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 studio images from the interview |
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| Interview with Snöfrid and Ylva Ogland by Nicola Trezzi Flashart online 2008 Nicola Trezzi: Ylva, we are in your studio in Greenpoint, shall we start from your books here? There's a catalogue of Louise Bourgeois and a book about sex… Ylva Ogland: you mean Good Sex lllustrated by Tony Duvert? It is a book questioning the order of sex in society... seen from the child's perspective, kind of... the book is originally from the seventies. NT: That's nice, ’ cause Louise Bourgeois is also greatly appreciated by Tracey Emin, with whom you worked in Stockholm, right? Emin just wrote about Bourgeois in the last issue of Parkett while Emin's Bed is mentioned as a point of reference for your last catalogue / flip book Tondo, which also features some of the works I see in your studio. Would you like to speak about this? YO: The show in Stockholm was in the format of a coloring book that Samuel Nyholm, from the design group Reala, and I did work on for almost a year. It was an interpretation of Tracy Emin's and Edward Munch’s practices through Hieronymus Bosch's Haywain, that the viewer had to finish by themselves. We also invited two Swedish radical poets to write poems connected to the different themes. That was built up on Munch's idea of his key works as a frieze of life. So I did not work with Tracy Emin directly even if I told her about the project. NT: What did she say about the project? YO: We met briefly in her studio when I started the project, and then actually she was ill so I only talked with her assistant about the project, the assistant said she was excited to see the coloring book. NT: Tondo is published as the second (plus zero, premiered during Performa07) issue of Snöfrid. Perfectly coherent with your expanded practice, Snöfrid is many things: it’s a publishing house, it’s your curatorial alter ego — after you decided to switch your job in Sweden in order to move to New York and establish yourself mainly as a painter — but it’s also a Swedish word, which means… I forgot it! How, where and when was Snöfrid born? YO: I have to also invite my twin sister to this interview situation, she is my mirror twin, she lives in the mirrors and tries to come out from there and take material form. Snöfrid: My name is Snöfrid, which means Peaceful Snow and I was born in Treriksröset. I try to take an earthly body and want people to touch me to understand that I am real. Snöfrid Nr. 0 appeared in the format of a magazine. Nr. -2 is Tondo, a book I did for Ylva and in which I collaborated with designer Johan Hjerpe; we also invited the artist Jota Castro and Ylva’s New York gallerist Amy Smith-Stewart to each write a text about the work. Next time is Nr. -1: myself in a liquid form. We will establish a vodka distillery where we will produce it on demand. The project is meant to start in Berlin this summer. NT: So next chapter Vodka, sound incredible! Another intriguing thing I heard about you is that you have always been a painter, technically, then you stopped your practice to be more 'intellectual,' running a konsthall in Stockholm, together with Rodrigo Mallea Lira, and then? YO: Yes, I was running, together with Jelena Rundqvist and Rodrigo Mallea Lira, a place called Tensta Konsthall and our group's name was Konst2 (which basically means “Art2”). I worked parallel with both things at the same time, because I was bored of being just a painter, I felt claustrophobic, I was losing my motivation, and I started doing more experimental things in different group constellations like Modern Talking and Konst2. My aim was to understand the art practice as a whole, trying also to change some of the rules that come with it, first of all the white cube aesthetic. But our idea was not to criticize it from a political point of view but instead change the room for real. One attempt was at Tensta Konsthall where we instead created the Leopard Cube, that actually still exists, you can see it on their website under ‘ongoing projects.’ So I would say not an intellectual but a very playful visual way of looking and working within the art practice and art world. NT: Thinking of the leopard cube let’s talk about your practice in terms of form and content. Considering how previous conversations and what I’ve seen so far, it seems that painting is just a tool for you, a utensil or, let's say, a weapon that you use in order to communicate your thoughts, to shoot your concepts… unveiling your curatorial background in a way. Am I far from your modus operandi? Snöfrid: The process is open and the painting is the tool and the painting is the core and the painting is the expression and the painting is the imaginary world in the real world. NT: Please tell me (Ylva or Snöfrid): your ten favorite artists, 5 curators whose practices you think are influencing your work as an artist, 3 shows that changed your perspective and 1 non-art fact that perfectly explains your attitude toward contemporary art and culture. YO: Artists: Hilma af Klint, Yayoi Kusama, Dolly Parton, Leonardo da Vinci, Vija Celmins, Nan Goldin, Virginia Woolf, Elke Krystufek, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Marilyn Monroe, Marina Tsvetajeva, David Hammons, Junkman, Edith Bouvier Beale, Emma Kunz, Andy Warhol, Marlene Dumas, Lisa Yuskavage, Velázquez, Eva Hesse, Karl Holmqvist, Lee Miller, Amy Sillman, Allan Kaprow, Dorian Corey, Jasper Johns, Marguerite Duras, Rothko, Guerilla Girls, Andrej Rublev, Selma Lagerlöf, Trong Nguyen, Vivienne Westwood, John Casavettes, Julieta Aranda, Gerhard Richter, Ana Mendieta, Fia Backström, Masaccio, Ulla von Brandenburg, Masato Kobaysahi, Emily Sundblad, Joseph Beuys, Meret Oppenheim, and all the ones we are talking about. Curators: Duchamp, Yoko Ono, Okwui Enwezor, Harald Szeemann, Jelena Rundqvist, RoseLee Goldberg, Edi Muka, Magdalena Malm, Catherine David, Barnett Newman. Shows: Mile of String (Duchamp), Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made (Tracy Emin), Mirror’s Edge and Documenta (Enwezor), SHE – A Cathedral (Moderna Museet), Position/Cold War (Barbro Östlihn, Rickard Sollman, Konst2), Museum of Obsessions (Szeemann), After Shopping (Jelena Rundqvist), Fruit and Flower Deli (Rodrigo Mallea Lira), Cut Piece (Yoko Ono). Non-art fact: Chanel Number 5 NT: Ok let's make a step back. You quit as a curator of this place in Stockholm, and came to New York. Then, your partner Rodrigo, who is also an artist, decided to come and open Fruit and Flower Deli. This art place (gallery would be reductive), right next to Amy Smith-Stewart's gallery, your New York representative, is headed by the Oracle; because of this Rodrigo defines himself the Keeper of the Oracle. As you told me, the Oracle is a painting of a mirror, owned by three generations of your family, which came to Sweden from the UK. I want to know about the Oracle, and how and why the mirror is so important to your practice. Snöfrid: I am in the mirror. Within the mirror there is the answer. YO: The mirror which inspired this body of work comes from the 18th century, and yes from my family in the UK. The mirror breaks a hole in the reality and presents another reality, or imaginary world, or presents different times at the same time, or shows one’s own persona, and maybe connects the double nature of personality and the illusions which separate reality from appearance, or makes everything come together, and be present simultaneously. NT: How many Oracles have you made so far? YO: One that never can leave the actual gallery, and one that always travels with the gallery and this one has a candle that the Keeper lights when for instance the booth in an art fair is open — when the oracle's candle is flaming you are allowed to enter. This below is an image of it in Brussels at a side show we did in Jota Castro's studio called the “Moonlight Show,” during the daytime the Traveling Oracle was at Fruit and Flower Deli’s booth at Art Brussels and during nighttime in this basement, which is Jota's studio. For the show I will do in Japan there are ten continuations of the Oracle and they are called She Who Shows the Way. NT: Ten Oracles? Is this something related to Deleuzian concept of refrain? The more you repeat something, the more it will be different… what you think? Snöfrid: This is She Who Shows the Way, unfinished images from the studio, before the name of each individual painting is fully written. On the actual paintings, under SHE WHO SHOWS THE WAY, will stand the actual weight of the rock crystal that lies on top of each painting like 0.85 and so on. The rock crystal is the third eye. YO: I’m obsessed by scale, repetition and reflection as well as the mirror image and the meaning of it also in nature. Perhaps is it there, where the imaginary world and the real world become one? I think in the end everything is about light and shadows. NT: In Basel I saw this little installation, a sort of cocktail between Courbet's Origin of the World (1866), Duchamp's Étant Donnés (1946-66) and a peep show. Tell me more about it... YO: Let's start from the beginning, I have been doing these masturbation paintings for almost a year now, all together there are 46 of them, going from black and white to color and then back to black and white again. The paintings have the actual scale of the mirror I used when I painted and masturbated in front of it. Somehow one can say it is an answer from my point of view to Courbet. Further on, I realized when I showed the piece that it was needy of its own environment and then I started working in different ways. I would say it is all about the gaze. I would like to list all the passages in order to clarify the process: 1. As a painting inside the painting in my solo show I had here in New York in September I did this work Venus at Her Mirror (named after Velázquez’s work with the same name). In this painting there are three different times present, like a self-portrait — now (through the mirror image), early childhood (through the tools and toys) and puberty (through the portrait that depicts me at the age of 11, that is a painting and a close up from a photograph my father took when I was 11). 2. The Tondo book is a flip book, where all the 46 paintings are displayed in scale 1:1. I call it a masturbation manual. 3. The Tondo box is a small installation that the owner can set up as she or he wants to, consisting of a box that one places out, and then the painting is hanging on one wall and on the other one there is a peephole, and between them it is a candle that gives a natural light to the painting and a mirror that is reflecting the painting, so you can see it frontally from the side. While in Duchamp's Étant Donnés, the construction is hidden, here it is totally open for the spectator to see, though of course I was inspired by it somehow. NT: Right now you are ready to arrange your big breakthrough in Tokyo, with a solo show at Shugoarts. Do you have any particular expectation? Especially considering that in Japan there are people who collected female student's underwear, which to me seems the best way to resume their fascinating and paradoxical relationship with sex and sexuality… how did they come to you? Snöfrid: We will see. NT: Okay… Are you going to build another of your rebus? I know your father will be one of the main characters of the painting displayed. Would you like to explain one of your displays, where paintings and objects (candles, if I remember well) are set in a very precise way? Snöfrid: She Who Shows The Way – Falling Asleep Where past is always present, Where future is always present, Where present is always present. Where the imagination is as real as the reality. Where the reality is as imaginary as the imagination. YO: There will be a big room; on the left side I will hang ten She Who Shows the Way in a sort of filmic repetition of the same moment. After this installation you will enter in a smaller room where Falling Asleep is showed, as follows. The core of this room is a small double portrait of my father; nobody is allowed to take a picture of one of them, while the other one is a portrait looking at the painting that is not allowed to be photographed as from another time. On each side of the paintings there are two big paintings depicting two large-scale porcelain figures, guardians. One is a Madonna with Child and the other one is a Buddha with a lotus flower. The candle here is present within the painting that is not allowed to be photographed, and outside the other two paintings as a light source. NT: From this last corpus of works featuring your father, to your several self-portraits in the mirror (again the Oracle) to the numerous still-life works with syringes and poppy flowers and this shelter and this bunny, your family is the protagonist of your art or is it just another way to say something else? Snöfrid: Try through the little world to connect to and mirror the big world. Beyond that there’s the imaginary world. As Oskar Ekdahl, one of the central characters in Ingmar Bergman’s film Fanny and Alexander, says “…My only talent, if you can call it that in my case, is that I love this little world inside the thick walls of this playhouse, and I'm fond of the people who work in this little world. Outside is the big world, and sometimes the little world succeeds in reflecting the big one so that we understand it better …” NT: With this gray and pink palette, have you ever being scared of misinterpretation? Could your work be judged "kitsch" and "trashy" (in a legacy that started with Jeff Koons), at least superficially? Snöfrid: Ha ha, that's funny because I see my sister as a mix of Cicciolina and Jeff Koons combined with Caravaggio... YO: And hopefully the misinterpretation is equally creative as the failure. I think it is there where everything starts. It has to be political somehow through action. NT: After your show in Tokyo I know you are preparing a new issue of Snöfrid… would you like to tell us something about it? Snöfrid: That will be Nr. -1, the vodka produced on demand that I mentioned earlier. After that, in the Autumn issue Nr. -3 is coming, where I will be once again in the magazine format and this time focusing on artists as collectors and who and what they choose to collect. One artist that will be in is Rainer Ganahl: his collection reveals for instance a lot of a deeper passion for art beyond trends and so on. Collecting, art and other things, for instance like I have been collecting sugar bags on my trips around the world, I have thousands of them. |
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