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DEUTSCH
Chus
Martínez in conversation with
Clemens Krauss
February 2008
Chus
Martinez: Broadcast time would often be understood as real time. How
would you define “real time”? Concerning your working methodology: How
important is it to you to differentiate here?
Clemens
Krauss: Through various media, images of war scenes, detainees or even
political caricatures, for instance, are spread around the world within
only a few minutes. The actual events, their perception and the viewers’
reaction to them happen almost at the same time. I think this supposed
real time has to do a lot with the subjective feeling of immediate
action. This makes images so powerful.
On the other hand, the constant presence of such evidence can produce
disinterest and indolence. It remains a paradox.
Accordingly, what plays a crucial role in my work is less a difference
in defining these two concepts than the remaining distance between them.
The distance between an action and its perception apparently has become
smaller.
CM: The
use of the image – mostly the body image – in your work follows a
pattern. The installations seem to pursue a precise layout that only
gradually becomes evident, and when it does we face an endless world
made up of tightly interconnected but heterogeneous spaces. Could you
explain how you work in the space and also the role of the human figure
there?
CK: The
question of the use of space in my work is always connected to the
question of the chosen media. Thus the concept of the body image can
appear in various forms, for instance as a painting on canvas, a glass
cabinet installation or as an ephemeral wall painting. The different
situations determine the role of the human figure – as both the
represented body and the perceiving viewer. It is an interplay between
the protagonists of all parts. The viewer enters a room with a temporary
wall painting installation and senses the paint and the bodies and
becomes a stakeholder. This is again about action, its perception and
the individual reaction to it. Of course the initial context that the
poses derived from is alienated, but by rearranging body poses in
completely different environments, new and heterogeneous spaces and
situations can be created.
CM: When
you say new spaces do you mean new social spaces? How would you describe
the newest of those new situations defined in the installations?
CK: In
the first place I am talking about the actual space of display and the
spatial context of the work. It makes a big difference whether a piece
is stationary or mobile when referring to its individual relation to a
certain space. In the second instance I am talking about the space that
is provided by the work itself and allows the viewer to immerse himself
or herself and become a protagonist and part of the play. The space
becomes the stage.
In the third instance I would refer to what you have called the social
space. It is the white of the wall or the canvas and the open area in
the glass objects between the bodies. Initially isolated individual
bodies enter immediately and inevitably a situation of social
interaction. It is not least in our human nature to perceive manifold
social codes when individuals concur and act together. So it is the
seeming void that actually provides space for interaction. Everything
that happens between humans happens in this gap between bodies.
CM: That
already implies a call for the spectator not only to see but actually to
interpret the situation she or he is in. So what tools do you provide
them with? About references, what are the sources that nourish your
practice?
CK:
Probably it is not explicitly necessary to request the spectator to
interpret certain situations, since this happens unavoidably and
spontaneously. That is what I meant with human nature – it’s the human
behaviour of the beholder, too. In consequence different individuals
read different situations in my work, depending on the particular
spatial context. For instance, aggressive and defensive poses rearranged
in a suitable space could – or could not – be interpreted as a sexual
situation.
The fact that the body poses are originally derived from a global image
pool of current affairs and politics is not relevant any more at some
point. Eventually the body plays a more universal role and the whole
process is more about our own experiences and observations and
perceptions.
This tells a lot about how we deal with images and how we humans
interact amongst each other.
CM: But
human behaviour as well as human subjectivity encompasses social
relations. Of course every artwork refers to the here and now but also
affects our capability to read the context in which the particular takes
place. The relation between universalism – the human body as you refer
to it for example – and particularism – the way everyone reacts inside
the exhibition space – can be put like that, but transcends the terms
you are using. Since a crucial point in my opinion is to explore how our
visions of the complicated notion of emancipation have been recast under
new conditions. The collapse of universal certainties – even the body as
such – the explosion of new ways to define identity, the fragmentation
of the social body even provokes a large number of contradictions that
we still need to examine. These contradictions also deeply affect our
understanding of the future as well as our expectations towards it. So
how does your work respond to these questions? Is the body here to be
understood as an anthropogenic locus where we today locate work,
transaction and unrestricted conflict with the natural order? Or does
the body refer to an illusion of freedom, a niche, an existential
territory recognisable by all, of course, but losing consistency?
CK:
Collapses of orders and certainties – also of such as the body – are
important issues in my work. Fragmentation, disruption and incompletion
act as useful methods in the process. But in times of political crisis,
smouldering social conflicts and major cultural changes, the body turns
out to be a kind of niche as well, in a way a last resort. Personally I
conceive this notion as quite romantic, though. However, this apparent
contradiction between collapse and place of refuge is related to the
contradiction of a globally disintegrating world that – again very
romantic – at the same time bears the chance of finding new ways of
coexistence, freedom and justice. You will locate this antinomy in my
work, too. For instance, seemingly harmless body poses turn out to be of
hostile or violent origin. Or in the photographic series “Look-alikes”,
assumedly stable identities are juxtaposed with their pseudo-clones. In
this regard the concept of the body does serve as an anthropogenic locus
in the sense of a locus that we are probably all most familiar with.
CM: What
elements do you see changing rapidly in your work? What preoccupies you
most at the moment?
CK:
Currently all changes in my work happen within the discussion between
medium and context. The element of a universal body as a starting point
for observation and critique thereby remains stable. In the future I
will continue trying to detect tendencies and developments in my
surroundings and beyond, particularly under the notorious conditions of
globalisation.
We are witnessing, for example, a kind of return of formal aesthetics in
the sense of both a desire and a demand for apparent beauty and harmony.
Probably this too has to do with the dismantling of orders. Within the
arts this can become a problem quite fast, since fulfilling expectations
risks ending up in the banal. So I think it’s crucial to formulate
methods that are a match for the complexity of the changes, ways of
subversion, exaggeration, ironisation etc. in order to ideally provide a
space of reflection for the requirements of the times. Therefore it is
increasingly important to develop even more precise (visual) codes that
bring into relation your own thinking and doing – and vice versa.
CM:
Which theoretical references are key for you at the moment in regard to
the above-mentioned issues?
CK: We
are talking about subjective phenomena that emerge somewhere between
perception and sensation. With an idea of sensual perception we start
long before Kant and end up with Rancière and a notion of aesthetics as
a participatory act. For me it becomes really interesting when
perceptual knowledge and experience can be brought into a conclusive
relation with one’s personal present. This includes ground-breaking
achievements in the natural sciences as well as processes in
contemporary history and politics. Here I would like to point to Chantal
Mouffe and the problems of post-political concepts, such as the belief
in universal rational consensus, which apparently is contradictory to
human nature and action. Towards the end of the 2000’s, maybe it has
become necessary to relativise relativism.
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