Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.06.2011, Page 28

28
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 7 — 2011
At this very moment, celebrated Span-
ish-Icelandic artist duo Libia Castro and
Ólafur Ólafsson are representing Iceland
at the 54th International Art Exhibition—
La Biennale di Venezia 2011. Showing at
the Venice Biennale is of course a great
honour for every artist; indeed most of
Iceland’s finest have participated on the
nation’s behalf over the last decades. We
thought some of you might be interested
in knowing what the pair are getting up
to in Venice, so we got kind permission
from the Icelandic Art Center to print
this conversation with the pair that ap-
pears in the official Biennale literature.
To learn more about the Venice Biennale
and Iceland’s participation in it head on
to www.cia.is, otherwise read on and
enjoy.
Ellen Blumenstein: You come from
dance and painting [Libia] versus mul-
timedia [Ólafur]; your influences range
from (neo-)concretism to conceptual-
ism, institutional critique, and relational
aesthetics, to name just a few.
Libia Castro: Yes, I finished my bach-
elor’s degree in painting and Ólafur his
in multimedia. But when we met in the
master’s programme, I started exploring
multimedia and Ólafur delved into paint-
ing. Knowledge of painting was impor-
tant for both of us in the development
of our early environments and for our
photography and video work, too.
ólafur ólafsson: Yes, we had differing
artistic backgrounds as a result of our
studies and obviously different cultural
backgrounds as well. We found it excit-
ing to learn about and from each other.
I had good teachers in the multimedia
department at the Icelandic Art Acad-
emy and the conceptual aspect was
strong. The school was poorly equipped
in terms of audio-visuals, though, so any
experiments in that direction were low
profile. When Libia and I started work-
ing together, we wanted to merge the
physical and the concrete, the concep-
tual and the contextual. This brought us
to environments where we could experi-
ment with these different elements and
approaches.
EB: I intuit that finding each other as a
Spanish-Icelandic couple and artist duo
with different cultural and political back-
grounds was not so much the trigger for
the multifacetedness of your work, but
an effect of this joint interest on a very
visible level. Would I be right in describ-
ing this diversity as a major common
ground, on a deeper level than your ob-
viously similar interests and aesthetics?
L+ó: Yes, it’s also an attitude towards
life, and a desire to listen carefully, even
if it doesn’t fit the average format...
EB: I’d argue that this open-endedness
defines your position towards each oth-
er, towards the art context and towards
the “real” world better and more com-
prehensively than any attempts to name
your influences, interests, and sources
could do.
L+ó: True, but on the other hand we
question those influences. Our practice
is a result of our living conditions and
without understanding this it would be
misread. We have been inspired by the
avant-gardes of the 20th century, such
as Dada, surrealism, conceptualism, arte
povera, and the situationist/interven-
tionist movements. From the Icelandic
context we feel a direct influence from
Fluxus, live Art and Dieter Roth. To be
based in the Netherlands was also im-
portant. Friends like Jeanne van Heswi-
jk, Bickvanderpol, Lara Almarcegui, Je-
roen Jongeleen, Marc Bijl, Nicoline van
Harskamp, Rosella Biscotti, Wendelien
van Oldenburg, and architects, thinkers,
and cultural producers such as Emiliano
Gandolfi, Lucia Babina, and their col-
lective Cohabitation Strategies, come
from different age groups and were part
of our scene, which at different times
shared with us the possibility of socially
committed or critical forms of art.
EB: I would describe your field of inter-
est in the broadest sense as a political
one—but this ranges from gender rela-
tions to identity politics or subjectivity,
to the civic arena, (immaterial) labour,
migration, and more.
L+ó: All our works involve people and
their living conditions, and they include
social matters and political awareness.
Why do you say “but”? These subjects
are all treated in the discourses of eman-
cipatory philosophies, and as such they
are all directly interconnected. An art
that tries to reflect on these matters
needs to develop a vision in dialogue
with them.
EB: I was connecting my remark with a
“but” because I find it significant for your
work that it is fed more by an involved/
committed attitude towards the world
that surrounds you than by a specific
political concern. These are obviously
two possible but different approaches
which I am trying to isolate in order to
clarify yours. I would like to know more
about the way in which you establish this
dialogue between philosophy and art.
LC: We’re drawn to emancipatory ques-
tions, utopias, movements, philosophies;
it’s the idea of emancipation and the
wish to understand (or simply engage
with) the human condition and its para-
doxes, its beliefs, dreams, and desires,
and the “real” material, economic, so-
cial, and historical conditions that shape
(our) society and culture and (our) con-
flicts. We translate these aspects into
the artistic context we participate in,
and we want to reflect on them from an
experimental perspective.
EB: Tell me how you decide on the is-
sues you examine.
L+ó: We come to our subjects through
our work, through dealing with ques-
tions that bring up other questions, de-
sires, or ideas. A Buddhist would say,
“we are trapped in samsara”. The issues
are all interrelated with the work, our
life, and other people’s lives (and soci-
eties). The internal questions the work
poses also determine how to proceed.
The sites to which we travel and work in
are also important. Indeed, our projects
always have an investigative character
and for us they only make sense if they
can be placed in relation to life and the
A CONVERSATION BETWEEN
LIBIA CASTRO,
óLAFUR óLAFSSON,
AND
ELLEN BLUMENSTEIN
Art | Venice Biennale
“All our works involve people and their living
conditions, and they include social matters and
political awareness.”
Words
Ellen Blumenstein