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[December 25th 2002]
Interview
Kaspar Bonnén
at Kunstforeningen
- maybe you can write poetry with them
Interview with Kaspar Bonnén
Kaspar Bonnén
(born 1966) will be exhibiting at Kunstforeningen in Copenhagen
until January 3rd. The artist finished his education at The Danish
Academy of Fine Art in 1999 and has since worked on projects with
fellow Danish artists such as John Kørner, Fos and Tal R.
Kaspar Bonnén is represented by Gallery
Mikael Andersen. Apart from his work as a visual artist Kaspar
has had his poetry published by Borgen. Text and photo: Laura
Stamer
November 16th 2002 - Januar 3rd 2003
Kunstforeningen
Gammel Strand 48
1202 Copenhagen K
Phone +45 33 36 02 60
Fax +45 33 36 02 66
kf@kunstforeningen.dk
www.kunstforeningen.dk
Intallation views
Can you tell me about the context for this exhibition?
I've been very interested in how things can be present in different
kinds of spaces at the same time. You can have something in one
room, while at the same time this thing is part of somewhere else.
We are always present in a specific physical space, but within this
concrete space there are all kinds of other spaces. Some are mental
spaces, some are social spaces or political spaces, and as we speak
- we refer to things.
In my paintings I have worked with several layers of different space.
You can't really see where the spaces are in relation to each other,
and you can get lost in them. I would like to think of these paintings
as a way of describing contemporary space in relation to the complex
space or universe we live in today.
(left) Kaspar Bonnén: without title
2002, oil on canvas, 115 x 115 cm
(right) Kaspar Bonnén: without title 2002, oil on
canvas, 200 x 300 cm
(left) Kaspar Bonnén: without title
2002, oil on canvas, 200 x 165 cm.
(right) Kaspar Bonnén: without title 2002, oil on
canvas, 115 x 115 cm.
Some of the images I try to make more simple or clear to the thought,
like in the images where only two spaces merge. First I paint one
space and in this there is another. Other images become more expressive
or organic universes, where maybe even I don't know what is what
in the end either.
In my photographs the two different layers collide quite forcefully.
In the paintings the way of passing from the specific to the abstract
is perhaps more floating or free.
I've used things and photographs from my own home that you can recognise
and identify in both the paintings and the photographs. You float
around from something you can recognise to something you can't recognise.
(left) Installation view
(right) Kaspar Bonnén: August room (Augusts værelse),
2002, colour print, 65 x 85 cm
(left) Kaspar Bonnén: Table in Peder
Skramsgade (Bord i Peder Skramsgade), 2002, colour print, 64
x 97 cm.
(right) Kaspar Bonnén: Kitchen (Køkken),
2002, colour print, 62x85 cm
(left) Kaspar Bonnén: Open kitchen
(Åbent køkken), 2002, colour print, 62 x 85 cm.
(right) Kaspar Bonnén: Window (Vindue), 2002,
colour print, 65 x 90 cm
Can you tell me about how you work?
Mostly I've done a drawing first, and where the drawing is I've
put a photograph in instead. First and foremost I think about that
there has to be a lot of black in the drawing so you can see the
photograph behind it. Then that I draw with something else, with
a photograph that I can't see.
I like that sometimes you only see the drawing and the photograph
disappears or visa versa - that you can change optics, the way you
see. A little bit like those psychological tests where you either
see the old lady or the young girl.
Often, when I draw, I can't see it all at once. There are masses
of little details, different figurations and different patterns,
which weave together. To me it is such a innumerable multitude of
images that a space gathers together.
Kaspar Bonnén:
details of installation, Floor: the local City (Gulv: den lokale
storby), 2002, mixed media, 49x240x118 cm. Not in catalogue
How does this connect to the "floor installation"?…
The installation with the floor is a specific way of showing this.
Under the same floor there is a compilation of little houses and
rooms that are present simultaneously. It may be that we are on
the same floor, but underneath there are other things that lie there
and smoulder. I've called the installation the local city as an
anti-statement. There is something we call the global village, which
is an expression of the fact that the world is becoming smaller.
At all times we can get in contact with different parts of the world,
but at the same time there is a local space that holds us tight
where we are. I believe that it's the things that are near to us,
the things that are close, which we have to take our bearings from,
and that this in return opens up other more global or political
spaces.
Stills from video. Kaspar Bonnén and
Mikala Krogh: Fixtures of memory (Indretninger i hukommelsen)
How does the video relate to this theme?
The video Fixtures of memory (Indretninger i hukommelsen),
which I have made together with Mikala Krogh, is an investigation
into the memories of actual spaces. Our main point was to make space
itself the main figure. People could go through the space, but the
most important thing was what happened to the space itself and not
what happened to the people in the rooms.
Even though it's human beings that give spaces meaning you are able
to sense that when you go into old rooms they have a life of their
own. They have been used and worn in a certain way, they have their
own forms of being and recollection. I've tried to describe various
views of space and not only specific rooms but abstract non-space
or constructed space as well, which you can't exactly work out.
Even the very specific rooms seem memory-like because you don't
know whether they are actually present.
We create religious and political spaces, and offices, homes and
bathrooms, and we use them for a number of purposes. But afterwards
they live their own life. If you remove the subjective layers something
else stands out, something in between the specific space and a mental
place. Scenes you can enter.
Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that some spaces
we are able to look at for a long time but we are so used to our
own surroundings that we rarely see them in this way, which is why
the scenes in the video are manifest and at the same time seem unreal.
There is a different calm in the video, the soundtrack gives it
a meditative feel. You can tread into a space of memory. With the
paintings you have to find your own way around.
Installation views
You also work with the element of space in your furniture...
It was important for me to have furniture as part of the exhibition.
Paintings can become very much a question of colours and composition
and aesthetics, but when I put in the more physical things then
these are seen in relation to the paintings and the furniture in
a way pulls the paintings out into the room.
Objects are narrative in another way, maybe you can write poetry
with them. They start up a more dreamy or playful place. You can
enter into this on a completely spontaneous or immediate level,
and as another way into the paintings…
Translated by Sophie Pucill
More...
at kopenhagen
Interview (DANISH) with Kaspar
Bonnen, September 2000
Images from Kaspar
Bonnéns exhibition at Gallery Michael Andersen, autumn
2000
at Artnode
Kaspar
Bonnén: Sovende politik (DANISH) at Artnode
Ildfisken
Kaspar Bonnén's
prose (DANISH)
Kaspar Bonnén at kopenhagenshop
Kaspar
Bonnén: X-files
Kaspar
Bonnén: X-files2
Kaspar
Bonnén: Posters
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