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[11. marts 2003]
Interview
Ulrik Crone in his studio
Interview with Ulrik Crone
Ulrik Crone (b. 1964),
degree from the Royal Danish Art Academy in 1995. Crone has had
several solo exhibitions in Denmark as well as abroad. For his latest,
at La Galerie Danoise, kopenhagen met with him for
an interview. His distinct style, in which different painterly techniques
are joined with pre-existing elements and images is apparent at
this new exhibition titled Measuring the Serpent From Top to
Tail With a Rubber Tape. Interview: Maria Kjær Themsen.
Edited and translated by Kristine Ploug Pedersen.
Measuring the Serpent From Top to Tail With a Rubber Tape
Ulrik Crone
La Galerie Danoise
48 Rue Turenne, Paris
January 18 - March 11
Installationviews
Your pictures here are characteristic in that they mix recognisable
elements and real-life situations with painterly techniques….
Yes, I've always worked like that, taken already existing images
and using them in my paintings. The difference between the new paintings
and my older work is that the later work comments on specific
societal subjects whereas the earlier ones were of a more general
character. At the moment I find it very interesting to work
with crime as a subject. Society has this enormous fascination with
crime - you can hardly watch a movie that doesn't incorporate this
element. That's what my pictures at this exhibition are about.
But in many ways I'm more practical than theoretical. There are
formal questions; apart from the figurative content I'm working
in a more painterly direction - it's a lot more about painting now
than it was earlier… Examining the space that can’t be
defined through the spoken language - I try to work with things
that can only be passed on through painting.
The exhibition is called "Measuring the Serpent From Top to
Tail With a Rubber Tape" which basically refers to the undefined
space you carry around in your head. How when you try to catch something
it disappears between your fingers…. How two-dimensional colours
and shapes can communicate something different.
Ulrik Crone: without titel, computerprint,
oil, akryl and laquer on canvas, 2002
Ulrik Crone: without titel, computerprint,
oil, akryl and laquer on canvas, 2002
The non-painterly elements that you integrate in your art - are
they found objects or do you make them yourself?
Sort of a mix of both. But I make a point of working a lot with
computer processed originals - anyone can work with computer prints
on canvas and it'll look like art - but something I work a lot with
is juxtaposing documentary photos with staged photography. It's
a bit of an unspoken rule in the media that documentary photos document
truth, but by mixing the two and manipulating them, the borders
between the staged and the real can be transgressed.
You often use text in your paintings…
I used to use a lot of text in my paintings because I felt that
it was important to be able to communicate a message as fast as
possible. It was just a real good trick to simply write across the
canvas - and let people relate to that. But I've toned it down a
lot. The older you get and the more you work with pictorial art,
the more tools you learn to use - so now it's just a trick I can
pull out of my hat now and then.
Installationviews
At the exhibition your paintings spread from the two dimensional
surface and out into the room itself, as a kind of continuation
or comment to the subjects on the wall…
My paintings are about different situations in the public realm
that very easily can turn violent - such as a political demonstration
or a football game. In the installation I've spread around a lot
of private pictures taken at a football game, where there's actually
quite a good mood, and mixed them with a situation that expresses
violence - broken bottles and a discarded football scarf. I wanted
to make a comment on the situation that can escalate from one minute
to the next. All of a sudden you're in the middle of riots, and
then maybe a policeman gives you a shove… and then you can
get yourself caught in the incendiary mood.
Installationview
Ulrik Crone: without titel, photo, 2003
Apart from the street and football paintings there are some paintings
with a female model - how are they connected to your "collective"
violence paintings?
On a more general level it's about me wanting a softer, feminine
and erotic element at the exhibition. And then it was obvious to
make some pictures of a beautiful girl but with some underlying
shades of crime: prostitution. These pictures are staged, as I wasn't
interested in going out into the streets and taking pictures. I
wanted to make pictures in which you at first glance would find
the girl attractive, but then at a closer examination would see
that she's probably a prostitute; the way she's dressed and the
condoms at her side. In this way it's possible to play with the
duality in the spontaneous attraction to her person that quickly
turns into repulsion because of all the societal norms one carries
around.
Ulrik Crone: without titel, computerprint,
oil, akryl and laquer on canvas, 2002
Ulrik Crone: without titel, computerprint
and watercolor, 2003
You've incorporated many elements from the everyday and popular
culture in your paintings. It's possible to trace a line back to
the pop artists - and I'm thinking particularly of Rauschenberg.
But you also quote from Warhol’s serigraphs of car crashes
in the exhibition.
Well I've always liked Warhol, Lichtenstein and Rauschenberg.
But it's probably also because I developed artistically in the ‘80s
punk scene where there wasn't anything you couldn't do. Everything
was allowed.
You've also spread out to other genres, for instance drawing
the serial cartoon Victor & Bagel for Jyllands Posten Copenhagen
(Denmark’s second largest newspaper - ed.)
Well, exactly. By working with the cartoon I've been able to have
an outlet for other things, such as the quick story. In my painting
I've been able to concentrate on something else; I've not felt the
need to make my paintings "popular", meaning that I want
everybody to understand my message. In the ‘90s for sure it
was more important for me to get my messages out through my paintings
than it is today, where I concentrate more on examining certain
issues.
Ulrik Crone: without titel, computerprint,
oil, akryl and laquer on canvas, 2002
Ulrik Crone: without titel, computerprint, oil, akryl
and laquer on canvas, 2002
This is your third exhibition in Paris. How is exhibiting abroad
different from back home in Copenhagen?
Generally I experience that people take your art far more seriously
than at home. In Paris it's as if people automatically assume that
you have a message in your art, since you're spending your time
and most of your life on it. At home in Denmark it's bloody embarrassing
having to witness how the top brass of society are actually proud
of their ignorance of art. That would never happen anywhere else…
In the United States artists are taken seriously as benchmarks for
how different levels of society express themselves. In Denmark art
just has to make people feel good. Then on the other hand perhaps
there's not enough humour in the international art scene…
But then it's also a political priority. In Paris the cultural budget
has just been doubled. It feels very odd that they think so much
in terms of the economy and the quick fix in Denmark, when they
ought to think more of the long term and realise that art is a part
of a larger scheme. Especially if they'd like Copenhagen to become
an international metropolis.
Another thing you see in Denmark is a general tendency amongst young
artists to focus on getting into the Danish Art Academy. When you
ask them what their ambition with their art is, the answer's always
"To get into the Academy". Then when they get into the
academy, their ambitions turn to getting accepted at all the right
galleries - many people simply forget what their original artistic
ambition actually was. It gets boring real fast if your only drive
is to impress your friends…It all revolves around keeping the
pot boiling - then your in a group show here, where the art work
in itself perhaps isn't good enough or important enough to merit
showing. Your career becomes the art work more than
the actual painting that the audience is left with.
But when are we supposed to take art really seriously?
Personally I feel that the ambition of the artist first and
foremost must be to make good art, and that they do this by dealing
with issues they feel are important.
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