Your work, even in your most formally seductive pieces, is always very much connected to a context and idea. What were the ones behind these wire nests? Wires and cables are often electrically insulated, like some kind of energy, and you can connect or tie a lot of functional things with wires. I see this messy but clearly structured form of clad wires and cables as a controlled chaos of connection: something like a “wire brain” or a “cable head”,' especially at a time when everything’s shifting towards becoming completely wireless. Wires are disappearing which is why I think they’re coming to my attention… I like to invent new things out of fragments of the past, if that's possible.
You sometimes "sample" your own work by reinterpreting a piece’s initial inspiration to give it a new shape (like the Happy Birthday to You book that you are revising in a second version). This induces that your subject is a rich, lively reality, which you as an artist can explore from different angles - which contradicts the common opinion that the artist creates definitive works resulting from a unique, almost sacred vision.You are right: I don’t have much to do with the idea that the artist's vision is unique and sacred. Everyone has ideas. Everyone can make art. Ideas and art are everywhere, it’s a matter of who picks up the ideas from the universe and is able to transform them into something epic. The public, institutions and critics define within time and space what is ultimately considered to be art.
Within my own art practice, I have no restrictions. There is plenty of room for negotiation in my work.
Nothing is fixed: what I do is all about dynamics. This is also how I live my life. It's like a perpetuum mobile which can assume different forms in a continuous flow.
What do you like about making books? Your six books all have very different forms: what are your thoughts when creating a book? Does it serve to document your work, to collect it, or is it a work in itself? My books are works in their own right. To me, a good art book requires two elements: it has to contain a strong piece of work, and its final physical form must reinforce the content of the book. The correct ‘melting’ process gives the book the right to become a work in itself. I consider the form of a book as an environment to show my work in, just like an art space can be, or a little iPhone screen, or the table on which I install my edible photocakes which transform, self-destruct and ultimately vanish with help from the public: people!
Your work is full of energy, very much rooted in “here and now”: your art develops at a very fast pace. French artist Robert Filliou famously said that “Art is what makes life more interesting than art”. Could you live without art? Never! I love Robert Filliou’s expression so much. It’s just so true!
I really love what I do: it's the only thing I can see myself doing in life, forever. I never really had any doubts about this, which is funny because to choose the path of becoming a young artist is probably the most unreliable thing you can do. Nothing is certain. To me, it didn’t really even feel like a choice, it happened naturally. From the moment I stepped into the art academy after high-school, I felt relieved and thought: “ah, this is it!” I literally took of my shoes and felt at home there… and was always working, working, working.
And I still am I guess. I am optimistic, some say full of energy, but when I cannot make my art because I couldn’t sleep for a few nights, it makes me sad and depressed, and I become a not-so-nice person.
For me, making my art is the only thing I can trust. It’s always with me: my ideas, thoughts, the process of making, and my dreams.... A super-big love!
Limited edition, numbered and signed.