 |
Véronique Joumard
interview avec Sabine Schaschl-Cooper - catalogue de l'exposition Early Birds Bâle.
A talk between Véronique Joumard and Sabine Schaschl-Cooper on the occasion of the exhibition "Early Birds" at the Kunsthaus Baselland
SSC : Looking at your work for the first time and also when reading some of the articles on it, one finds the reference to Minimal and Conceptual Art as departing points. How far do these concepts play a role in your work?
VJ : Minimal Art even more than Conceptual Art meant an important revelation for me during my studies at the academy. I always admired the economical use of the materials in these works, recognizable as much in the pieces themselves as in their elaboration. I also like how the spectator is set, a certain generosity some might say.
SSC : So when you talk about Minimal Art you basically refer to its key interests in simple structures, the way of creating a new spatial order, the acceleration of space with simple means. You also use partly pre-fabricated objects, like for example the light bulbs in one of your installations or the mirrors. Nevertheless you seam to use your hands as well, in order for example to tighten the light-reflecting fabric over the frame or "draw" a line with the cables on the floor. Do you see any contradiction in this?
VJ : I do not really see any contradiction : Being involved in the creation of objects or installations which I show can - at times - be the source of other works. Indeed, I am sometimes setting to work at different levels, i.e. directly on the object itself as with the reflecting surfaces, which in the exhibition at the KHBL are treated like canvas put on a frame, or by spreading out electric cables on the floor. It can turn into a transformation, a deterioration of the material which induces a slight change of the meaning.
SSC : Formally speaking your work contains two main focus points, one is the space and the other one the light and - connected with it - also the electrical network systems. On the one hand you use light and electrical equipment in terms of material - material to work with the space and the spectator. On the other hand the light also becomes in a way a metaphor, for example when you use it for the title of the exhibition "Early Birds", which recalls the saying "only the early bird catches the fly". How do you catch this fly?
VJ : One can say that the light is an important component of the space. The twentieth-century light is no longer a natural one, it is created by manufactured materials, industrialized in cases. I liked the idea of making visible both the light itself and the essential elements which produce its appearance, undoubtedly a way of talking of the work and its components. But also a way of inscribing the works in the space, as the junction is visible (e.g. in the piece with the extension lines, or in the one with the illuminated globes). As for the title « Early Birds », it is telling about landscape, which may lead us to think of birds at dawn. On the other hand, if you get up very early, you sometimes have to put the lights on.
SSC : French sociologist Gaston Bachelard talks of “poetry of the space” in his book with the same title. I think that this term is very appropriate to describe how your work functions in the particular space at the KHBL. You managed to give it a poetic touch. This is rather self-contradictory with Minimal Art, which did not per se look for any poetry.
VJ : I am well aware of the fact that this has never been a generally accepted point of view, but I always saw the poetical side in Minimal Art works. In the way these works recompose the exhibition space, the physical place given to the spectator and in a certain poetry of the materials used (I am thinking of Richard Serra, of specific photos by Sol Lewitt), and it is there that it also meets with Gaston Bachelard’s way of thinking.
SSC : In your photographic work you also put a special focus on spatial situations, sometimes to the point of a “trompe l'oeil”. What do you look for in your photos?
VJ : I have always been taking pictures, it is for me a way of taking notes, of working out ideas. Moreover it is also a method to work with the light, I still keep precise memories when working in the photographical laboratory, where inevitably the light is a crucial element for the image. A universe, where minutes are counted and measured, but where on the other hand you completely fall out of time. SSC: Some of this counting and measuring of time and light you also undertook when working on the conception of the exhibition. I noticed that, when we spoke about taking photos of the exhibition, you immediately wanted to have various light-situations of the space, showing the different effects light gives to the exhibition in the space. In the morning the mirror work which works on the concept of mirroring angles - a viewpoint typical to the standard spectator – is confronted with up to three light shades falling in from the outside. The light-reflecting fabrics also work in relation to the amount of light falling in and according to the angle at which it is falling in ...
VJ : As for the mirrors, this is part of the good suprises of the exhibition. I had visited the place one afternoon in September, and at that time of the day could not see the big « puddles of light » on the floor. I thought of this much more for the big shiny fabrics, which I chose to put on the wall facing the big windows looking to the west bathed in bright sunlight in the afternoon, and in front of the « Ligne de Lumières »-piece, where the electrical light produces a similar effect at night. In the same way I like the idea that these pieces require that you move; walking around the art-work, putting it on the wall according to the light situation, according to the geographical orientation of the building induces that the exhibited works will look different following the moment of the person’s visit; there is no ideal presentation.SSC: You show a sound interactive work, entitled "Ligne de Lumières " at the KHBL. This work reacts to sound. In one exhibition this work reacted to the music of a video-piece – to what does it react in this exhibition?
VJ : The « Ligne de Lumières » -piece is visible right from the entrance-door reacting in the exhibition like a signal. It is also situated at the side-wall when returning from the long room boarded by windows. The spot-lights react according to the visitor’s pace, as an echo to the spoken words.
SSC: In an interview with Claire Le Restif you mentioned that in a monographic exhibition the context becomes very important for you. What were the specific points you looked at in the KHBL exhibition?
VJ : Every room has its own characteristics. The mirrors in the long room were put in a way to enable the play with the big windows and the outside-view. According to their situation, the « paintings » made of the shining fabric reflect the daylight or the spot-lights of « Ligne de Lumières » ; the big photographs are also pictures taking up the rhythm of the windows and the proportions of the wall of the big room.
« T.V. Pulse » situated at the entrance is another piece illustrating the alternation of daylight and artificial light.
SSC : For the exhibition you proposed to place a line of mirrors in the space with windows to the outside. Since one cannot see him/herself when standing in front of the mirror but someone on the side will be able to see the reflected person.... I wonder if this will allow to transfer the outside space inside the room?
VJ : The idea of these mirrors is that the reflected image can only be seen when looking at it from the side, when looking at it from the front the reflection is but a vague hazy image. They are put on the wall of this very long room, a sort of a large corridor, where visitors will discover in a first moment « normal mirrors » by approaching them sideways. Moving along further and facing the mirrors, they will be surprised by the hazy effect. When putting the mirrors on the wall right in front of the big windows, what evidently is reflected, is the outside-landscape. This semi-urban reflected re-framed « landscape » turns into an element of the exhibition. In the evening, created by the moving lights of the cars driving up or down the nearby road, during the day by the parking cars, some bicycles, the trees. This is the reason why I chose to put the mirrors next to real photographs, which in their turn also speak of frames, of reflections.SSC : Regarding the photographs and the mirrors, I would like to come back to what you said before about the time aspect. In your photographs you can of course capture a second of time. In the lab you define the light atmosphere of the photograph according to your memory of that taken moment. When I look at the mirrors, time seams to get in the same process: While you are standing in front of the mirror you don't see your reflection. When you start to chase after your reflection it is always ahead or behind you, so also in this process the brain uses memory to find the moment of just before. .... VJ: I had never thought of this “vision” of the mirrors before, but I do agree!, a sort of hazy hommage to Dan Graham. These mirrors take the look to somewhere else, to the side of which originates their panoramic size allowing simultaneously a precise vision and a hazy one, ending up close to the sfumato of the painting.
SSC : It is exactly this moment when one perceives a “sfumato” that the relationship to painting becomes visible. Sometimes you also seam to draw ...
VJ : All works, whether close or not from painting, are strongly related to the exhibition space, be it here at the KHBL, where the shiny surfaces reflect the outside light, be it in the pieces recently realized, where I use a thermo-sentisized paint (changing the colour according to temperature), where the coloured surfaces vary when touched by the sun. Or in another exhibition in the Villa Van de Welde at Brussels, where the « paintings » over the radiators revealed all colours through the effect of the reflecting heat flow.SSC : So it is the light and the warmth producing the painting ?
VJ : In this very case – yes !, let us say that I arranged the paint but also the reflecting surfaces in a way to allow the light, or the heat, to modify them. Both light and heat are two manifestations of the same phenomenon.
SSC : Another aspect I wanted to come back to is the way you integrate the spectator in your work. While the “Lignes de Lumières”-piece reacts to the steps and noises of the visitors, whereas the lights act like mirrors accordingly. The louder the voice speaks up, the stronger the light flashes back with a very small delay of time. The mirrors on the wall also act interactively with the spectator. One either sees one’s own blurry shape, or another person looking from a different angle to the mirror sees the actual reflection. One immediately understands the idea that the spectator becomes an integral part of your work.
VJ : This is not new, of course, the minimalists, Duchamp and others worked in the same way. There is no real art work, unless it is not looked at. These are ideas much rather found in other fields than in art, in science e.g., where the creator’s position has an impact on the field itself. It is the way I work with the architecture of the site, with its geografical situation, I am thinking here of the KHBL and the way the sun may play with the shiny surfaces. I consider it vital to have the visitor in mind too.
SSC : One last note: Seeing your mirror work, I was wondering about Lacan’s thesis of the mirror stadium in the human development. According to Lacan, a child remarks himself for the first time as his alter ego, when first looking at his reflection. Since your mirror would only show a blury shape and no clear image of an alter ego, I wonder what Lacan would have concluded from it. What would be your guess?
VJ : The mirrors play of course with the perception of one’s own self by modifying it, by mixing it up. The image reflected by the mirrors astonish, force to change position. The visitors step forward, step backward when approaching the mirrors. Only by his moving around is the meaning of the artwork revealed to the spectator. I think it is interesting, even healthy, that the flow of reflection develops through walking, through travelling.
