Joakim Hällström
Throughout Towards A Metalanguage Of Evil, Cady Noland speaks about a society where the pathology of the psychopath - methods of ‘oversocialization’ - has gained influence in the mainstream mass media and culture at large. This quest for exploitation, accomplished via ruthless and calculated yet undetectable manipulation, is what Noland calls the ‘meta-game’.
By referencing Hollywood movies, popular Reagan-era soap operas and the Nazi Youth Party while interspersing pictures of her colleagues’ art work, she structures an analysis that attempts to put forth a model of psychopathic behavior in a pseudo-academic language. Confident, fleeting and referential, the text manages to convey a decidedly paranoid worldview where the viciousness of the psychopath has infected every strain of American life, the undertone being that it is now considered a viable model for survival and success.
Even though it is tempting to read Noland’s text as a veiled, sly, satirical attack on a dry academic climate and the art world of the 1980’s it simultaneously engages with trashy (and not so trashy) popular culture tropes in a serious manner. For my thesis I wish to adopt a similarly flexible approach, letting personal subject matters seep in and out view while maintaining a ‘journalistic quality’. It might also provide a key to addressing the general audience that I have in mind when writing.
I have also been looking at the collected writings of Robert Smithson for several reasons; one being that he manages to write from a distinctly subjective perspective, though one can sense that he responds to an imagined (or real) artistic responsibility, to be honest and clear in his critique. Luckily, he also manages to stray away from getting bogged down in a descriptive or technical language.
The subject of fandom has been brought up in previous talks and drafts about my work. I will reserve a part of my thesis to the discussion of my relationship to specific bands, brands, materials etc. that I have been attached to (the ‘pleasure principle’). However, I do not find it necessary or relevant to go into detail about, say, sociological studies on fan psychology, as I will stick to what I know best: memories, anecdotes and likings. These will serve as explanations of my incentives and reasoning behind my work. For example, what drew me (and still draws me) to Pantera and a range of other musical acts (contemporary hiphop, club music and so on). Perhaps this can be worked into the thesis at some point. A potential reference might be the official biography on Pantera, written by their bass guitar player, Rex Brown (release date: March 12, 2013).
The ‘quick, dirty and dumb’ one-day sculptures that were proposed by me and then later, in the feedback for my proposal seminar, could also work themselves into the thesis. It is a simple idea, but by keeping a work diary, these fragments (pictures, scribbles, words) could produce an archive of some sorts, a generative model for associations. It is unclear at the moment of what shape it will take, but it will let me respond to immediate concerns and previous work (much like I put together the ‘Pantera works’ over the course of a few days). I believe this immediacy would loosen up the structure of the thesis, add a welcome visual element and getting me closer to the essential act of producing and responding to the work in an increasingly cramped studio space.
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THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A CHEAP LAUGH, THEY ALL COST SOMETHING
For my graduation project, I aim to look into the possibilities to (re)conquer, repurpose and generate new meanings for the objects that we surround us with, through the use of sculpture.
Most of our cultural products and artifacts have a unilateral, culturally programmed functionality inscribed onto them. However, new purposes can be generated through action. A skater modifies the use-value of urban architecture by performing tricks on it and mundane, sharp objects can easily be turned into weapons. Airport and prison personnel are required to be experts at categorizing things in binary terms. Paradoxically, this systematic and paranoid labeling has a constructive aspect as any suspicion momentarily disturbs our perception of the object. All possible outcomes need to be taken into account; a spoon fluctuates between an escape tool/murder weapon and a piece of cutlery.
It is this potential for (and sometimes even marriage between) comedy, creativity and violence that is latent in most objects that has led me to think about their instigating conditions; boredom, necessity and desperation, as a kind of holy trinity.
Many groups of people – impoverished, marginalized, fanatical or just purely passionate hobbyists – are forced to deal with limitations more than others, hence the need for creating certain strategies. In terms of ingenuity and use of material, how have they manifested their aims? That is an overwhelmingly huge topic to cover, but I would like to look closer at a kind of DIY approach of stubborn, light resistance as a mode of formulating a critique against programmatic thinking. Perhaps this is what Iza Genzken meant when she cried out ‘Fuck the Bauhaus’. From a sculptural standpoint, all of this can be quite spontaneous and juvenile too, as Cady Noland illustrates in an interview:
An adolescent walks down the street with a couple of friends eating an ice cream cone and suddenly smashes it into the coin return slot of a pay phone. It’s a nihilistic, negative, gratuitous thing, not functional. It does not facilitate anything, yet it’s a pleasure to make the thing function in this other way.
This ‘pleasure principle’ will be discussed in the thesis, also in relation to me making sculptures from a fan perspective. I will dedicate a part of my thesis to the relationship that I have to my subjects, that have often alluded to or been taken straight from popular culture.
My works in the past served as lamentations of the point in time when initially powerful phenomena get exhausted, watered down, mass-produced and mediated. By contrast, in the thesis I will try to emphasize and elaborate on the intriguing aspects of what drew me to the source material and (actual materials) to begin with. This will also be a good opportunity for me to explain my views on the ability of physical materials to speak ‘on their own terms’ about their intrinsic properties and other things I am concerned with: loss, attributed values, economy, paradox, absurdity.
Practically, I will test my thoughts by producing works that have been processed and shaped using several ‘workshop’ techniques, moving slightly away from the impact of heavily associative, straight-out-the-store products to more amorphous shapes and constellations. The origins of my chosen materials would become less distinguishable, in an attempt to bring them out of their semiotic territory. I imagine this being less about arranging visual codes and making premeditated work and more about creating stuff in an experimental manner.
The structure of the thesis will take the form of a pseudo-journalistic essay, interspersed with anecdotes mostly from daily life, art history and popular culture. I find texts by Raphaël Zarka, Robert Smithson and Cady Noland helpful to look at for their tone, as well as templates for collecting information from a wide range of fields, dipping in and out of contemporary mass media, while relating it to their respective practices. I intend to keep a loose narrative throughout the thesis, similar to an extended magazine article written for a ‘general audience’, though of course more subjective.
I wish to analyze and link specific elements in my work (say, a brand of bubble gum used in a sculpture) to my personal preferences, trying to dig into what it means for me to be a fan of something. Is it an aesthetic tactic that can be nourished?
In The Forbidden Conjunction and The Question Is To Which Is To Be The Master, Zarka theorizes about forms of movement and Galileo but most importantly how the practice of skateboarding “energizes” and “destabilizes” structures conceived for rest and comfort, by the simple gesture of riding on them. To me, the simple equation of a skater plus handrail is reminiscent of a joke, a striking image that is easily reproducible and therefore powerful.
Smithson, Zarka and many others have championed the production of social space through simple gestures - it is a discourse that might be not directly applicable to my thesis, but I am curious to know if it could somehow inform it. The longing for and attempt to revitalize an area is not far from my question: will objects disclose anything about themselves or about collective memory if I turn them into sculptures?
References
Noland, C, Towards A Metalanguage Of Evil. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz
Zarka, R, On A Day With No Waves. A Chronicle Of Skateboarding 1779-2009. Paris: B42
Arendt, H, Reflections, Truth and Politics, The New Yorker, February 25, 1967, p. 49
Smithson, R, 1996. Entropy and the New Monuments in The Collected Writings. Berkeley, Calif, London: University of California Press
Marten, H, Interview with Maurizio Cattelan, Flash Art n.283 March – April 2012. Milano
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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 my interests might be downplayed in favor of a more physical experience.
Cady Noland – Towards A Metalanguage Of Evil http://ma-07.wikispaces.com/file/view/towards-a-metalanguage.pdf
Raphael 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 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Official-Truth-101-Proof-Pantera/dp/0306821370/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349633242&sr=8-1
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