CAROLINE CORBETTA: AMBIGUOUS STATEMENTS, 2005
Caroline Corbetta: I don’t think I ever told you I first saw your work in 2001 while I was touring the Nordic countries for a research trip. I had been sent to Aarhus by train, when I got there after a 3-hours trip from Copenhagen I found myself under a snow storm...what a relief to reach the cosy space of Aarhus Kunstmuseum and be welcomed by a friendly staff. The reason for my visit there was the show “TAKE OFF 20:01” an in-depth survey on the current Danish art scene with Tal R, Jeppe Hein, John Kørner, Pia Rönicke and you, among other young talents. Would you like to tell me something about the work you presented there and how it relates to your subsequent production?Lise Harlev: The work was called “Før jeg slog det op“, and it was in Danish, so I can understand if you were curious to know what it was about!
CC: Well, there was an English translation of the work (in which the title is “Before I looked it up”) in the catalogue so I could get it anyway...
LH: This work consisted of five posters designed to look like advertisements for dictionaries, and on each of them was a kind of anecdote about foreign words in the Danish language which I misunderstood the meaning of and about how this had happened. The work was in a way a continuation of another work - “Before finally looking it up“ - which was about German words which I misunderstood. In both works I was interested in exposing the embarrassing mistakes that follow when you try to master a language, not just a foreign language, but also in your mother tongue, which contains all these tricky foreign words. And in both cases your ability or inability to use the words means a lot for how people perceive you as a person. It's a very sensitive matter, and I liked the idea of suddenly exposing all the mistakes you normally try so hard to cover up.
I guess this wish to express the embarrassing, the banal or the incorrect is something which runs through most of my work. In the beginning, I saw the works as way of expressing thoughts that are usually not taken seriously enough to be made public, but later I became increasingly interested in making ambiguous statements which are right on the verge of being politically incorrect, the way thoughts often are before you express them and form an opinion. This probably had to do with my works being more and more about national identity (and less focused on language) which was, and still is, a very hot subject in Denmark as well as elsewhere in Europe. In public debates there was suddenly this fear of saying the wrong thing, of being accused of nationalism or intolerance, and I had a very hard time with this way of discussing nationality and xenophobia. I think this was when I understood that my works could serve as a kind of forum for ambivalent, difficult thoughts, also when they are not politically correct.
CC: Really, your work plays with the ambiguity of expressing individual thoughts - often questions and doubts concerning personal identity in relation to different public realms - through the neutral aesthetic of the mass media, and other codes of communication like, for instance, that of politics, which tend to simplify the existing multiplicity and complexity of different points of view, opinions and tastes into stereotyped positions. More in detail, several of your works on show here in Turin
(“When the language is practised“, 2000, “My own country“, 2005 and also – on a more intimate, emotional level – “I am here and you are there“, 2003) point out the problems related to social and cultural dislocation experienced by many people who live, for different reasons, in foreign countries. Can these works be read as an attempt to demystify the stereotyped idea of a globalised thus connected world that is enthusiastically being promoted – and sold - by the mass media nowadays?
LH: At least I try to say something more about living in a globalised world than just praising its possibilities. But the praising does not only come from the mass media, it is also something most of us would like to believe in, I think. It is a very comforting idea that we are all potentially connected and that the barriers, geographically and culturally, between us no longer exist. Especially nowadays, with so much xenophobia, the conflicts between the Western and Arabic world, etc. But perhaps the idea of a borderless world has been promoted much too soon, long before most people are ready to deal with it and have let go of their fear of unfamiliar cultures. I see a clear connection between a promotion of globalisation, which often ignores people’s strong attachment to one place or their feeling uneasy about meeting foreign cultures – which are perfectly normal feelings – and then a growing xenophobic atmosphere. It has become so difficult to talk about feelings for your home country, because it’s inevitably associated with a reactionary and, at worst, nationalistic attitude. I think this is very problematic, and I think if there were more openness about these feelings, we wouldn’t have had to struggle with so much nationalism in the first place.
CC: Are the works, mentioned earlier, inspired by your personal experience of relocating to Berlin from Copenhagen? By the way, why did you move to Berlin?
LH: They very much are. Or rather from when I first moved from Copenhagen to Frankfurt (1999) , then back to Copenhagen again and then later on to Berlin (2002). I moved to Berlin for a number of reasons. But most of all I wanted to move away from Copenhagen where I returned to after having had the thrilling experience of living in another country. I was attracted to the way it challenged me as a person, and it simply felt wrong to go back to the surroundings I had wanted leave in the first place. And since I had always felt comfortable in Berlin, living there was inexpensive and I knew a few people there, this was an obvious choice.
CC: In general, how much is your work influenced by your direct involvement in events and how much from the observation of social realities?
LH: It usually starts with a feeling I have about something on a personal level, and if I think this relates to a wider social context in an interesting way, I usually try and use it. I wouldn’t want to do a work about a subject just because of its socio-political importance – it would have to affect me personally as well.
CC: To me a pivotal theme in your work is the attempt to affirm individual experience –with its diverse and even ambiguous shades - against the “simplifying” homologation that threats it in different situations – from the political debate (“I don’t always agree”, 2004) to the private sphere which is more and more affected by hackneyed messages of today’s consumerist society (“I am here and you are there”). Is yours a humanistic approach?
LH: In a way it is, but I would like to note that I never had a desire to be the voice of the victim or to criticize some kind of oppressing power. Although the voice I use often has a weak position compared to the authoritative visual language in my work, it also expresses thoughts and ideas, which are highly critical, like prejudices or even clichés. But nevertheless they are also very human.
CC: Do you really think that individual experience is still possible today or your work is stating the impossibility of this and that we have to adapt our opinions and choices to clichés?
LH: If you by ‘individual experience’ mean something which is unaffected by the clichés of the public media, I would say it doesn’t exist. I think the opinions and messages from advertising, political campaigns, authorities, public debates, etc. all influence the way we think and speak. I think we all practise these clichés, even when we are being ironic about it. There is no clean individual experience, and that is maybe why I always refer to these sources in the graphic design of my work – not just to make a critique of the public language and distance myself from it, but also because this is the background against which we express ourselves.
CC: Is the humorous cotè of your work intentional or it’s a consequence of the contradiction expressed in your works?
LH: I don’t really make a work thinking it has to be humorous, but I’m of course aware that it sometimes ends up being funny. I think part of it is just my way of speaking and writing, and another part has to do with what you mentioned: the combination of the text and image, which is often contradictory and absurd. And I really appreciate the humour, because I think without it the works could easily end up being pathetic and moralistic. Just like with the dry graphic design I use, the humour makes the works balance and makes the viewer want to read them and take them seriously.
CC: Barbara Kruger’s and Jenny Holzer’s works, with their (different) use of slogans, can be considered reference points for your work? Can you name some other artists that influenced you?
LH: I never thought of Kruger and Holzer as reference points for my works before people started pointing them out to me. I knew their works all along, and think they are great artists, but I see both Holzer’s and Kruger’s method very different from mine. To me, their texts have very strong references to the lingo used in public space and try to make us aware of all the one-liners surrounding us, whereas I’m more interested in what you could call the ‘anti-one-liners’ or texts that are too long and ambiguous to be one-liners. But we definitely share an interest in the way messages are communicated in public space. In general, when it comes to sources of inspiration, I tend to look more at artists whose work inspires for maybe less apparent reasons, and sometimes I look just as much to literature as to visual arts. But to name a few: Mike Kelley, Sophie Calle, Jeremy Deller... and recently I rediscovered Felix Gonzalez-Torres whose work I first saw in my first year in art school and whom I still find a really great artist.
CC: In 2002 you produced the work “To represent the world“ (that you showed at Manifesta 4 in Frankfürt and also in Turin at BIG 2002) in which you collected opinions, within the international art world, about the question of nationality of artists. It’s interesting to see that you got diverse, even contradictory replies that show how national identity is just a cliché but mostly a very sensitive topic that cannot be dismissed as easily as some advocates of multiculturalism would like to. Having said that, do you feel you represent your country when you exhibit in international group shows or biennials?
LH: I probably wouldn’t think so much about it if it wasn’t for exhibition organizers and art critics who typically refer to me as a Danish artist. So there’s no doubt that I represent my country, whether I want to or not. I used to find it annoying and unnecessary, but now I don’t really mind anymore, and I can understand that there’s a need to have a point of orientation, such as a person’s nationality, when the world is so globalize and the known borders no longer exist, like we touched upon earlier. It’s not an easy thing to relate to, and the nationality of a person is then something tangible.
CC: Do you think that language is more powerful in terms of communication than images?
LH: It’s not more powerful, but I think language makes it possible to work with many layers and create ambiguity, because language activates images inside the viewer’s head instead of being an image in itself. And that whole transition from word to image makes room for many layers to unfold. But to me it’s not until text is combined with image elements (fonts, illustrations, composition) that you can really play around with layers of meaning and not least the viewer’s expectations.
CC: Have you ever thought of presenting your work in a book?
LH: Oh, yes, many times! In fact, I hope to have enough time to make a book this autumn. But since it’s such an ideal medium for my work, I know I will end up spending a long time producing it and ultimately I keep postponing it.