Joakim Hällström

[[Media:http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/fa-wiki/File:Working_Under_The_Influence_2012_03_web.jpg ]] Over the past year or so, my sculptures have moved towards abstraction and have become increasingly based on the evocative power of materials. As a consequence, I have been interested in the range of cultural connotations that materials potentially can carry, and ultimately their political significance. The materials that I work with are ubiquitous and not technologically sophisticated, but in the past I have not shied away from opportunities to ‘improve’ their appearance by applying spray paint, gloss, varnish and so on.

For an untitled sculpture that I made earlier this year I assembled printed, glossy digital photographs of color gradients with cinder blocks, a big sheet of glass, plastic boards, fake marble wallpaper and black insulation material. These pieces had been installed asymmetrically on the floor, the white cinder blocks forming two miniature towers. A bit further away, on one of the walls, two A4-sized prints had been placed at eye level, one being a product photo of a diamond-studded silk tie against a black background. I had sourced the image from an online store that sold Swarowski-enhanced modern day business attire and then turned it 90 degrees clockwise. None of the elements in this work had been processed in any significant way, in order to preserve an uncanny look of a slightly forgotten or dated culture.

In contrast to that approach, a few months later I hastily produced a rather large (49 x 49 x 25.5 inches) fridge-like quasi-minimalist box by piecing together scrap wood and an Ikea table. The top surface was untouched but the sides had been interspersed with broken, pointy pieces of thin wood and fastened with screws. The hollow but heavy sculpture stood firmly on the floor, its height somewhere in-between a standardized countertop and an adult.

The title of the work, Hands break to hone raw energy, is lifted from the lyrics of the heavy metal band Pantera’s song Mouth for war, included on their 1992 album Vulgar display of power. Initially inspired by equal amounts Pantera’s heavy metal music and my fond memories of listening to them as a teenager, I soon began to critically analyze this now-defunct Texan band; how they adopted and mediated a grungy, occasionally grumpy, anti-establishment image and what impact that made on a headbanging kid like me.

Around the same time, while studying the political implications of 1960’s minimalist art and its legacy in contemporary sculpture and architecture, I was reminded of the sleek, ‘tasteful’ and definitely middle-class Scandinavian design that surrounded me when I grew up in Sweden, listening to the brutal, chugging sounds of Pantera. I viewed my final sculpture as a natural merging of these two worlds, with a nod to weekend warriors (and all the hardware stores where I can lose myself).

A more recent of body of work, Working under the influence, was created when I was listening to Vulgar display of power, only using a limited range of materials that were available to me on the spot – MDF, old furniture, cinder blocks, a shattered mirror etc. In other words, what I had lying around in my studio at that time. One work featured my pair of canvas sneakers with their laces tied together, tossed onto a cutout of an Ikea table. Similarly, I draped my grey t-shirt on top of a simple 2x2 construction. Two white-painted MDF boards had discreet lines and stars carved into them, forming washed out ‘wooden flags’ of the state of Texas. This gesture was mimicked in another work - pieces from the mirror shaped an approximation of the silhouette of that same state. The eight works shared a homogenous, muted color palette. By either leaning them against walls or placing them on the floor, I wanted to emphasize their weight and in some cases, balance acts. Additionally, the close proximity of the works indicated a direction and rhythm that the viewer was forced to consider.

I did not aim to dictate the reading of the works, i.e. pointing to historicized narratives or anecdotes, so any outside influences were somewhat obfuscated or concealed in the works. Nevertheless, the aesthetic that I opted for could perhaps resemble the reliably chaos-inducing banal objects and situations in slapstick comedy and cartoons. While having previously engaged with comedy in my work before, I do not possess much knowledge of historically important figures such as Buster Keaton or the Marx Brothers – I guess I prefer Louis C.K and Calvin & Hobbes.

As for my methodology; in my practice I often lament a cultural phenomenon that I simultaneously am a fan of, arguably putting me into a morally compromised position. This position is not always explicit of course. To use a clumsy analogy – like many comedians (though I would undoubtedly be a poor one) I enjoy finding out if I can generate new meanings from my material by deliberately arriving at slightly absurd conclusions: poking fun at something as a productive act. For me it’s about a willingness to show affection while allowing myself to mock or scrutinize certain aspects of the things I like, be it minimalist heroes, heavy metal legends or safe, Swedish suburbia. I do sense however that traditional sculptural concerns like weight, gravity, mass and texture are important to me, so in future cases conceptual origins might be downplayed in favor of a more physical experience.

References:

Cady Noland – Towards A Metalanguage Of Evil http://ma-07.wikispaces.com/file/view/towards-a-metalanguage.pdf

Raphaël Zarka – The Forbidden Conjunction Included in On A Day With No Waves. A Chronicle Of Skateboarding 1779-2009

Hannah Arendt – Truth and Politics http://www.scribd.com/doc/67600027/Hannah-Arendt-Truth-and-Politics

Robert Smithson – Entropy And The New Monuments http://www.beigecube.de/citmg/reader/Smithson.pdf

ICA London, Culture Now – Interview with Josephine Meckseper http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d8F7NvZwXc

Jörg Heiser – Surface Tension http://kaleidoscope-press.com/issue-contents/surface-tension-words-by-jorg-heiser/

Kaleidoscope November/December 2009 Issue – Perverted Minimalism

Rex Brown - Official Truth, 101 Proof: The Inside Story of Pantera (To be released in December, 2012)

Jerry Seinfeld – Comedian (film) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328962/

Joel Lovell – That’s Not Funny, That’s C.K. http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201108/louis-ck-interview-gq-august-2011

Robert Hobbs, Jörg Heiser and Alessandro Rabottini - Sterling Ruby http://www.roberthobbs.net/book_files/Sterling_Ruby.pdf

Robert Hobbs – Smithson’s Unresolvable Dialectics http://www.roberthobbs.net/book_files/Robert_Smithson_Sculpture.pdf

Helen Marten – Interview with Maurizio Cattelan http://www.flashartonline.com/interno.php?pagina=articolo_det&id_art=862&det=ok&title=HELEN-MARTEN

Don DeLillo – White noise