Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.11.2010, Side 18

18
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 17 — 2010
Probably the best pizza
in town
Pizzeria tel. 578 8555 Lækjargata 8 Downtown
The current exhibition at Reykjavík Art Mu-
seum – Hafnarhús, ‘power has a Fragrance’,
is by the New york and Tokyo based, Nor-
wegian-born artist, Gardar Eide Einarsson.
Through paintings, sculptures, flags and pho-
tographs, using a predominantly black and
white palette, the artist applies inherent punk
and skateboarding aesthetics to an examina-
tion of art and cultural power structures. The
layered work intends to raise questions rather
than conclude empty statements. He has been
one of the most celebrated young Nordic art-
ists, and participated in the Whitney Biennial in
2008. I had the pleasure to sit down with him
and engage in an insightful conversation about
his enigmatic work, the art world and his love
for Tokyo.
The title of your exhibition at Hafnarhús, ‘Power has
a Fragrance’, fits the work well, suggesting an intan-
gible trace of authority.
That’s what I like about it. It says that power isn’t nec-
essarily something that you experience head on. It’s
about having this trace of power around. Fragrance
is not a smell it’s more of a hint. It’s a title from the
band Death in June.
What is your connection to the punk and skateboard-
ing scene? Was there one you were a part of in Nor-
way?
Yes. When I was growing up, all I did was skate-
board. It was also tied to music, and so on. That was
how I started having a real relation to aesthetics;
through those types of aesthetics. And interestingly,
I think it works with appropriation, which I do with
my work. At that time, I also worked with a limited
colour palette because work was photocopied, it was
pre-internet… When I was growing up in Norway,
skateboarding was actually illegal there. So you
would have to smuggle boards in from other coun-
tries and if the cops caught you skateboarding, they
would confiscate your board.
It seems that a primary component of your work is
combining a political message, regarding the indi-
vidual’s relationship or conflict in society, with ap-
propriation and institutional critique…
Institutional critique is originally a historical event;
it’s an art historical genre. I think as such, it’s not
possible to be doing that. It is a bit dead but it’s still
important for my work. That genre became a natural
part of art making today. My work has the traditional
institutional critique baked into it. Hopefully it’s
subtler and more humorous than how I find tradi-
tional institutional critique, even though I love that
work.
Your work contains some irony…
There’s an element of humour. There are jokes in the
work, either formal visual jokes or puns and that’s
where some of this institutional critique lies. The
work’s definitely the relationship between institu-
tional critique and the political critique. I am trying
to set up a parallel between these two power struc-
tures, thereby saying that this work is also a victim
to power structure, which exists within a certain
framework. If my work didn’t do that it would be an-
noying.
There are many layers involved in the work. The more
time you spend with it, the more layers are unveiled,
for instance, learning about the ‘NYPD Badge’ and
‘Jesus Saves’...
I hope it works like that. I sometimes set up a misun-
derstood meaning. This is also a part of this critique
of power, without sounding too pompous. I want
people to question their own readings with it. You
could see a piece or a show and misunderstand it,
and then when you happen to see more pieces and
shows, you perhaps realise that the initial reading
was a faulty one.
How much do you want the viewer to pick up on
these references, such as Jesus Saves coming from
Clint Eastwood’s ‘Dirty Harry’?
I give some clues but not a lot. I want the process
of understanding the work to evolve over time. I
definitely do not want all the references to be visible.
I don’t want it to be this game of finding the refer-
ences while you are looking at the painting. I want
there to be a feeling that there’s still information that
could be dug up.
The installation is specific with some pieces standing
on the floor.
One of the reasons why I do that is to take focus away
from the individual work. When a painting is hung
it follows that this is art. It’s supposed to be seen only
within its formed borders. So it’s an attempt at mak-
ing the work point to other works more and be a little
less “the piece”.
How has living in Tokyo influenced your work? It
seems that has added another dimension.
Tokyo has its own different way of understanding
community, relations between people. Individual-
ism is quite frowned upon in Japan. It’s an interest-
ing place to be for my work. Apart from that I like it
for personal reasons, as a city, it’s amazing... Tokyo
is much bigger than New York. There’s more weird
stuff going on. In New York, every bar closes at 4 AM
and maybe you can stay for another hour if you know
the owners. In Tokyo, they don’t have to close at all.
If you are there at twelve in the afternoon after you
spent the whole night there, they are fine with it and
you can stay. There’s more potential in Tokyo and
more undiscovered parts. The quality of life is really
good. It’s nice to be somewhere where people are al-
ways very polite, especially coming from New York.
Speaking of being influenced by Tokyo, can you talk
about ‘The Suicide Mirror’ piece in this exhibition?
It’s from one specific subway station in Tokyo where
there’s a high suicide rate. As a prevention measure,
they’ve installed these mirrors. The theory is that if
people see their bodies as a unit and see it in relation
to other bodies, they would be less likely to commit
suicide. I don’t know if it worked.
That history is interesting to combine it with the ap-
propriated use of the mirror with regards to Larry
Bell and other modernist artists.
Yeah, and that of course are the two classic functions
of painting, is that it’s either a mirror or a window.
Which artists are inspiring you now?
It varies. It could be more about their life than about
their art. I’ve been interested in Gerhard Richter re-
cently. He’s been doing a lot of work deconstructing
painting but also his life is interesting. He somehow
failed to be a part of any of those German scenes.
He was this outsider. He was part of the capitalist
realism movement in the ‘60s, but that was a little
forced onto him. He became this loner artist who
seemed too conservative and too weird, and through
that managed to build fervour. What I like with
artists is that there is a certain weirdness to them,
there is something that doesn’t add up. Franz West,
for example, is someone I like for that reason. For
me though what fuels my own production are other
parts of culture, like literature.
There are musical references in your work. What
kind of music do you listen to in your studio?
GEE Sometimes if it’s just me, I listen to older metal
and hardcore but if I have assistants there, I some-
times play classical music because it’s mellower for
everyone. And recently I’ve been listening to pod-
casts. There’s this BBC podcast I like called History
of the World in 100 Objects. It’s where they pick ob-
jects and they talk about world history through these
100 objects. It’s awesome.
Do you have any shows coming up that you would
like to share?
I have shows in Europe soon. I’m doing a show with
a friend in Tokyo in December, which I’m excited
about. I want to do as much as possible in Japan be-
cause I feel like there isn’t a real contemporary art
scene there and I want there to be one.
Where else is Power has a Fragrance showing?
It started in Norway, and then it came here and then
it’s going to Stockholm and then to Kassel, Germa-
ny, so I will be travelling around with this show for
a while …
Words
Lana Vogestad
photography
Hörður Sveinsson
More Than Meets The Eye
An interview with artist Gardar Eide Einarsson
Art | Interview
Power has a Fragrance will be showing at
Reykjavík Art Museum until January 9, 2011.