[March 24th. 2003]
Interview

Elmer

Interview with Elmer
Born in Copenhagen 1952. Education: 1973-78 Royal Danish Academy of Art, 3 years at the School of Architecture and 2 years of Art Pedagogy Education with Helge Bertram. Past projects: Posters 1977-ca.79, “Post-Painting” 1980-85. Currently teaching first year students at the Royal Danish Academy of Art (since 1993). Currently exhibiting “Elmer’s End” at Christoffersen Art. Interview and photo: Nina Johanne Ærtebjerg. Translated by David Duchin.

Elmer’s End
Elmer
21 February – 22 March 2003
Christoffersen Art
Skindergade 5. 1159 Copenhagen K
Thu 13-17, Fri 12-24, Sat 12-15
Tel. +45 33 91 76 10
Fax +45 33 91 76 11
www.christoffersenart.dk
tom@christoffersenart.dk

Elmers End

Why do you call your work “painted pictures”?
Firstly, because I can’t allow myself to write that I’m a painter or make paintings, because I’m just not good enough for that. So I have to bring something else into it, and that could be calling it “painted pictures” instead of paintings. That way I haven’t said too much. That’s just the way it is. All my life, I’ve dreamt of painting “the painting”, but I just can’t. I’m not good enough.

Have you tried?
When I was very young. So the best way to put it is that I play at something – painting, without actually doing it. Actually, that’s what I’ve always done. That was the thing about ‘post-painting’, it was just painting anything, it was a demonstration or an anti-thing, a protest against everyone who painted properly, while at the same time, it was a statement about all pictures being valueless and all that stuff. I’ve always tried to keep a distance from the actual process of painting. There has to be so much thought behind even picking up a brush. And that’s incredibly important to me. I just can’t do it. Get the paint and the brushes and presto. I can’t and I won’t. The best painters are idea based, you know, everything is idea based… I have to create so much distance to even come close to doing things.

The other approach that I’ve always dreamt about trying is the direct relationship between me and the canvass. Something happens, you look at it, and then new things happen, and then you go with it. No, I could never do that.


Elmer

Who inspires you as an artist?
The challenge for me has always been to be in opposition to as much as possible. I’m pretty sure about that. Actually, it’s my inspiration. I am Negative Nancy. Beyond that, I’d say that in the old days, everyone always said that my work was very informed by the American scene, you know, lots of Andy Warhol and stuff like that. But that’s not at all where my interests lie. And I don’t care at all if my work looks like something else. But this exhibition is all about one thing, and that is that the most beautiful thing in the whole world is women and their hair. And that’s it. And if I have to name an artist that inspires me, then I should probably say Hammershøi, or maybe Hammershøi combined with Albert Gottschalk, the rainy day painter. That stuff gets me going. I guess I’m just incredibly Nordic. Even though you can’t be that.

I could put it diferently. If these pictures were painted over… actually they are – they’re painted over a grey base. I used silver to create a distance to the image, and to be able to make these motives or paintings at all. If I were to paint them on the grey base, they’d actually be a lot nicer… I could picture them there, but then they seemed to close to something - maybe Hammershøi, maybe something else. Or Manet, of course. I mean, Manet is number 1, and of course Velasquez and Vermeer, that’s all of them I think. In fact, if I could make something as good as they did, then I’d be satisfied. But – I can’t really. I put the silver in because it gives the work this wonderful distance, which also destroys the image a little. The colour works in a different way, and messes it up… because it’s done kind of clumsily, it would be a lot prettier without it.



Elmer: Painted pictures

Does it destroy the intimacy, or what?
Yes, if it was just the grey background, then it would be too perfect, and something would have to be done to make it more kinky or kitschy or some other stupid thing. Pictures are all about form, only form, and form is the only thing you can do now. If you go back 20 years to postmodernism, then nothing mattered, everything was of equal value, like everybody says, and that’s how it is now. You switch through all the channels and everything is fuzzy, and that’s where I think, as an artist anyway, that we are the only ones left who know how to cut to the chase, to go deep. So you have to find something completely obvious.

Why?
Because everything else is so obscure. Everything that happens is vague. No one can figure out how to live their life. Everything on television is about people who want to be pop stars or whatever, or who can’t figure out how to be in a relationship with somebody or whatever. The whole world is like that. And this is where I think we can really do something, something completely elementary and obvious and beautiful.



Elmer: Painted pictures

So it’s also about beauty?
Of course. When I talk about form, for example in drawings – drawing is always form – unless you’re just making scratches. In these pictures, the colour is in the line. In a way, it’s the only thing that’s in motion in the whole project. It makes a big difference if the colour is in the line, if you’re painting, the way the skin changes from one shade to another, light and darkness, etc. You can see where it all begins in the sketches, the tiny pictures, that’s where you can see that they’re photographs that I took and painted over.
Paintings that tell stories, that’s the ticket right now. The people you can call 2003 painters, they work with a form that’s completely kitsch. You don’t paint layer upon layer so that you can see the layer underneath.
And my pictures… the form is between two planes, the form is where the hair falls, when it falls, but the form is also outside the picture. Because there are light points and dark points, but it’s all in the line. And everything is fake, but real anyway. It’s very simple. Actually, anyone could have made these pictures if they wanted to.

What is the significance of women to your painting?
Very small, really.

Are they just another reason to paint?
That’s what they are. Now, everyone thinks that I’ll only paint women, but it isn’t true. I have at least 7 other subjects. The show is about hair; it’s actually a hairdressing salon. And they’re abstract things. I have just as many pictures back home that I could have just as easily shown here. I has taken me 5-7 years to get to this – this way of working. It’s a way of looking at life, a painterly way to work. Now I can do anything, I could actually make the whole world this way, I think. Post-painting was the same kind of beautiful idea, but it ran out of steam.


Elmer: Painted pictures

Was post-painting typical of its time?
No, post-painting would work just as well today. But there was more performance, more circus in it. This is much more finished and sharp.

So what kind of paintings will you be making in 10 years?
I don’t know anything about that. Am I alive in 10 years, that’s the question. There’s no doubt that the next 3 years will be all about this idea, after all I’ve just started with it. And other things will come into it, and it will change. It’s all about realities, and beyond that, it’s about art theory, or how people make pictures these days. I don’t care at all about that. If I see a puddle after it rains, and the way it is, that’s what it’s all about. Or dandelions in the spring. I’ve always dreamt of painting that field that Søren Ulrik Thomsen (Danish poet, ed.) talks about, the yellow blend or whatever it was he called it. If only I could make that picture, I’ve tried so many times, and I still just can’t paint.

Is it an immediate experience of the world that these pictures are rooted in?
Yes, it’s the things you walk around and see, and the things you love, and yes, all the things that every one else has done as well. And then there are those other people that are so consumed with the question of what art is and things like that. It’s stupid.

Are you mostly interested in painting?
No, anything, as long as it works. But guys like Günther Förg, who’s wickedly fresh, he’s done things that are really good, and it’s because he just doesn’t care. That way of not caring is something I also want. But pictures of the life we live just have to be made. Just like getting a Coke out of a machine. That’s just how it is, and you know it. End of story. Moods, senses, Kirkeby, they all make me nauseous.

What about Søren Ulrik Thomsen. Can inspiration also be found in poetry?
No, that’s not what it’s about at all. It’s about being visual. I mean, there are just so few people that can actually see out of their eyes. I think I must be one of the very few that have this gift, and it’s my responsibility to do something with it. And I’ve reached the point where I’ve seen enough. I know everything, I know nothing, but I know everything anyway. I’ve also seen enough art. I know exactly what it’s all about. Now I’m old, and I will only do the things that are absolutely necessary and that I am the only one who can do.



Drawings

Is there anything you’d like to finish off with, would you like to say something about teaching?
Yes. The space that people have, for example at the Academy where I’ve been for almost 10 years, and where I’m now finished. That’s a fantastic space, where people develop things… I think that it’s a really good thing in some way. It’s more of a discussion, where I decide everything that happens… But the painter floor… we talk a lot, and we do the same things, and everyone’s excited. That exchange, when people talk, and I get all that young stuff in my head, and I have all my old shit that I throw back.

Does that mean that the optimal form of teaching is exchange?
Yes. Of course. For example, I would never be able to do these things if I hadn’t been there for 10 years. Never. If I’d been sitting in my studio, all alone, then something completely different would have come out of it. Exchange, all the youthful, fantastic, anarchistic angles there, what I’m supposed to think about all kinds of things with my so-called knowledge, that’s what makes me create. And you’re always on the beat, it’s here and now, we’re the ones running the show, and that’s cool. You can’t do that if you’re sitting up in your attic, that’s where you die. You couldn’t do without it, and that’s why the work looks the way it does.
And it’s not just because of my female models. I’ve learned all about art history by talking about it. I never knew that stuff before. I have taught myself everything over the past 10 years that I didn’t learn back when I was going to the Academy myself.