Interview: Boris Mrkonjic

Installation view, Boris Mrkonjic, 2010

Walter Benjamin famously writes about The Angel of History. Due to the progressive storm blowing from the dawn of time, from the ache-utopian place of Paradise, this creature is somewhat disabled. Propelled backwards into the future, it is no longer in a condition to fly around at will. This is a somewhat more radical picture than Danish philosopher Soeren Kirkegaard’s claim that “Life can only be understood backwards, though it must be lived forwards.” Where do you stand, offering your perspective on the failed utopian futures?

To me, this idea of utopia involves a common search for God, eternity, fortune, and love. Of course, it’s very much present in architecture and literature, but above all it's a dream that is somewhat arbitrary. Every single person knows best, and must individually decide what it means to actually find this place. We are all different when it comes to experience, knowledge, and history. This is what shapes us, giving us a sense of ourselves. And, most importantly, this is also what dreams are made of, because what is knowledge anyway? History, education, what we see and hear everyday, might be part of some diversionary tactic. If nowadays PR-agencies, by assignment of companies or even governments, are making history, we must ask ourselves: “what's the name of that game, what is actually real?” In this we will fail, if we allow ourselves to get lost. Kierkegaard stressed the importance of the self, defining its relation to the world as being grounded in self-reflection and introspection.

Boris Mrkonjic: The egg that is called earth, 2007/08. 7:45 min. Digital-animation / DVD-loop Edition 5 + 3AP

In 1915, self-proclaimed inventor of photomontage John Heartfield sent evening clothes to the soldiers at the front hoping they would desert, and he gift-wrapped his packages with cartoon pictures, dog food and hernia belt advertisements. On what terms do you present him as your keynote speaker?

In The egg that is called earth, Heartfield acts like a member of some scientific group, which have tried to crack the code of history, hence an evocation of, for instance, Albert Einstein’s ‘Theory of Everything’. The work also alludes to J.W. Möbius. As one of the main characters in The Physicist, a comedy by Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt, he finds this formula, but is unable to let anybody in on the secret because this could mean the end of the world. In the video montage, Heartfield seemingly speaks for everyone when he addresses the unsuccessfulness of their common venture, explaining why it had to fail. But, as it turns out, his speech is actually more about his individual experience, and how he personally understands life. John Heartfield, the actual one, experienced a time of almost everything: madness, progress, and absolute horror. And so, working with his brother in the Malik publishing house, his propaganda campaign wilfully transgressed any known limits.

Boris Mrkonjic: House 14 (The Physicist / The Guardian), 2010. 150 cm x 44 cm x 37 cm Foam boards, wood, lacquer, fabric, copper

Newspaper turned yellow, black cloth, cobber, and graphite. These materials and the subsequent absence of colours, except for the somewhat futuristic yellow-green subtitles, all add to a general feeling of entering some kind of (neo)gothic tale. In addition, the utopian scale-model, slightly resembling Constant’s ‘architecture of desire’, seems a rather dystopian mask. Is this the look on Dr. Frankenstein’s face, once his patched up comrade started to get out of hand?

Personally, I'm not that much into colour, you know, it all ended at some very colourful paintings early in my studies. Instead I started to look for imagery in theory and literature, beginning with a lengthy research into the civil war of Yugoslavia. I was focusing in on some of the issues entailed in such grim affairs: tradition and the individual, economical aspects such as money laundering, and so on. From this I developed my interest in ‘utopia’, the history of ideas, and especially my preoccupation with the concept of history writing. I therefore started to work a lot with actual writing as part of my works. My utopian models, or sculptures if you like, are rather monochromatic as an attempt to direct the attention towards their actual shapes and forms. And this is also kind of the case with the rest of my works, the function-less architectural drawings for instance. So, really, I’m not opposed to colours in general, I just don’t seem to have much use for them.

As for what you are suggesting about some gothic tale, I would say that I’m not pointing specifically to gothic art of the 12th century. My output should perhaps be seen in terms of something a bit more paradoxical, like the ‘neo-historic’ perhaps. But the fact that I’m always looking for the failures most likely effect to this overall ‘neo-gothic’ atmosphere. On a more figurative level it has properly also got to with the exhibition’s thematization of the religious. The spiritual world’s application of, for instance, the phenomenon of angels has played an important role in our minds, since... well, almost forever. What is this idea about a winged person…a ghost, or what? Who, or what, is God? Basically it's about our search for something, anything, which can save us from hell. People even ask their governments to be redeemed. So utopia is all-important, dreams are important. But I'm only questioning the premises for this search. I'm looking for the cracks in its long history of different, and often opposing, ideas, which, to me, is just as important as the solution of the next, new ideal. But this also holds true, seen in reverse. The dystopian story of Frankenstein is just as much about the beauty of the ideal as such, as it is about the distinct and grotesque failure of one great idea.

Boris Mrkonjic: Our happy ignorance is our lethal activity / Portraits (Angels) N0 III, 2009. 83 cm x 63 cm Pencil, lacquer on paper

Along with the font and colour of the subtitles, the pokerfaced animation of John Heartfield brings me back to the early days of computers like Amstrad and Commodore. There are no colourful spirals appearing from his bottomless eyes, no Deleuzian vitalism to be found. He is blinking though, is he still alive? Your show somehow seems self-consciously ‘altmodisch’.

What do you mean by Deleuzian vitalism?

I guess, what strikes me is your general atmosphere of despair, sort of a hardcore melancholia, which I recognize from my reading of Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. Compared to this negative dialectics, the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze seems somewhat more positive and progressive, without being Hegelian of course, hence my use of the term ‘vitalism’.

The video is addressing the individual enlightenment of the protagonist. This, I believe, is totally within the spirit of what you call ‘Deleuzian vitalism’, since it is the creation of an impersonality, a singularity deriving from the dissolution of every personality. Only through a never-ending creative process, seen as an act of freedom, you can stay fit for this dissolution. This, of course, is also in some ways an impossibility, so there is this co-vibrating melancholy, spilling to the other works. I guess the video, and possibly the entire show, seems ‘altmodisch’, because I wanted to present the ‘inventor’ of photo montage in a 20s-like setting, very reduced, all black & white just like his own technique, and true to the spirit in his works. But it has also to do with the portraits of angels. Evidently you come to think about the Baroque, especially Rubens. Many elements from previous époques are present in these drawings, but in a deconstructed way, dissembled and put together once again in strange ways. There is something resembling a face in one of them, but otherwise they are totally abstract. I would much like to present some new perspectives. But, having said this, I realize that you have just caught me saying precisely what every artist always says when trying to explain his works.

Boris Mrkonjic: Untitled (Merkur-2), 2009. 43 cm x 33 cm Deleted newspaper (»Schwäbischer Merkur« from 1849)

You did explain very well how you try to move beyond dialectical thinking. I still think, though, that in terms of lingo your video at first seems like any other cultural critique in line with the general negativity of let’s say the Frankfurt school. That is but for one strangely misfit concept: ‘the rumour’. Supposedly, that is what guides the scientific aspirations of history scholars when faced with an unconceivable multiplicity of human tales. Could you please explain this in further detail?

Actually, this thing about the rumour, and its place in history comes from Giambattista Vico, the 17th century Italian philosopher. And actually it’s not the only “mistake”, there are several. Anyway, please allow me to quote a passage from the video, which is based on Vico’s book Scienza Nuova:

“As a result of the unlimited nature of his mind, where he loses himself in unknowingness, man makes himself the guideline of cosmos...It's another quality of this mind that human beings, if they can't imagine far and unknown things, assess them with well known and current things...Thus, on its long way from the outset of the world, the rumour becomes the inexhaustible spring of all those grand opinions that have been entertained ever since the most distant of unknown antiquities.”

One immediately comes to think about all the experts in the newspapers, and on TV giving the current financial crisis their best shot. And from Germany, I personally recall Balkan-experts by the thousands commenting on the war in Yugoslavia. It was all mumble jumble, quite hilarious actually. And even the critic Boris Groys, who I actually like, fell for it right after 9/11. In an article involving, among many things, a concept of ‘pre-freudianism’ and Roland Barthes’ The world of Signs he tried to explain ordinary people how to behave. Mankind seems to build up these scenarios, but in reality we hardly know anything about the world, about people. Philosophical fundamentalism cannot save us. I therefore much prefer a concept of self-experience, as suggested by Alejandro Jodorowsky. In his book The Spiritual Journey Of Alejandro Jodorowsky, he describes his will to live in the present, having left the past and not thinking too much about the future.

Boris Mrkonjic: Ejo, 2009. 43 cm x 33 cm Ink, pencil, on paper

What does the concept of ’history’ have to offer, today?

First of all, it has become evident that history writing depends on political interests. Subsequently, we tend to think of this as a recent phenomenon, but actually it has always been the case. I believe that the concept of ‘history’, as we know it, can continue as kind of a classical, instructive option, the biggest danger being that it transforms into some common idea concerning morality. Personally, I see history as a kind of writing – much on the same subjective level as literature in general – even though writers, and poets seem to supply me with what I miss the most; an actual feeling of what other times were like. For instance, I love Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy, which is from 1621. Even a four hundred year old book easily tells us something very true about our present feelings. But, really, there is no historical truth, only an interpretation of the sources from the present perspective. The problem with rumours is that they are based on our present assumptions, simply because we are unable to imagine what everything was once like. As for right now, we are confronted with an abundance of very recent history, an ever-growing amount of actual sources. We have got no idea how to handle this.

Thank you.