our systems at large, I think we can get to a point where focus could shift and things could change. So yes, it does create additional meaning as it questions the white male supremacist society we live in, from the other side. Another interesting work from your recent production that has particularly impressed us and on which we would like to spend some words is entitled The Astral Women: what has at once captured our attention of your inquiry into ritual, shamanistic, witch procedures is your successful attempt to produce a dialectical fusion that operates as a system of symbols creates a compelling
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non linear narrative that, walking the thin line between conceptual and literal meanings, establishes direct relations with the viewers. German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? And in particular how do you conceive the narrative for your works?
I think it's important to understand the medium(s) one works with and why the medium is chosen for a specific work. Thomas Demand’s work is really staged and plays with showing the 'fake' as the 'real' when setting up his 'nearly perfect' paper cut out models to be photographed, which exposes the gap between truth and fiction in his material. For me it rarely starts with medium or material but instead I focus on place or myth that shapes the medium for the work, however the medium chosen often negotiates its own internal usage and possibility or as a failure. I have a very broad skill set and materials shift between processes. The Astral Women has, on the surface, a seductive beauty: however, it is marked out with a deep socio-political criticism that runs throughout all your works: while lots of artists from the contemporary scene, as Ai WeiWei or more recently Thomas Hirschhorn and Jennifer Linton, use to convey open socio-political criticism in their works, you seem more interested to hint the direction, inviting the viewers to a process of self-reflection that may lead to subvert a variety of usual, almost stereotyped cultural categories. Do you consider that your works could be considered political in a certain sense or did you seek to maintain a more neutral approach? And in particular, what could be in your opinion the role that an artist could play in the contemporary society?
I do think that today any kind of image making is political. We are in a moment where production of images is very ubiquitous and user-generated through various social media applications, but my focus is on the specificity of image-making and how
Linda Persson
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making it into art can simultaneously question the status of the image and challenge it. What is expected of an artwork today? I ask myself this question and I often let the work that I produce respond or react to its own context. Seductive beauty, imagination and fiction can probe much deeper than open socio-political statements as it allows people to absorb and feel through something rather than being told specific 'truths'. I would never feel that I could tell anyone how to think or feel about anything, I am not a preacher nor a politician. Saying that, I have strong personal political views and through my work I try to challenge myself as much as challenging anyone else, to ask questions rather than providing answers or opinions.
and see a film about Nordkapp / North Cape. Its surrounding nature seems to remain invisible and is instead hijacked by culture to mainstream the experience, which is often too much the case for 'public' outdoor art. The Borderlands series photographs shows this lack of empathy and rather spurious claim to the place made visible through what's left behind; human rubbish molded by weather and wind into the fence. This is probably my most conventional set of works as displayed in a row on the wall, five A2 sized giclee prints on Somerset paper with ripped edges, appearing to float on the wall using magnets to hold the work, to emphasize a temporality and vulnerability by being unframed and unglazed.
Your work in general, and in particular your Borderlands series provides the viewers with an immersive experience: how do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience in your process?
Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Linda. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
When I build installations, to put the work on show, I'd like to transfer some of my experiences of the processes through spatial engagement from travelling, landscapes and places. I don't expect anyone to just be a spectator or a consumer of art. By setting out a movement strategy based on the installation of the work, forces the viewing body to actively move into and around the work, emphasizing to look at things differently. This is to trigger the notion of body as experience and not only as a receiver. Borderlands series is a photographic work shoot whilst researching for my work around and with Sámi culture called Nuortabealli (Sámi for shadow from east at winter night, 2014), up in Nordkapp / North Cape, the very north of Norway. The images show a fence that separates the furthest point of Scandinavia and the North Pole. What was striking spending time up there was the numerous of busloads of tourists entering a magnificent 'end of the world' border, with little to no interest to actually look around except for seeing the art monument, the café
Over the last couple of years I have worked more making objects using ceramics. Clay is a very versatile material. To me clay is as much technology as nano equipment. It also holds strong mythical and healing properties, such as mud baths to heal rheumatism or the story of the Golem. The work I've made with clay has become props for performances such as flutes or part of costumes or performative objects such as the piece Eidola currently exhibited at Luzern Kunstmuseum in Switzerland as part of Laure Prouvost's exhibit 'Higher grounds..' until Feb 2017. I am also continuing my work at the Blue Maiden but through a 2 year project run by an archeologist and professor Bodil Pettersson at the Linnéuniversity with focus on 'Experimental Heritage'. Thanks for your interesting questions and for giving me so much space to elaborate on work and processes. An interview by and
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Tal Amitai-Lavi Lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel
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al Amitai-Lavi (born in Israel, 1969) is a multidisciplinary artist, engaging in painting, drawing, sculpting and installation work. She graduated cum laude from the Hamidrsha- Faculty of Arts, Beit Berl College in 1994, and got her B.A. (cum laude) from the Multidisciplinary Program of the Arts, Tel Aviv University in 2001. She has an MFA in Creative Arts from the University of Haifa. Amitai-Lavi had exhibited several solo shows among are "We are a Bound Family" (1996); "Aleph for Ohel [tent] / Bet for Bayit [house]" (Noga Gallery, Tel Aviv, 2001); "(temporary) Happiness" (Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, 2004) and "Light Construction" (Chelouche Gallery, Tel Aviv, 2014). Nowadays she is working on her next solo exhibition, which will take place in Basis Gallery, Herzliya, March-May, 2017. She had participated in various group exhibitions in major galleries and museums in Israel, among them the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Tel Aviv Museum; Haifa Museum; Petach-Tikva Museum; Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art. She has shown her
work in prominent venues abroad in Germany, New York, London etc. Recently, she was selected to be a finalist in "Arte Laguna Prize", Arsenale, Venice. Amitai-Lavi's work is straddling on the boundary between two-dimensional and three-dimensional. It is characterized by love of craftsmanship, sensitivity to details and an exploration of unusual materials. In her recent works Tal Amitai-Lavi shows images that mark out elusive spaces of emptiness and fullness. Through a variety of methods and different materials such as sewing thread, soda powder, suction cups, nylon strings, plasticine etc., she creates worlds whose foundations are fragile and disintegrating. These worlds seemingly materialize from concrete images yet they create a disturbing mental atmosphere. Her unique work succeed to transcends the private case and addresses universal values with which any viewer may identify. Tal Amitai-Lavi is represented by Chelouche Gallery of Contemporary Art. Her works are in some of the finest collections in Israel and abroad.
Photography:
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CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
LandEscape meets
Tal Amitai-Lavi An interview by and
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I have always been surrounded by art, culture and aesthetics both as an art consumer and maker. I started my graduate studies at Hamidrasha - Faculty of Arts, where I have
. Photography: Matan Katz
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, 2004, installation view, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art. Photography: Ady Shimony
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developed my multidisciplinary thinking through learning a wide range of techniques, mediums and thinking art in an abstract and complex manner. From my point of view, the Multidisciplinary Studies at Tel Aviv University were a direct result of my former studies at Hamidrasha. I was already working in the field as a young artist and had a thirst for knowledge and broadening my horizons. The studies at Tel Aviv University enriched my cultural background with theoretical studies of theater, cinema, music, literature, philosophy and more. My MA degree, at the Haifa University was mainly in order to further my professional career. I have no doubt that my formal education had a role in building my cultural and aesthetical foundation, despite being at times through rejection and contradiction. Nevertheless, in my view, the practical work is paramount. In relation to this I identify, with the words of the American artist William Wegman: “Learn by doing.� I see no substitute for the daily and persistent practice at the studio in order to build and refine my aesthetic language, and accredit it. The work at the studio forces me to ask questions, to conduct theoretical and practical investigation, to undergo a process, a kind of a long journey in which the artistic statement gets refined into an actual work.
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Tal Amitai-Lavi
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It seems that my multydisciplinary approach is the right way for me to express my ideas, and it is certainly what suited me so far. Until my studies at Hamidrasha I mainly painted. The exposure to different mediums in general and 3D mediums specifically enabled me to develop and broaden my lexicon and search for different methods. I think every work presents a riddle, invites new challenges, and therefor calls for different technical and media solutions. The main question, I believe, concerns the relationships of image/form, medium/technique and meaning/content. An example for this quest after new methods can be seen these very days at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. My work ‘Direct Hit / The House on Nahalal st. Haifa’, that was made using black sewing thread is now integrated with video animation, which contributes to my artistic intention. Moreover, I believe that the evolution of the history of art in general, and mine in particular, is based on tradition and innovation, conventions and their rejection. Knowing what was done before me and sometimes alongside me, is what motivates me to explore new materials and means to express my ideas.
Consequently to the question regarding new methods, arises the question regarding to my use of unexpected materials for art. My materialistic search is undoubtedly a challenge and one of the characteristics of
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, 2013-2014, threads on Perspex, light (detail) Photography: Youval Hai
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, 2010-2011, soda powder, glue, color, 120 x 160 cm
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my artistic language. Every material has its own uniqueness, qualities, advantages, disadvantages and restrictions. At the studio my work is that of a chemist, alchemist, mathematician or engineer… searching for the exact formula and dosage. The choice of materials could come from a kind of vision, intuition that is inspired by the material itself, as is in the work with nylon threads, and at times it is a kind of puzzle that the artistic concept posits. The chemical reaction that occurred in the baking soda works, for example, was the result of a research after a material that would emulate snow or ice; it had to have qualities of elusiveness and fragility, reminiscent of a magical and deceptive childish world. At times, the material choice could be derived from funding restrictions which eventually evolves into an artistic concept. In a similar way to the work of my favorite American sculptor Tom Friedman, I too use every day banal, cheap materials and utilize them to create works with plastic appearance, which is appropriate to showcase in art venues. Another interest in working with exceptional materials is the play on the accidental and intentional, between the controllable and the unpredictable. Sometimes I succeed in “taming” the substance and sometimes I give in. This play at the studio intrigues me and drives me forwards.
It would be redundant to state that my personal, one of a kind, subjective experience is the very
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Tal Amitai-Lavi
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thing that makes me unique. And yet I feel that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience. My work stems from deep within my own roots- biography, life stories, memories and such. Therefore, even if I hadn’t experienced an event personally it could still resonate into my personal experience and become manifested in my works. This is the case in my works dealing with imagery of ruined houses, nature disasters, terror attacks, or war. (The series “Katrina” is based on hurricane Katrina, the works in “Japan 11.3.11” are based on the tsunami hit in Japan, my solo show “(temporary) Happiness” is based on the Versailles wedding hall disaster and others). Respectively, the demolished and ruined houses imagery echoes on childhood memories as the daughter of a general contractor. The landscape of my childhood was etched with the sites of bare casted concrete, shaky construction beams mounted on concrete ramps as stairs, staircases without banister, sand instead of floor, bare building frames and so on. These memories and experiences have sunk deep into the heart of my creation. On a personal biographical level, the image of the ruined house reflects the actual dismantling of houses following my divorce on one hand, and later, the death of my parents on the other. From the localpolitical aspect, the ruined house is an expression of the Israeli reality, filled with insecurities and uncertainty, terror attacks and wars. On the global and international aspect, it is an expression of worldwide terrorism, world and terrifying natural disasters. Perhaps the connection between the personal and the collective experience creates depth in the works, while also allows a universal affinity with the viewers.
My sources for inspiration, as stated, are simultaneously the inner and exterior world. For a plastic artist the issue of representation is eminent. However, during my work at the studio which requires, amongst other thing, collecting, cataloging, research, classification and archiving, translation and interpretation, it becomes ever more conceptual and exceedingly abstracted. This process from representation to abstraction is a natural course for me and occurs by itself.
My art is based on symbolical strategies and probes psychological, narrative elements, which I have referred to previously, even if in an indirect way. These elements exist in each one of my works. The narrative aspect is mostly used as a starting point, while the psychological element can be found in every work. Nonetheless, I take special care and attention in the studio, so the work will not become illustrative or a therapeutic tool.
, 2012-2014 wood, nylon string, paint, light installation view, "Light Construction", Chelouche Gallery, Tel Aviv Photography: Youval Hai
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The ongoing process allows me to step away from such immediate aspects by defamiliarization, abstraction and other means that enrich the work and allow a verity of interpretations. In other words, my work is designed to invoke an intellectual, non-narrative response. My work aims to reject superficial didactic strategies and urges the viewers to reflect and project personal associations.
In my practice, as mentioned above, my point of view is autobiographical. However, I strive to deviate from the personal event and to formulize universal principles with which the viewer can identify. Effectively, the viewers are an essential component of my work process. I certainly take them into account throughout my process, from the very early stages of production to the final translation into plastic art form. I imagine at my studio the ultimate viewer, one that could dwell and contemplate in front of my work. I consider the viewer’s body, his possible motion in the space, the ways in which his senses work and how I might manipulate him, in the positive sense of the word. I think of his emotional and
Tal Amitai-Lavi
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, 2012-2014, wood, nylon string, paint, light, 207 x 80 x 45 cm (detail) Photography: Youval Hai
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2013-2014, nylon string, plastic, paint, light, installation view. Photography: Yoval Hai
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psychological as well as his social, cultural, intellectual and conceptual world. From my perspective, the moment where the viewer identifies with my work, the moment where my work can affect him and resonant on his own personal experiences, is a critical and cathartic moment.
From February till May 2017 I will show at "Basis Gallery", Israel, a new solo exhibition. I have been working on the exhibition “Green on the Outside Red on the Inside” for the past three years. The three main objects at the exhibition are: an extremely large landscape of European forest constructed from thousands of suction cups filled with paint, a floor sculpture made of tens of plaster cast deflated and painted watermelons, a kind of Israeli take-off on the Halloween pumpkin heads, and an additional landscape work made of hundreds of tree air fresheners which will infuse the gallery space with artificial fragrance. In addition, I patiently anticipate the realization of two large installations made with nylon threads, optic fibers and lighting, which are a continuation of my former exhibition ‘Light Construction’. I have yet to find the proper exhibition space that could accommodate these ambitious projects. An interview by and
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, 2015 Three channel projection, Stereo speaker
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Lien-Cheng Wang Lives and works in Dallas, USA
An interview by and
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I am from computer engineering background, it gave me a good foundation in using technological materials. My works are also very related with digitalization and technological art.
It must be said Taiwan's culture deeply influenced my creation although I am used to use a smart-hidden way to package it and cover it well. People would not notice it at very first sight. For example, in my work "Electric Position", the main concept is from electric fly swatter and mosquitoes. These two elements are mostly existed in low latitude country and lived in torrid zone; in "Regeneration movement", there are many CD-ROM drivers which generated by Taiwan in the past 10 years. I tried to discuss issues of globalization and how technology bring to our daily life in using taiwanese point of view.
First of all, thanks for the compliment. I am for sure to focus on the uniqueness of combination between formality and concept. It is very important for me. In my work, the audience participation is essential. There are less interaction with the audience in the
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Maya Gelfman
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, 2008 Refit electric shock, Refit electric mosquito zapper, Relay, Ultrasonic sensor
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traditional arts whereas I use modern technology to express my artistic concept.
The inspiration came from one day, my desktop CD-ROM drive was ejected and restored automatically without any warning. In such an orderly world we live, it is as if a tiny abnormal matter that could trigger a chain reaction, where things would turn strange one by one. I found this abnormality is interesting and wanted to enlarge it to a wall landscape. In the process of collecting scraped CD-ROM drives, which was relatively accessible for me because Taiwan is an electric products kingdom where numerous IT products manufactured and discarded every day, I realized those products I collected were still usable. We throw them away because new models comes to replace. Therefore, I started to build this work and made scraped CD-ROMs brought them back to live.
No, I don’t think so. I consider personal experiences produce the process of creation. If a person has no experience of life, he/she cannot connect to any creation. If I would not
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Maya Gelfman
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live in Taiwan, I could not create works such as �Regeneration movement", and "Parallel Cities� etc.
Since the computer was invented, more and more digitalization came into our life as well as into art industry. People use technology to help their creation. For instance, nowadays we can use projector as assistant to complete the large mural. I consider art and technology will NOT combine to assimilate one. But I think the direction of both will become the process of approach as close as possible. It just like digital and life, they are two different words.
In my point of view, contemporary art is like a transition hub (like train station and airport), an interface of communication and exchange, strings different location, race, occupation and generation etc. and put them into conversation. Interactive art uses the method of technology to reduce the threshold and distance between audience and the artwork.
Lien-Cheng Wang
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, 2014 Laser, Diffractive optical element, Magnifier, Mirror, Metal structure
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Maya Gelfman
Lien-Cheng Wang
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I think display art in public space is very essential because it represents a process of communication with the people. As I mentioned before, immersive way is a form of communication. The improvisation in my performance is very critical, it reflects a direct relationship with the audience, make audience easy accessible.
"Wave Phenomena" discusses a relationship between light, time and wave. It is a site specific artwork because there was a transparent celling at exhibition space. Natural sunlight shine through the space and through the installation. When audiences walk in the installation, the floor switch is sensed and installation be activated. The material "smart films" becomes transparent, people would feel like walk under the water, the ripples from light would spill from above. I expect the viewers to feel nature, technology and aesthetic unify in this installation.
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Maya Gelfman
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2014, Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp, Smart Film, Stereo sound, single-frequency projection, New
Acceptance of the audience is important for me, but not the most. It’s due to I think that contemporary art often has a problem and people usually tell me: they do not understand. I intend to break this line, then establish a
bridge of communication with the audience. I use Mandarin and English to express my concept, never less to say, computer language as well.
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Media Art
I am currently developing a work called "Reading Project.� It is about 23 automatic machines which are flipping book. The average student number of primary school class in Taiwan is 23. The work will play out the voice
reading the book from primary school's students, and discuss cybernetics, education, and the history of Taiwan. An interview by and
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Gerd G.M. Brockmann Lives and works in Freiburg, Germany
An artist's statement
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y work researches boundaries between fashion, art and society. In the last years I worked in different participatory projects and countries as contemporary multidisciplinary artist to research with experimental materials like blood, inner tubes and chains, to find new borders between fashion design, art, ephemeral concepts and space, getting a better comprehension of fashion and art as communication concept and I found a new visual language for me. Since my studies at Istanbul I'm working between two countries and I've got inspired by both worlds to forge a unique connection between apparently contrary features of Turkish and German culture. The dissolution of boundaries, the fusion of both concepts is at the core of my works.
This allows glimpses at a union of opposites. The pieces references duality concepts, combining masculine and feminine elements. Textile structures play with borders and opposites,
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combining art and design. Embedded in space, the disciplines flow into each other and I like if shape, texture and the materials or structures create an expression in space. For me it's relevant to see the impact of a body in a space. Be aware of textiles as a second skin and the combination of both to create a fugacious sculpture. When can you perceive the body in combination with textiles as a sculpture and where is the border? Has the body to be complete, or is a head enough for an artistic reflection? I follow those and more questions in my installations and concepts to reach a new reference between design, art and contemporary visual language in fashion. For this purpose I use textile materials and ephemeral concepts as a base for a bodily transformation and searching for new connections between the disciplines and the space.
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HERE`S STILL LIGHT Photographer: FM BECKER Fotografie 2 FL/Germany /Wood Concept Design & Craft by Korbinian 2Petzinger
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LandEscape meets
Gerd G.M. Brockmann An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@europe.com
Gerd Brockmann accomplish the difficult task to capture the essence of human experience and immediately conveying it into though-provoking installations: far from being an end in itself, the captivating sociopolitical criticism that marks out many of his cretions, as the interesting Here's still Light, that we'll be discussing in the following pages, urge us to question the reductionist tendencies that pervades Western culture, highlighting paradoxical situations od modernity and always showing us unexpected but ubiquitous points of convergence, in which the viewers are urged to explore the unstability of contemporary age: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to Brockmann's multifaceted artistic production. Hello Gerd and a warm welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview I would pose you some qustions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you after earning your Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art & visual Media, you eventually refined your education with a Master of Fine Art & visual Media, with a major on Textile & Fashion, that you received from the Flensburg University. Among the remarkable experience you did over these years, I think that your Erasmus year at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul has to be mentioned as well: how have these experiences influenced your evolution as an artist? And in particular, do you think that being
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exposed to a wide, international scene may have informed the way you conceive and produce your works today?
Hello LandEscape and thank you for the Invitation. Yes, my Studies at the University of Flensburg gave me some basics about the combination of textile, art and visual media concepts and I learned to use my experiences from the early years. In the 90´s I finished an apprenticeship in an old tradition house (since 1899), near Hamburg and I learned a lot of things about fabrics, garment, sewing and all that stuff in a really “old-school” way. It was the intense beginning of my new work periods. Between ephemeral works, the body as media, textiles as second skin, nature and environment as artistic space. I was able to use my “old-school” experience as well as my science from the university basics at Flensburg´s art and textile departments, to create new works and my new research projects became a short time later reality. In the same year I realized a small project at Istanbul, after I meet the members of a small independent art space at the Contemporary Istanbul Fair while showing my portfolio to the galleries. And step by step my works got an international touch and I started to work between both countries and I love the cultural exchange, the idea to develop a new visual language for me that includes both cultures. The hallmark of your approach is a multidisciplinary symbiosys between several visual viewpoints, that you wisely
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Gerd G.M. Brockmann
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condens into a coherent unity, providing a dynamic life to your pieces: before starting to elaborate about your works, I would suggest to our readers to visitI http://artprojectbrockmann.com in order to get a wider idea of your multifaceted artistic production. Have you ever happened to realize that a symbiosis between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express the concepts you convey in your works?
In the contemporary art world of the modern era it is essential to enter into a symbiotic relationship with other disciplines to develop yourself as an artist and to create a new visual language. Through the networked world of fine arts mutated into a global activity and in this age of globalization it is essential to get new realms by fusing art, fashion, photography, design and craft, to create new perceptions for the observer. My work is characterized as a new form of public in art and at the same department it offers an insight into the geopolitics of the art system of the 21st century. To survive in today's art market, it is necessary to develop critical tools to allow the viewer a glimpse behind the curtain. The multidisciplinary symbiosis as you call it allows me to develop a broad-based oeuvre as an artist and is actually the only way some of my concepts had been realized. For Example, THE SUPLENESS PUCK´S‌ The artwork to us viewers, is a different experience to my interaction with the work the artwork itself is performative - it is not really a photograph, nor is it really a sculpture. It is an action, and it is an encounter between two people; one a viewer, and one the performer who is wearing the costume, their body moving slightly with each breath, and shreds of fabric moving with a small breeze. This is such a harmonious amalgamation of costume becoming installation; installation becoming performance; performance becoming
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HERE`S STILL LIGHT Detail Photographer: FM BECKER Fotografie FL/Germany
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sculpture; sculpture becoming a photograph; photograph entering the online sphere. With elements of identity removed; masked faces and wrapped figures, my work seems to have created a repeated motif - a human captured in time and captured (encased, even) within various mediums. It is a tension which exists in the work, and in the characteristics of the mediums used. I would start to focus on your artistic production beginning from "Here's still Light", an extremely interesting body of works that I have to admit is one of my favourite project of yours. I like the way your careful exploration offers a rigorous but at the same time lively visual translation of the issues that affect contemporary societies: far from being an end in itself, this work reveals the importance of the ongoing social process that leads its creation, and that it's intrinsically connected to the chance of creating an area of intense interplay with the viewers. While conceiving Art could be considered a purely abstract activity, there is always a way of giving it a permanence that goes beyond the ephemeral nature of the concepts you capture. So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?
I believe that one's personal experience accounts for a huge part of any of my works and the mentioned “Here’s Still Light” concept merges to this experience with the experience of all 20 team members to become a great social sculpture. A separation of the creative process of one's own experience, I think indeed possible, for me however, not desirable. In today's society it´s in my opinion very important that new experience spaces and projects for
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KING NOTHING Concept by YILMAZTÜRK&BROCKMANN FASHION DESIGN Draping/Photographer: Nejla Yilmaztürk
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Univocal reference, 38x42, 2010
ONE MOMENT YELLOW SILENCE FASHION DESIGN Draping/Photographer: Nejla YilmaztĂźrk & Aykut YilmaztĂźrk
underestimating groups exists and that we learn to provide and handle socially disadvantaged, to bring them into contact with art and to experience what we can learn from each other. Would I disconnect all from each other, I would deprive myself of my own feelings and the transience, the social or creativity would no longer reach me and I would be
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separated from the social relevance of my work and would be immune to any resonance. When I was preparing myself for this interview I have got to know that the term social exclusion first originated here in Europe, where we experienced a considerable emphasis on spatial exclusion, that sometimes resembles to a
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form of confinement. The nature of your insightful investigation about marginalization of the elderly people from public sphere reveals an admirable sociopolitical criticism: I have appreciated the way you do not just restrict your analysis to a mere reportage of the situation, but you stimulate us to react to this loss of potential concerning not only wisdom
but also talents that need a whole life to be improved... Although I'm aware that the following assumption might sound a bit naive, I'm convinced that nowadays Art can play an active role not only in exposing and interpreting sociopolitical issues, but also and especially to offer us an unexpected way to solve them... what's your point about this? And in
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particular, how can an artist give a move to the contemporary unstabile society?
In my opinion spatial and social exclusion are only a small part of an ever-accelerating society. We all develop different mechanisms to this new society order to come to the company and manage the age affects us all. In my time the immortal youth in which I found myself up to my twenties I have recognized this instability of society and was helpless at that time and I could do nothing about it. With the maturity of years and the courage to address people if they would work with me on something together I brought this process in motion. It was possible to actively involve art into sociopolitical criticism. The interactive and participatory has long been a part of the art market ... but this “Here´s Still Light” concept is now to be filled with socio-critical content and to find a platform for this artistic social process was the challenge for me. I was very happy to found my team after a two years research and set it up at the Nexus Gallery in Denmark to give this work the worthy setting. Who will assume responsibility for new and innovative ideas in the world of social exclusion ... unless we artists? How can an artist change something in the modern unstable society? I guess, with new and surprising ideas and the hope to change something, and if it happens only in small… it's a start! There is a very special synthesis between me and my partner and very talented Fashion Designer Nejla Yilmaztürk. The YILMAZTÜRK & BROCKMANN Concept was born in January 2012. After the work for a Gallery in Istanbul, we decided to work as an artist couple between the border of Fashion Design and Fine Art Concepts. And I couldn't do without mentioning "Ego Has Fallen", that has provided me of the
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Gerd G.M. Brockmann
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EGO HAS FALLEN Pic by Artist
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Gerd G.M. Brockmann
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
GRAND ELIXIR SECRET OF SECRETS…THE URBAN ALCHEMY - Pic by Artist / Model: Korbinian Petzinger
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same sensation I received the first time I had the chance to get to know Boltanski's Exit. Although each of your projects has an autonomous life, there's always seem to be such a channel of communication between your works, that springs from the way you juxtapose ideas and media: as Thomas Demand once said, "nowadays art can no longer rely much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological narrative elements within the medium instead". What's your point about this?
EGO HAS FALLEN has certainly parallels to Boltanski's work “Exit” to pull, since this dimly the likeness of a human being gives and gets a mood of melancholy forth the leaves appear the presence of the past as irretrievably past. The memory work thus becomes a part of the work. This work contributes similar Boltanski's “Exit” not only a media criticism in itself but also an institutional critique that affects society as a whole. In my decision-making process of the artistic work and the implementation of ideas, this only partially plays a role. I think about it if I move into a different cultural process, working with a new group, or as usually, if I work between two cultures. Then I try to do research with great respect and it makes me aware of during the process as the context that could affect the visual language to the viewer. The process with my HOMECREW..Like, I call my team of the Here's Still Light project, was like that and that’s why it took two years to complete. Working with the elderly women from the Danish and German culture in considering the old war history required a cautious approach and found expression in the work "War is over".
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Claire Williams lives and works in
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Sound Embroidery
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LandEscape meets
Claire Williams An interview by and
, curator , curator
I started a few years ago to get involved in the D.I.Y, open source mouvement, mostly known in computer software and electronics. A totally new field of work and methodology was opening up to me especially coming from a textile background. I actually came to it when i was confronted to the 1980 domestic electronic knitting machines that were easily available but very limited in memory and size to knit out patterns, especially the ones i was working on which were not traditional patterns but very big images. So i was trying to find a cheap solution to this problem and discovered that other people where trying to find a way to hack these knitting machines to get them connected to a modern computer. Thankfully the documentation came along with an open source copyright and people were sharing their expertise and tests allowing anybody to reuse or modify them freely. I found the idea very interesting and it pushed me to create my own tools and share them. The challenge was not only to use or create electronic and digital tools under an open source copyright but also to try to apply this idea in my artwork and “physical� textile prototypes. This implied a new kind of methodology such as documentation to allow anybody interested to get access to the process of work. At the same time i started working with electronic textiles, there was no training or classes existing in nearby schools so i had to find workshops to get, with help of Internet documentation, some physical teaching. This was actually the case of a lot of the
Christopher Reid
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Antennas
Claire Williams
Claire Williams
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patricians in the e-textile field so the only way to be able to learn was to share our own experiences and documentation. This got me giving workshops with the hacked knitting machines and electronic textiles to beginners or more advanced practicans. I would say that my cultural substratum is as important as my super stratum as i tend to give the process and the construction of a project the same visibility as the finalized artwork, showing the skeletons and constructions of the project as well as the collaborative and contributions of others.
What interests me is the links of (pre)existing relationships that lay in the merge of science, technology, art, sound and textiles. All of these domains have specific rules and come with opposite or different matter (virtual, invisible, tactile etc..) My multidisciplinary approach is necessary to be able to play around with the different constraints, grids and rules but also to be able to integrate them and use them in different ways from what they are initially meant for. Indeed, here the idea isn't to show a technical achievement but to reveal the poetic side of simple physical principals using familiar mediums such as textiles or creating electronics with accessible components.
The Antennas project was inspired by the Shipibo Conobo tribe living in the Amazon forest. They have a very marked style of embroidery patterns made with geometrical figures. The Shipibo women who simultaneously sing an Icaro chant will each embroider a pattern. Without having a model or looking at the neighbors design, they have the exact same pattern in result. It seems that they have a way of encoding sound into their patterns that correspond to specific musical rules of the Shipibo culture. The Shaman then wears the embroidered textiles and follows the pattern composition and structure to sing a healing ritual. I found very inspiring the way the Shipibo can translate a sound and encode it into a pattern musical score but also how a textile could become a sort of gate, translating invisible data. I saw these embroidery patterns like some sort of antennas that could receive and transmit a signal by their pattern and structure. Here the antennas are made using traditional textile techniques. Their different shapes using knitting or weaving techniques create for each model a specific type of antenna. These antennas can capture the electromagnetic activity of a space. You have to imagine that a lot of different waves that are part of the electromagnetic spectrum are crossing us everywhere at any moment for example wifi, radio etc.. waves are constantly
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Claire Williams
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sending signals. They are otherwise invisible and inaudible to the human ear. In the Antennas project i created textile antennas that could receive very low frequency's (50 Hz) which is the type of waves that emanate mainly from electricity, motors, neon tubes etc... or even the earth natural magnetosphere. You can even also sometimes pick up a local Am radio station passing by... So all this dense sound scape is suddenly audible to the spectator, making the textile Antennas a sort of filter of this surrounding data. A custom electronic amplifier translates the signal the antenna receives and transforms it into an audible sound, proposing an immersive sound experience to the public. The electronic principals used in these Antennas are very low tech, inspired by 1920's radio communication where very few electronic elements were needed to receive a radio signal. A lot of my projects are inspired by ancient, tribal textile artefact's and very early electronics discoveries. They both have something very magical in their stories or in their inventions and were made with very simple tools. Although today we have very complex technologies surrounding us, i still find it amazing an inspiring how these ancient technologies were invented or discovered at the time. It is also much more easy to reproduce using elements“things found in your kitchen“. → my blog link https://xxxclairewilliamsxxx.wordpress.com/ for more lecture on my research studies.
Antennas
One exhibition i did with An Electromagnetic Walk was taking place in a window that was on a busy street. Here people were invited
Claire Williams
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to borrow the Antennas and have a walk with them on the street. What is interesting with An Electromagnetic Walk is the idea that the spectator becomes a mobile antenna. He becomes his own chief and can
explore the electromagnetic activity of the street creating his own composition and experience going from a private to a public space. The street becomes a vast field of exploration creating an improvised itinerary
Antennas
Claire Williams
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CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
carried by the wearers curiosity, being lead by different electromagnetic sources. The second layer to the project is that, being a mobile antenna gets the spectator to be in a somewhat odd position trying sometimes to reach out to difficult areas driven by the will to see which source certain electromagnetic frequency's create a curious sound. When you are out in the street waving your strange objects around you do look like if you were searching for some kind of mysterious energy for the people outside. The interaction lies between the people who are carrying the antennas with the people in the street as they very often come and ask what we are doing. Sometimes without any explanation, or without listening, they surprisingly have already a very defined idea of what we are doing: looking for ghosts, aliens or mysterious magic magnetic energy's and forces...etc. The sounds we can hear throughout the antennas or the strange equipment shows all the collective imagination of people and creates vivid discussions where people from the street participate to the project. In this case we can see that the public sphere naturally mixes with the art sphere creating some kind of social sculpture.
The borders between different disciplines tend indeed to get more and more blurry. We can also add to that the border between minor and
major art, crafts and technology are blending more with one another. Technology is for sure everywhere in our life so it is becoming more of a recurrent subject in arts questioning our intimate and public relationship we have with it. But we can also observe how digital and electronic tools are getting more and more accessible or tailored for artists who don't necessary have a scientific background. Indeed it is much cheaper today to build a sensor for example and much easier to integrate code to build a specific software for an interactive installation. Adding to that the makers movement has been also amplified by the growing access to Internet to learn by yourself or exchange on how to use these tools. I would guess that in a mere future it will be more and more common to have technology integrated in art works as a tool or medium being at the same place as photography, sound or video for example.
Data Knits is a continual serie of research where i try to store data in a textile surface. Since i use digital tools and translations to generate and visualize data, mostly through the use of patterns, i am always confronted to the notion of scale. Indeed, scaling digital bytes of information back into a textile means that on one hand you have a huge amount of information to process as you can easily render pictures and patterns with a computer. On the other hand i have semi industrial ways of producing my Data Knits using my hacked knitting machine which means a very low resolution of information compared with today's
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storage capability's. An insignificant portion of content can be materialized into threads. For example my knitting machine has 200 pixels of maximum width and the hight is “infinite�. Translating and getting interesting textile results is time demanding so i can't materialize and memorize every sort of data i want to either. This forces me to think of what specific information i want to archive through a textile medium. For example i recorded the electromagnetic activity of specific locations, each knit has coordinates indicating the precise place where the electromagnetic sound was recorded. In general each knit corresponds to 3 or 4 min of sound which is also totally insignificant to the electromagnetic activity of the place. Materializing such information into a sort of archaeological artefact's reminds us of what we want to leave behind or save. What we want to memorize or lose from our world and our personal trace of our time living on it.
Traces of data can be found everywhere in nature, a skin cell with your A.D.N, the age of a log of wood in his rings, the traces of wind on sand etc..of course natures way to embed memory is infinity more precise and subtle in comparison to man made devices that stock an infinitely small portion of artificial data in comparison. In An Electromagnetic Walk I try to give the spectators an experience of their
Claire Williams
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An electromagnetic walk
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https://we.tl/LRtkZLDlWU
Claire Williams
Claire Williams
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amplified environment, filtering and making palpable or audible on part of the electromagnetic spectrum that is otherwise inaudible to us. Each frequency contains all sorts of data, the most recognizable is for example a radio frequency. As an artist i try to give the spectator a sensitive experience of our world by working on things that are familiar to us, collected from an everyday environment yet they have different layers that can each be treated, interpreted and looked at in very different ways. Here i choose to investigate the inaudible and invisible layers of our environment by using very material objects to get a sample. We can decipher these frequency's using electronics which will filter and amplify these waves so that as humans we can hear a portion of them but in An Electromagnetic Walk their is also an important part that is also fictionalized by the participant, using the natural human capacity of creating how own reality and interpretation. As an artist i recall to scientific tools used to probe man made environments but i am also interested on how we can also use the natures data to create specific tools after it. For example i started experiencing with antennas that can receive VLF, also described as the earth natural radio. Indeed these electromagnetic waves are naturally made by the earths activity You can hear storms that are 1000 km away, aurora borealis etc.. that are described as spherics, whistlers, tweaks, crackles sounds. It is always an amazing moment when you hear the activity of the earth, sources that can come from very distant places on earth.
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Claire Williams
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Indeed a medium and it's construction can be a way of exploring our realities. For example the antennas are made by knitting fine copper wire in a certain way that i can reproduce the physical principals of a classic antenna. Here the textile medium in it's construction and material transforms the object into a functioning system: the antenna will intercept a wave and transform it into an electrical signal. This signal is then amplified by an electronic circuit and translated as is into a sound. Here each intricate knit, tension and shape of the final object will determine what the antenna will receive. Every antenna is unique because of it's shape and medium and give us different results. When i was experimenting with these different parameters i also made choices in order to construct a certain sound scape and how the antennas would amplify our relationship to reality. Even using scientific tools, it is always a certain perception or translation of reality that we create either for artists or scientific. But at the end of my experiments, it was on the contrary more the type of electromagnetic frequencies and electronic disturbances that i had encountered that actually created and influenced the very specific shapes that were created for the antennas.
No i don't think it is indispensable, i also believe that being just an observer, exterior to a direct experience is also an important place to have in a creative process. I think that we should always experiment with these different scenographys because it can also
Claire Williams
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https://we.tl/LRtkZLDlWU
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Data Knits
Claire Williams
Claire Williams
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open a new path to an artistic project.
The audience reception is very important but even when sometimes my approach can seem a bit obscure to a large public, I think that it still leaves a space for imagination and personal interpretation. The mix of a familiar mediums and languages such as textiles with electronics and computers makes it also maybe more accessible and mysterious to the audience. Their is also just a fun part when wearing the antennas like playing a game with people you don't know. But as i mentioned before being an observer is also a role you can take and it will give again a different experience, their is no specific rules. The different reactions are of course all precious and reused in future projects as an important contribution. I also transmit my artistic experiments through workshops.
The Antennas are evolving (and getting bigger!) to be able to receive data from satellites for example. Their will be an exhibition in Nantes, France this summer with the Antennas project too. Otherwise we are working with a sound artist on a generative installation on the relation between patterns and scores, we are currently looking for a residency to develop the project. I still regularly give workshops, i also hope to get more time to document more on my blog and share other inspiring projects.
Miles Rufelds Lives and works in Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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LandEscape meets
Miles Rufelds An interview by and
, curator , curator
Hello to you as well, and thanks a lot for having me – I’m thrilled to be able to participate in such an illustrious publication as LandEscape. My artistic background is a bit of a scattershot, to be honest: I started my BFA with a background in painting and drawing, transitioned toward interactive, New Media art during my degree, then wound up working almost exclusively in video by the time I finished. Doing a BFA was an essential experience for me, but since moving away from the University, and its emphasis of firm mediatic divisions, I’ve become more and more comfortable combining various different aesthetic strategies with relative freedom, which I think is essential in the contemporary artistic landscape. In terms of my cultural
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substratum, the most important factor that I think shows up in my art is the relationship that I’ve always had to cinema and television. Watching television and movies, playing video games, exploring the internet, and
ultimately just consuming video-media were veritable pillars of my epistemological development, and were unquestionably essential to how my aesthetic sensibilities were formed. It took me a while to identify, but I think
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thought process fundamentally defined by commercial media.
that throughout all of my art making, past and present, there’s been a desire to understand and explore, or at least manifest, the bizarre and kind of perverse phenomenon that is having a
That’s absolutely the case. The ideas that I’ve been grappling with in my recent work – the relationships between humans and products, products and the world, the epistemological influence of media images, or the political blurring of reality and fiction – are all circulated throughout the world via a whole constellation of aesthetic strategies, manifest across every medium available, at all times. While my research into the philosophies of advertising and consumerism is very much ongoing, it became clear to me early on that capitalist manipulation is advanced equally through objects, images, sounds, and ideas, and that any investigation I might pursue could only
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be properly carried out through mixtures of all of those forms.
I started working on Nonparticipant when I had just begun to acknowledge and explore the bizarre way that vegetable objects are able to appear as both object and subject to human beings – vegetative matter seems to fill this liminal space between commercial product and living thing, kind of like pet-store animals, but even more bizarre – and how art works can activate or make clear the strangeness of that relationship. The post-Enlightenment, Euro-American attitude towards the non-human world – its treatment of all non-human things as dead matter that exists solely to be manipulated by the human subject – is something that I’ve always taken issue with in my work, and was definitely an inspiration for Nonparticipant. There could have been many outlets for these ideas throughout European art history, but Romantic landscape painting has a particular theatricality and grandiosity to it that I find kind of humorous. I’ve also always found it interesting that the very
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notion underlying Romantic “sublime” painting, or conversations of the sublime in general, is one that fundamentally acknowledges a power in the natural, non- human world so strong that the autonomous power of
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the human subject is overwhelmed or rendered null. The Nonparticipant series was my way of wrapping this whole set of ideas into a kind of tragicomic meditation on the history of Western art, progress, and ethics.
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I can give. As I was saying earlier, the only cultural “tradition” that I feel I have rightful claim to is being a child of the video-media generation, which is an extremely new phenomenon when seen in relation to general art history. I think that in some ways I adhere to the ethos of the early Video Art “canon”, which generally concerned the disruption of passive spectatorship, but the state of the video-spectacle even 50 years ago was immensely different than it is now, and it occurs to me that an artistic medium essentially born in the frenzy of 20th century industrialization must necessarily operate with a more fluid relation to tradition than older, more historically-routed practices.
That’s a very interesting question, but I’m not sure how satisfactory an answer
I think the idea of the non-lieu, or the non-place, is a beautiful association to make with these works! That certain spaces, objects, or subjects have fallen through the cracks of our inherited EuroAmerican aesthetic canon is absolutely at the heart of the series. The forced associations between triumphant, arthistorical landscapes and these spaces of
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contemporary banality, or between dramatic human subjects and these pathetic vegetable objects, are a way of illuminating the fluidity and contingency of the terms that comprise aesthetic esteem. The videos’ restrained, itchy movements are kind of the final element of subversion – each individual feature of the historical painting is irreverently replaced, and reassembled in a form of image that is fundamentally moving and changing; the mutability and dynamism of aesthetic, artistic discourses, contrasted with the ostensibly eternal – what Barthes would call “Mythologized” – schema of Western art history.
The idea that video media, particularly cinema and television, might be the past century’s most stable form of collective imagery is one that I find very interesting. As for metaphor, though, I think I tend to approach art, as both creator and observer, from a perspective more akin to Deleuze’s idea of the “assemblage” than to metaphor. I’ve long felt that the notion of the assemblage more closely
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resembles the artwork’s lifecycle than metaphor does, as it allows the materials, images, and subjects of an artwork to be seen as agents in their own right, influencing one another in an irreducible way, and, importantly, giving the audience credit as a
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fundamental element of the work’s generative capacities. While all of my work might not adhere to the assemblage model, it’s definitely the artistic methodology I feel closest to.
This is probably really obvious to anyone who’s seen it, but Cinema of
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Expanding Things is a completely shameless reference to filmmaker David Lynch. Lynch’s idiomatic use of image and sound, as well as his tendency to make unapologetically opaque work, has a kind of antagonistic relationship with the whole of cinema
that has always had a great influence on how I’ve conceived of art making. The combination of dark, languid images with a subtle, drone-like score is a tactic that Lynch repeatedly uses in his films to instill the general sense that something in the presented scenario is
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Making video pieces that are to be shown in galleries or public spaces necessitates an entirely different approach to viewership than work intended for theatres or broadcasting. Cinema and television influence my work in a big way, so I do construct each production in a more-or-less linear fashion, providing the most complete experience to those that might stay to watch the piece from beginning to end; time-based works, though, have a very different relationship with audiences than any other type of art, because they fundamentally demand that the audience give up their time, which is a commodity of ever-increasing value in the late-capitalist world. I’m fully aware that most people will not sit and view the entirety of any given video piece, so I work with equal care to try to make each shot or moment function by itself as a compelling experience. It’s a balance that I’m still very much trying to navigate. very off – uncanny is a great word for it – which was very much the tonality I had in mind for Cinema of Expanding Things. Borrowing the strategies of a cinematic iconoclast to problematize the logic of cinema seemed like a perfect opportunity.
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Audience reception is absolutely something I think about while I’m working. Aside from the presentational, experiential concerns that I just mentioned, a tremendous amount of thought goes into the imagery and material of each work. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m working with ideas like advertising or cinema, which are fundamentally tied to a relatively public aesthetic lexicon, or if it’s unrelated to the medium and I’m simply neurotic, but I spend a great deal of time laboring over the aesthetic and cultural signification inherent to of each material or image I make use of.
Once again, thanks a lot for speaking with me. I’ve always found it difficult to answer questions like this, because my relationships to the ideas I work with change so radically and so often. I find that any new book, film, article, essay, or exhibit can flood me with an entirely new spread of questions, so every far-
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future artistic plans that I make tends to fall by the wayside. There are a number of sculptural, video, and photographic works that I’m presently on the cusp of finishing. I’ve also definitely been
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thinking more and more about digital forms of art making, such as digital graphics, 3d modeling, or simply internet-distributed content. I suppose I’ll just say that the research and
creation is always ongoing, and that you can always follow the progress or contact me through my website, .
Eva Athanasiadou Lives and works in Thessaloniki, Greece
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LandEscape meets
Eva Athanasiadou An interview by and
, curator , curator
Hello! Before we begin I would like to thank the Land scape for hosting on its pages. The title of “artist’’ is just a title for me. I think my studies did not affect at all my choice to deal with art. Since I can remember myself I wanted to communicate with alternative ways. For me art is communication. Your works interact with viewers even when you are not there to support them. However, my studies in art was a way to enrich my knowledge and share my concerns. My main interest concerns the knowledge of my inner world (selfknowledge) and outer world (Cosmologyontology). I have chosen to deal with conceptual art because it triggers my mind, my expression and creativity. It also helps me to both understand better myself and the world around me. This is subjective. Art is a liberty and I find it difficult to fit in ‘’molds’’. If I was trying to give a more specific answer I would say that it is both.
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Yes when I investigate something I make use of as many angles as possible. The Interdisciplinary opens you new horizons in the journey of expression and leads to reliable conclusions offering you a comprehensive knowledge. Thanks! Here is an opportunity to say that, if someone believes that we have something in common and wants to work on a future project with me, please don't be hesitate to communicate in athanasiadoueva@gmail.com
Eva Athanasiadou
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Eva Athanasiadou
Eva Athanasiadou
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I’m glad that an autonomous aesthetic can attributes the results of my research. The truth is that I have affected by my research in experimental psychology and many times I am in questioned if the messages which someone sends, perceived without being misrepresented their content. On the occasion of your question, I want to share with readers that as many projects started spontaneously without conceptual status, I did neither completed nor I completed after I tried to find the root causes. So according to my conclusion, the project is a result of transfer of an idea into a sensory perceived situation, which explains why I express with as much as tools dispose and I am not faithful in a material or a technique.
Indeed. The beings and cubes consist of two parts as you have noticed, the cubemirror with strict geometry and the series of sculptures that were placed inside cubes, are semantically sculptures, abstract geometry. Using consciously the cube, a ultimate shape that builds the world (according to the alchemists), triggered a series of Visual stimuli, in fact, they do not correlate random with the cube, with the
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notion of internment. Such a powerful and stable shape can bring out the lead into obscurity a series of polymorphous sculptures. I believe that it is necessary in my work to leave space to the viewer to fill mentally in the forms and create new levels and impressions by the project.
With perfectly expressed this view. Paul Klee once said '' the art does not represent the visible, but it makes visible. ‘‘ I try to convey in my works the path of my thinking. Plato rejects the artists because they mimic the imitation (the objects according to Plato is faded imitations of ideas). What I want to do is to leave the world and feel objects to replicate the concepts in my projects. This gives them an oddity because ideas have no material substance, found in our minds. The result though is subjective in terms of imitating
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Eva Athanasiadou
Eva Athanasiadou
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the idea, opens a dialogue with the Viewer by focusing on personal perception.
What fascinates me is that every spectator is confronted with the internal images and beliefs about the world. The power of thought might form its new conditions. Everything around us is thoughts that made acts of ... But what happens when reverse cause and effect relationship? The arrow of time? When art can contribute to the understanding of relativity? The answer is art, this controversial field which associated both with philosophy, physics, psychology and other scientific fields. It is very important for the man to understand that truth is independent of the observer. Many people claim to be sure of what you believe, at the same time scientific evidence the break. I once read that '' science is belief in ignorance of experts ''. All I can say is that we have to learn a lot more.
I don't think that this cannot happen. Every creative process involves the creator of and
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integrally personal experiences. Even when trying to disconnect, manifested its effort. I have some doubts about the topic of copying works. I do not think that it is a creative process but technical. (But even this personal experience is).
The vision is the most powerful sense of man in General. In addition, we live in an age of image. The review is directly connected with the aesthetic concept, based mostly on visual experience. When I decided to deal with the subjective perception, like to work with people suffering from blindness. Exactly why the viewing experience would not have color and format in their minds. Also, their criticism is transparent and thoughtful. Unlike common superficial opinion, this derived from the shallow knowledge of vision. The art must ''be'' in public space, not as a decorative element, but must cease to serve interests and becoming useful in every conceivable viewer.
An interview by and
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Eva Athanasiadou
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Ivonne Dippmann Lives and works in Berlin, Germany
An artist's statement
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ince the beginning of my work the artistic discourse is situated very much within the aesthetics and appearance of my environment”, says Ivonne Dippmann of her own work. However, she changed her environment constantly. Born and raised 1981 in KarlMarx-Stadt, former East Germany, a city that has changed its name twice within fifty years. No place that would guarantee consistency, unless for a constancy of change and loss. Since Dippmann has left her hometown, she made stations in the United States, in the Basque country in Spain and lived in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Berlin. The origin can not explain what happens in her work, and it would also be one-dimensional to look for a simple and simplistic basis in this bundle, which defines it – technique, expression, style and color, a will and political passion which seeks for space and its power being transformed into images.
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Nevertheless, the place where a drawing, graphic or other image of work is produced, plays a special role. Ivonne Dippmann generally starts from relatively small-scale drawings. A starting point, a beginning, because these small formats will later encounter a different situation, an exhibition space, a stage or a book. They will transform themselves in order to adapt to a new room. Nothing remains as it was and if Dippmann uses templates – which were originally used as illustrations for a book – and converts them into largescale murals combined with colorful yarns stretched within a space, it creates a unique effect. Because she phrases a no man’s land, which is both politically and geographically allocated. A paradoxical everywhere.
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LandEscape meets
Ivonne Dippmann An interview by Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
Hello Ivonne and a warm welcome to LandEscape. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? By the way, what could be in your opinion the features that mark an artwork as a piece of Contemporary Art? Do you think that there's a dichotomy between tradition and contemporariness?
Honestly, Art? I don't know. A more colorful, overpriced version of the New York Times? Good Art for me is characterized by attitude and having something to say. It derives out of curiosity, playfulness, a very own opinion and the capacity to take responsibility for. Essential a good sense of humor! Contemporary basically means today, so I guess Contemporary Art should talk about your own time and generation in an eloquent and unpretentious way. Tradition for me preserves values and rituals that influence social structures and norms, publicly and in private. Contemporariness is somehow a different basket. I associate this term more with trends in the fashion industry. Unlike tradition it comes along very unpredictable, eccentric and a bit overrated. But a well executed contemporariness may transform into a tradition one day? Would you like to tell us something about your background? Besides your studies in Visual Communication at the University of the Arts in Berlin, you have attended classes in Israel, Spain and in the USA, where, among the others, you attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. How have these experiences impacted on the way you currently produce your artworks? By
the way, I sometimes I wonder if a certain kind of formal training could even stifle a young artist's creativity... what's your point?
My studies were an unforgettable 10 year life experience. I received my MeisterschĂźler in Visual Communication, cross studied in Experimental Media Design and finished with a Master in Fine Arts in Israel. Coming from East Germany, I saw my "education plan" as a free ticket to conquer and explore the world, not just creatively. Being a student at the University of the Arts Berlin, I have spent 70% of my time abroad. By learning within different creative fields and manners abroad, I created considerably, with a clear agenda attached my personal "box of tools". These skills now define the spine of my daily work flow and led to a personal freedom and artistic independence. It was a very privileged time and experience. I don't believe in a formalistic discourse of "art education". The outcome is very hollow without significant substance! In my opinion it is of relevance to have a life first and with it, hand in hand, a good education which will help to sharpen your qualities, to find your own language and to have the opportunity to encounter great people on the way. I am drawing since I am 5, I guess the only though very comforting consistency in my life so far. Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from Broad street line and Aktivisten und Westarbeiter 1 & 2, that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article. Would you tell us something about the genesis of these projects? What was your initial inspiration?
A&W was based on a collaborative project with the German author J. Kuhlbordt, now living and working in Leipzig. I produced a series of black
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and white drawings for his upcoming publication "Stoetzers Lied - der Gesang vom Leben danach". Stoetzer is a character who takes on everything that rolls him over: politics, economics, art, history. Out of statics he is commenting the movements, the decay of the past and the arrival of the new millennium. It is a philosophical interwoven volume of poetry, that addresses with humor and sharpness the complex approach to history. I connected to his work right away since we shared common grounds by being raised and educated in Karl Marx - Stadt. Aktivisten und Westarbeiter works with the former qualities of my hometown, which has been the center of textile production in East Germany. I basically grew up in the middle of cotton and wool. The center pieces of the two installations in A&W 1/ 2 were made out of yarns of different colors of VEB POLAR KarlMarx-Stadt, taken from my personal archive of my family. All the drawings and wall-paintings were based on the drawings for Kuhlbordts book. My works are oftentimes inspired by texts, by works of authors I collaborated with for their own publications (J. Kuhlbrodt, C. Wagner or R. Winkler). I also use dialogues from movies (I had a great Woody Allen time in Jerusalem), the everyday talk outside, dreams and outside observations which I write down separately. Broad street line is a textile project, executed within a 3 month apprenticeship at the FWM in Philadelphia. Out of my own designs, I created a two (Broad street line) and a four way repeat (Hallah). I printed 3 months straight and it was a pleasure experimenting and playing around with techniques, shapes and colors. As in A&W the initial design was drawn out in one of my sketchbooks (Book 05 PH2012, Broad Street Line). Some of the printed fabrics were used for designing the fashion line "Hallah", a project in collaboration with the Berlin designer Kunji Baerwald. It was very much a last minute project for a shooting planed to be included in an art book publication (Ivonne Dippmann - My hostilities Are Distributed In A Justified Way, 2013 Revolver Publishing).
As you have remarked in the starting lines of your artist's statement, "the artistic discourse is situated very much within the aesthetics and appearance of my environment"... I can recognize such a socio political feature in your pieces, and even though I'm aware that this might sound a bit naĂŻf, I'm sort of convinced that Art these days could play an effective role not only making aware public opinion, but I would go as far as to say that nowadays Art can steer people's behavior... what's your point about this? Do you think that it's an exaggeration?
Art talks about time, to some extend it embodies history, which is more less an archive of "steering" peoples behaviors. I think the power of art is that a piece of work keeps on communicating without you. It shapes time historically and provides a peek into someone's personal agenda and perception. By showing a specific selection of art to the public, institutions create an archive stuffed with experiences, remarks, thoughts and insides, defining and redefining a "Zeitgeist" within an era or time period. By walking through a retrospective feels like flipping through someone's fotoalbum which is for generations to keep and remember. My personal decisions or choices can be seen as a summation of experiences based on the people I met on my way and whose works and personality touched me somehow. Another interesting pieces that have particularly impressed me and on which I would like to spend some words are from your Les Modes Personnels project: by the way, as our readers can view at your website, http://www.ivonnedippmann.eu/index.php?id =123, multidisciplinarity is a crucial aspect of your art practice: I would go as far as to state that you seem to be interested in creating a multi-sensory, kinetic and relational art experience... while crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between different disciplines is the only
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way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?
I think "disciplines" how you call it or a medium are simply tools to execute an idea. The more you have the more freedom you experience in expressing your thoughts and ideas. LMP just happened by going through old fabrics and towels made in former East Germany at my parents house last summer. I found those old, worn out crystal salt bags from my grand father in our basement and wanted to make something out of it. Since I planed a shooting for documenting "Broad street line" anyways, I thought why not including a recent line of textile work? I had an apartment to work in and a printing place at a friends design firm (Zwoelf Medien Berlin). Since I had no budget, I could not hire a model / make up person in Berlin. As I was looking desperately, a friend just commented on fb: "Why don t you do it yourself?" So based on the circumstances I did everything myself and I had a very patient and passionate photographer. I see LMP like a series of drawings, it flips through shapes, material and movement in real time. It is one of my favorite pieces so far, it really came out of nothing and says everything. Your pieces La vie c’est moi!, Wir sind viele (we are many) and especially the interesting Reformation clearly show that your art practice is strictly connected with the chance to create a deep involvement with your audience, both on a intellectual aspect and on an emotive side... I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?
Well I guess this phenomena of being disconnected from a direct experience is called "conceptual art"? I am not a fan. It feels like a dry dessert. I personally admire artists who work passionately hands on, going through a work period which requires time, involves physical movement and transpiration on the way. My drawing routine is the spine of my daily life experience and vice versa. It is a safe place I can always go back to. I started literally "shooting"
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Ivonne Dippmann
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myself by documenting myself in relationship to my work or to a specific environment. It helped me to establish a connection with a new place. It caught the way I felt. For La vie c’est moi!, Wir sind viele (we are many) I was meeting a friend in Paris who works by chance in the Louvre, Paris. He gave me a tour in the Museum after everyone left, no lines, no crowds, no school classes. The place was empty and while walking with him through this impressive collection of art, I felt the urge to make a work there. Two days later we got the permission to photograph for 10 minutes. Of course I did not find the room I wanted, so I chose the center hallway of the old Masters. The piece goes together with a 3 m x 6 m written wall work, containing excerpts of dialogues of the war movie Lakonia in combination with expressions of a crossword puzzle. The works mentioned are not performance pieces, I see them purely as a documentation of a work. And I couldn't do without mentioning E/Scapes - the disappearance from landscape, an extremely interesting collaborative project that you have established with Andrea van Reimersdahl... I personally find absolutely fascinating the collaborations that artists can established together as you did, especially because this often reveals a symbiosis between apparently different approaches to art... and I can't help without mention Peter Tabor who once said that "collaboration is working together with another to create something as a synthesis of two practices, that alone one could not": what's your point about this? Can you explain how your work demonstrates communication between two artists?
"We believe that interdisciplinary collaboration today is an ever growing force in the art-, fashion- and design world. We believe that our traditional distinction between these fields is rapidly breaking apart, making room for crossplatform projects that question the authority of each classification. We strongly believe that most exciting things happen when creative minds from different fields of practice meet and collaborate on a project." Those 3 lines are
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taken from a recent proposal for an interdisciplinary workshop "The Art of collaboration", drafted by a colleague of mine (Marek Polewski, Floor5 Berlin). There is not much to add. For me to collaborate means an enrichment of my quality of life as an artist. I do only collaborate with people I like and get along with well, based on a mutual understanding of work attitude and respect. Collaborations are a great opportunity to learn and to have an artistic dialogue on a daily basis. I don' t want to be surrounded with my own state of mind and work always, so I decided to collaborate at least once a year in whatever field, rhe more diverse the better. E/Scapes is an ongoing textile based project in collaboration with the Berlin artist and designer AVR who I met by coincidence through a friend. What finally brought us together is the empathy and the immediate use of textiles and the material related printing craft. We are still looking for funding in order to finally execute this project in the coming months. 9) During these years your artworks have been exhibited across your country and abroad, and you recently had the solo CADAVRE EXQUIS in collaboration with the French painter Asnaby at Blick Gallery in Tel Aviv... It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if an award -or better, the expectation of positive feedback- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art... Awards and grants provided me with the financial basis in order to live and to execute my art work as I do. Without this support system I would not stand where I am now and I am grateful for that. Regarding feedback,I think you are better off if you don't give a crab. It doesn't really matter what people
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think of you. I did not become an artist in order to get compliments or to be liked. My audience should enjoy the ride and remain critical and opinionated. To push myself further, I appreciate honest, constructive critique. Business is something different. Therefore it is a lucky win, if you are represented by a gallerist who is professional and trustworthy. A genuine relationship? Never!, therefore the art market is too chaotic and biased. Thanks a lot for your time and your thoughts Ivonne. My last question deals
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with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?
Well, on one hand I am looking for a studio in Berlin in order to have a home base for production and meetings. On the other hand I would like to spend some time in Paris for collaborating on a fashion project, creating exclusive designs for a brand or label. Ongoing projects are the fundraiser for the project E/Scapes - the disappearance from landscapes, which can be accessed through both of our websites. There is a show coming
up at the Kulturforum Alte Post Neuss next year and of course, worthwhile mentioning my recently published art book "Ivonne Dippmann - My hostilities Are Distributed In A Justified Way", 2013 by Revolver Publishing Berlin.
An interview by Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
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