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[2. december 2003]
Interview
Tim Ayres i Paintbox
Interview med Tim Ayres
For nylig bragte Kopenhagen et interview
med kunstnerne bag projektet Paintbox extensions i Vognmagergade.
Kopenhagen har lagt vejen forbi Vognmagergade igen, nu for at tale
med den udstillingsaktuelle kunstner Tim Ayres. Tim Ayres er født
i Hastings, England, men bor og arbejder i Amsterdam. Interview
og foto: Marianne Ilkjær.
Tim Ayres
21. november - 20. december
PAINTBOX extensions
Vognmagergade 2 st. tv.
Åbent on. - fre. kl. 12-17, lørdag kl. 12-15
Alle udstillinger i udstillingsrækken kan ses på www.paintbox.dk
Tim Ayres: Installationview
Paintbox extensions is an exhibition project, which focus on
the contemporary conceptual painting. How will you describe the
idea conceptual, in relation to your own work?
Well, that's a good one, because I'm not sure if it's possible.
I sometime say that I'm an conceptual painter, because that's such
an easy bracket. Conceptual is probably something which is added
to someone, who works with a distance towards painting. When you
start painting with an idea about something, an idea which is not
based on what you actually see, an intellectual or philosophical
idea for instance, then the idea of concept comes on top. Actually
I think it's sort of nonsense, because concept can be fanned the
most rigorous realist paintings. I think concept is just an expensive
word for understanding. So in some ways, I don't consider myself
a conceptual painter, because I also paint what I actually see.
But most of all, I like to think of my paintings as sort of snapshots
of possible understanding.
What then is the viewer supposed to understand from your paintings?
I have no idea. This is something that I can't control at all. I
mean, I have an idea about what I would like to paint, whether it's
a word, a person or an abstraction. But I'm not really communicating
anything to the viewer, the viewer has to be communicated to by
the painting. It's not that I give away responsibility, or remove
responsibility out of hand, I try to make a painting that hopefully
will move people. But what people understand, or any sense of meaning,
I have no idea. I'm fascinated by that, but of course I hope that
people get something from the paintings. The other way of looking
at that would be, that I can never be around all my paintings at
the same time, so I won't be able to take responsibility of explaining
them, or making them coherent to people. I always see my paintings
as possibilities, it's very much about possible effect or affect
- being moved by them.
 
Tim Ayres: something of this and that (turns
out), 2003. 150 x 260 cm. 8200 €
Tim Ayres: small boy looking out, 2003. 260 x 150 cm. 8200
€
The artists behind the Paintbox extensions project would like
to create an art room, where the possibility of dialogue between
the work and the viewer occur...
That's difficult for me to talk about, because it's impossible to
put yourself in the mind of the person that walks in and sees the
work. Let's look at what we have here, the blue painting for example.
I had a certain idea why I should make that painting, but I have
no preconceptions of what the viewer should feel. That viewer should
come in a sense of clean to the painting, and respond to it on his
or her level, and either walk away from it, thinking it was interesting
and nice to look at, or walk away thinking they couldn’t care
less. Of course I hope that people will sense something and be able
to pick up the smallest element of the atmosphere of the painting.
That the painting, or the sentences in them, will sort of grow in
their minds, and then probably end op with something completely
different than my self. If I'm trying to achieve anything, then
it's that, but it's completely out of my hand.
The meaning of the work is handed over to the viewer?
Yes, they are free to think what they like, and this is not to be
understood as disinterest, because I put the paintings on the wall,
with a certain hope, that they will affect people. But from that
very small point onwards, the viewer has to be free, so do the paintings,
and in fact, I have to be free too, and be able to get out of there,
not worrying too much about them anymore. It's a funny thing, that
when the paintings are on the wall, you loose all responsibility
for them, then they are gone and they become, in a sense, a property
of someone else. There's a lot of responsibility here, concerning
the viewer, and I'm really against the idea that artists present
everything that is possible to enjoy the work.
 
Tim Ayres: apostrophe (after L'c), 2003. 150
x 260 cm. 8200 €
Tim Ayres: crepuscular, 2003. 150 x 260 cm 8200 €
Your paintings are often filled with words or sentences...
The paintings where text occur are actually just paintings of a
text. The text are for sure about poetry, a poetic feeling in a
sense, and I'm interested in how words are abstract forms and images
at the same time. If you look at letters, they are all just abstract
forms, but they are arranged in such a way, that you can actually
read them and create images in the mind. If we look at the orange
painting with text in it for example, it' s actually about garbled
language, language being confused with too much language. It's sort
of a painting of thinking too quickly - how one set of thoughts
falls into the next set of thoughts. You can't actually make sense
of the last set of thoughts, and then you arrive somewhere, but
you have to go back through the thoughts to unrabble them. This
work is almost about getting the tongue tied, about being confused
in you own sort of expression. In some sense it's also formal because
I'm playing with the idea, that when you mix words into each other
formally, they become all different forms. The mind wants to read
them so much, so you start breaking them up, but maybe it's nice
just to look at the forms as what they are, so it comes back to
a sort of formal perspectives.
I'm also curious about, when language is not readable anymore, and
what that actually means. You can call it a search for meaning,
about looking for something, and trying to find some sort of meaning,
whatever meaning is, which is very difficult. In that painting I
have to admit, that I wilfully wanted to make it difficult on people.
But then again I would hope, that the viewers would ask themselves,
why is he making it so difficult, what does that mean, to make it
so difficult? We live in a world where there's an overwhelming information
going on, and all that information just becomes such a fuss. I'm
interested in this overwhelming difficulty with information, and
how one can try and unrabble it, which is actually hard work.
A phrase like; 'William, sometimes we are just screwed', is a phrase
that has a first handed quick image, but an image that, as soon
as it presents itself, slows down. You become sort of confused about
the image, you have to think about the image of those words, those
abstract forms. Like... who is William, and why are we screwed?...So
it's about a speed of image, that slows down. It makes you wonder
what's it about, but of course, that's only how I would like them
to present themselves.
Another thing is that in language, when you read all these abstract
forms, a C, an R or whatever, it really is abstract forms, but the
whole process of starting at the top, left-hand side in our culture,
lets all these images come into place, and in the best cases create
a poetic feeling on top of it. We read visually, which is very odd,
but we look at figuration verbally. So when you read, 'William,
sometimes we are just screwed', you get an image of it... You have
to sort of absorb the language... but you read in a visual way.
I'm curious about how those things work out, about what happens
visually. So that's why words are so important to my work.
Tim Ayres: linger, 2003. 260 x 150 cm. 8200
€
Paintbox extensions is also about making an art room, which
differs from the traditional art gallery. Did this idea have any
impact on your exhibition?
I really think that it's a good aim, and therefore a very good project.
For me, maybe more selfishly, it's about that I get to put up works,
that I would maybe never get to show. For the time being, at least
in a commercial sense, galleries have to think about selling, and
therefore about the size, that the paintings don't get too big.
So for me, it has been a great opportunity to see these large scale
works, because generally I don't work that big. And I really like
the idea about the project space, asking artists to come and make
a show, and where it's really about the show, that the artist would
like to make. Generally in ones life, if you have a show in a gallery,
then the gallery gets involved, and of course they have every right
to say, '....well, we wouldn't like to show that painting, because
it probably won’t sell'. But here it's like a completely freedom,
giving the artist a really great space, both here figuratively as
a space, as well as mentally space, where I'm free to work. It's
very difficult to bring a show like this to a commercial space.
I wouldn't be surprised if a gallerist would say, that they are
too big, who is going to buy them. So for me it has personally been
a really great opportunity, because there's no limits here.
Paintings courtesy of the artist, Vous Etes Ici,
Amsterdam and Galerie Markus Richter, Berlin. All paintings are
gloss paints and satin gloss varnish on MDF panels.
Malene Landgreen er den næste kunstner i Panitbox
extensions udstillingsrække, og vil kunne opleves fra d. 9.
- 31. januar 2004. Kopenhagen vil i forbindelse med udstillingen
bringe et interview.
Mere Paintbox extensions:
20. november 2003: Interview med folkene
bag Paintbox extensions
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