(c) ORIGINAL INTERVIEW BY HARIS METAXA WITH RISK HAZEKAMP, March 2008
- Since we met and we had a talk at Paris Photo in 2002, what major changes have taken place in your work, or, to express it differently, how did your thematic research develop?
My research didn’t change so much, I am still interested in the same theme, which is gender.
I try to keep up-to-date with the debates that are going on a theoretical level.
I like what is happening in Spain and Germany.
(I am more aware of what is happening there then in other countries I will admit.)
What did change is my personal expression and involvement in the “gender-movement” (can we call it that?!). What changed is me getting a bit older, getting more secure of who I am, wanting to express more of my personal thoughts. I got a lot clearer in what is important to me (and what is not).
- Less “neat” and “acceptable” the later works, what I shall call the “gender fuck” series, starting around “dress code” in 2004 and dealing more with real life positions and attitude, were they more painful to elaborate, to make, to show or quite the contrary?
For me it was important to put stress on the content of the work. I had enough of the “round moves” many people made around the content of the work. My work has always dealt with gender issues.
At a certain point I was so sick and tired of the fact that people could always ignore my subject matter. I wanted to make very clear what the work was about, that I am dealing with gender and not with “the figure in the landscape” for example.
I needed to make work that was no longer multi-multi-multi-interpretable.
In my work I do not use the computer, it is all analogue photography, I (still) use negatives.
Before the “Liberté pour tous” series I even never put on any make-up when I took the photos,
but with that series I started using facial hair (still nothing digital, all analogue photography).
The styling I do myself: the beard is my own hair glued on my face. This is important for me.
I recently started experimenting with hair on other parts of the face and body.
Facial hair often causes many different emotional reactions, and I wanted to play with that.
With my recent work my style of taking pictures changed. I think everybody has its own handwriting, not only in letters, but also in images that you create. My images look quickly "glossy and stylish".
I tried to work more documentary style with my recent work: you have an idea and you make it.
No endless redoing of a certain photo session.
The new works are more difficult to sell, for sure…
But I think that viewers/potential buyers have to grow with the artists. The artist makes a work, spends many time thinking about it, working on it. Then “all of a sudden” the viewer is confronted with it. So sometimes the viewer needs some extra time to understand or see the work in its full meaning.
On a personal level: Making the more recent work was a big relieve, a positive confrontation with my “inner I” and at the same time an intellectual challenge. When “thinking” and “doing” come together both the brain and the body take bigger steps. (Not sure if I am clear, do you understand?)
Making the “Liberté pour tous” series also made it very clear that I had to leave Rotterdam, that staying in Rotterdam meant a mental death for me. I did not have an own safe place in Rotterdam: not in society, not in the art scene, I felt like a complete outsider. Which can be great! But I didn’t want to start every conversation about my work with explaining what a dragking is, what transgender is, what queer is… or why it is important to address these subject matters, to make work about it.
So I moved to Berlin! Here gender has a place in society. Here gender is of importance and that way you can get to the more interesting parts of talking about it. How do you address it instead of why…
- What are the reactions that your work provokes and how do you interact with them?
Very different ones! Positive, negative, I lost some people, gained some “fans”. I guess it is an obvious consequence of making (more) outspoken work.
I make the work because I want to, I need to, I have to. And afterwards I see the communication that evolves from it. That communication was staying at a certain level and therefore I could no longer find satisfaction in showing/presenting the work. I wanted to get my work in different scenes, reach different audiences. For me it was important to get recognition from people that understand the content of the work. That recognition is more important then selling the work. I hope I can keep saying that! I mean, the work gets sold, but not as easy anymore as the earlier work.
“How I interact with reactions?” The critiques I listen too and I get out of it what I think makes sense.
- Is money and market acceptance a question for you or the inner research justifies all eventual sacrifice?
I already put something down about that: yes, money is a question for me, I never know if anything will come in next month. So it is a question, but I try not to get stressed about it. Till now it worked out fine (knock on wood!) .
I am not a materialistic person, I don’t care about a big studio or a fancy car or clothes. As long as I can do what I want, as long as I can survive from my work I am more than happy.
- Talk to me about your move to Berlin. When/why and how do you feel living there as the time slowly goes by and transforms your life and work?
I decided to move to Berlin last summer, I still have a studio in Rotterdam where I got my storage and sometimes I work there, but mainly I live and work in Berlin now. Coming to Berlin (leaving Rotterdam) has been very rewarding for me. It opened up my eyes, my brain, my body…
I can breathe again!
So my basis is Berlin now, but I do move around a lot… I just been in Suriname for a month, will spend May/June in Barcelona and Spain, next year 3 months in New Mexico.
That’s the way it is and I like it a lot.
Berlin does influence me, but also the other places I go and live/work.
Right now I am still filled with Suriname. About the way they deal with gender there, how they define and talk about “I” in many different ways, very beautiful and powerful.
I will do a project there somewhere in the coming years.
Berlin is a fascinating place to be, it provides a lot of mental freedom for me. My work explores the fluency of gender-related concepts and in Berlin these gender-related concepts are tackled, played with and stretched in a way that goes far beyond any constructed, socially accepted boundary.
Berlin has for instance a long tradition in drag-appearances (as well "male to female" as "female to male"). This tradition and its historical context are still very present, visible, in the Berliner every day life. At this particular moment in time Berlin is the most interesting European city for me to be, to get inspired and to work.
In my most recent work I try to get a bit away from the clean framing of discussions about gender, that was so present in the arts in the late 1980’s, early 1990’s. I try to show more of the ambiguity and complexity, of the gender fluency that is so present in Berlin.
- Future plans?
Many… I want to continue working with gender related topics. I do miss nature in my work.
So it wouldn’t surprise me if I get some nature in there again somehow, somewhere.
But most important is to stay happy when working. I think you can see it when someone enjoyed making a piece of art. I try not to make to detailed plans for the future. I like it to be open and flexible. I will go to New Mexico from April till end of July 2009, that I know. After that??
I want to stay as “movable” as possible. I mostly work alone and I don’t need special equipment, therefore I can work everywhere I go. Only thing I need is my (very old) camera.
- Present project? Suriname experience?
Now I am in Berlin till end of April, dealing with some applications and with the Suriname experience! I still have to look at all the slides I took, no time till now… I had to give this lecture at the Rietveld Academy last week, which was amazing! So many students and very good questions.
End of April I will go to Barcelona and after that to Holland for an opening in the CoBrA museum. Frank Wagner, who also curated “The Eighth Square” in Museum Ludwig in Cologne, curates another big show about gender and he invited me to participate, among with 45 other artist that work with gender (we are not alone out there!). So that is great! The show will open in June.
In November I will do a solo show in the Basque Country. A young curator invited me to make a show in the Centro Cultural that he directs now. I will show my last 2 series and will make a new projection piece for it.
Apart from that there are some group-shows going on.
As a closure I will give you my favourite Judith Butler quote which tells a lot about how I regard my work I think…
“How is it that drag or, indeed, much more than drag, transgender itself enters into the political field?
It does this, I would suggest, by not only making us question what is real, and what has to be, but by showing us how contemporary notions of reality can be questioned, and new modes of reality instituted.”
END OF INTERVIEW
Touching, isn't it?
Past words, present emotion and an open path for everybody to follow in the way they wish to.
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