Querweltein: Crossing in and around the World
A conversation with Jårg Geismar
The Swedish-German artist Jårg Geismar (*1958) not only constantly travels
in and around the world, for many years he has also emerged world-wide with
large exhibition projects. He works mostly "next to public”, meaning at a
distance from the "art world”, but much closer to the people. For Geismar, art is
essentially about communication. As early as 1985 he founded the project ATW
("Around the World”) in order to promote an exchange between people of
different nationalities. Otto Neumaier spoke with the artist about his approach and
some of his newest projects.
For your project "Living, Loving and Doing” in 1999 you initiated an
exchange between Gävle, a town in northern Sweden, and Lusaka, the capitol of
Zambia. Neither of these cities necessarily lies at the center of the art world.
What prompted you to choose these two cities for an art project?
The occasion was an invitation from the curator Niclas Östlind to execute a
project at the art center in Gävle. When I arrived there were almost three
meters of snow on the ground. You could hardly move. There was no milk for a
few days, the children couldn’t go to school and so on. On the train to Gävle I
thought about this situation and came up with the idea of bringing the snow
to an African city which seems just as meaningless to us Europeans as maybe
any given small town in Sweden. The snow was to go to Lusaka and the sun, the
warmth of the people there, was to go to Gävle. Then we carried out that plan
and it is now being continued because it stimulated a cultural exchange
between Sweden and Zambia. I’m not very interested in doing an exhibition here
and an exhibition there, but in an exchange between artists and other people as
well as in the project creating a life of its own. So I’m interested in the
exchange being further developed and not just Europeans flying to Africa in
the scope of cultural tourism. It really was about "Living, Loving and Doing”
about the lives of the people, the love and about really making it all.
According to this model, you see the artists above all as an initiator, as
someone who stimulates a process as well as an agent between people. But
doesn’t a project take on a life of its own because so many other people take part
in it – a dynamic that can not necessarily be fully controlled by the artist
or curator? Such a project can run into a dead-end but it could also turn
into something meaningful that neither the artist nor the curator thought of
before.
It’s true that we didn’t at first think that it would all continue, but that
is the case now. In the meantime Swedish artists were in Samba again and
Zambians in Sweden. Soon the next ones are going to go. This project developed
into one that goes on and on. Another such project is my contribution to the
centennial celebration of the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt, where in 1999 I
installed three Boule courses. They are now being used by the local Boule players
and even for the championship games.
The after-life of your projects is an interesting aspect of how they develop
lives of their own. Another is that you include many other people right from
the beginning, not just by "Living, Loving and Doing” but also in "Future in
Mind” (Bangkok 1999) or with the project "We Meet In : : :” (Yamaguchi
2000). The success of such a project mostly depends on how much people who are
normally not very interested in art are willing to accept it – how willing they
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are to do something they are not used to doing. Are people fascinated by the
projects or do they just remain indifferent?
It varies. Sometimes there is total rejection. That is completely normal. I
usually leave the communication very open. Recently in Japan, with "WE MEET
IN : : :” I also spoke with many people. First I met with them in order to get
acquainted and see if it works when I film or photograph them. This resulted
in 15 films on certain careers in Japanese society. Everyone filmed came to
the museum later on to watch their films - so they were very interested. This
is also true of the elderly Japanese, which is usually very difficult.
Japanese society is very clearly structured. There is much respect for age and
also for tradition. It is very fascinating when very old Japanese people who are
completely rooted in their tradition make advances toward something like
this.
In your projects you do manage to hold the strings in your hands in that you
create situations which bring people to communicate with each other. One
example is the "Fish Dinners” you have put on as a part of different exhibitions
for years. This includes Yamaguchi, where visitors could meet for "Table
Talk” or had to turn to the security personnel for information,which made the
visitors aware of your "arrangement”. So you make sure that those people – the
visitors and the security personnel – are practically forced to start up a
conversation.
When I work on a project I ask myself: Why? Why must something be visualized
or an exhibition take place? The reason is very important to me. And it
usually grows from my dialogue with people I include in the work. Art and
communication means daily learning for me. It’s about always going out again anew
and getting to know foreign cultures, meeting someone I’d never known before or
have known for a long time but with whom an exchange is constantly
developing further. In "WE MEET IN : : : " it’s about meeting people one has never
known before and who work in an environment one is not familiar with. One
approaches these people and says, ”I’d like to meet you”. In this sense meetings
have been arranged again and again, and I have met quite a few people in three
months. There are also different types of meetings: One can make a date on
the telephone, one can go to someone and meet him, and so on. The exhibition
mirrors some of these possibilities whether that be shown in the film or in
"Table Talk” where people meet and draw. I consider this open approach to
certain situations very important for our society, especially for our
multi-cultural co-existence.
Many people today see rather a problem in different cultures living
together. Even though for a time it looked like there would be better co-existence in
Europe and more exchange possible – not just being next to each other or
even against each other. Recently that has changed again, unfortunately.
It’s just not that easy to live together and deal with our difference. In
many of my works it’s about living next to each other and being different.
These works are on the one hand very "to the point”. On the other hand, I also
try to convey a certain smile in this. People usually laugh when they see
something like that. My installation "Low Budget” (1997) in the Kunsthalle Kiel
consisted of 30.000 coins that had laughing or crying faces painted on them.
When people came there and saw this giant mosaic they stood in front of it and
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were astounded by so many coins, and they asked themselves who painted them
all. And after a certain amount of time everyone had to laugh about it. It’s
basically always about this laughing and crying. One person is doing well; the
other is doing badly. We see it all the time.
The subject of this year’s Architecture Biennial in Venice, which you
participated in, was "Less Aesthetics, More Ethics.” I find morals and ethics very
important but isn’t there a false antithesis within this title?
I don’t want to say if this title is good or bad. I’d like to answer
differently and in reference to a continuing project I began in 1998 in Stockholm by
taking photographs and filming foreigners who live there. This project
revolves around the question of what a foreigner actually is. You come from
somewhere and then live in some city where you were not born. Does someone who was
born in this city and has lived there for 60 years have any more rights than
you do? Maybe you also want to live there forever, but you practice a
different religion, look different and might even be depressed at the beginning
because you are not comfortable with the situation. My view of such problems also
has to do with how I grew up between Germany and Sweden. I was born in
Gotland, spoke Swedish before I learned German although I always had a German
passport. While I then grew up in Germany I always had the feeling that something
was missing. In Germany I always had the feeling that everything was so
perfect and exact. And I always enjoyed when it was different. Everything that is
perfect does not allow, for instance, someone who is new to the situation to
keep up with what is going on because there is no way he can be that perfect
anyway. That’s why I’m am not so interested in perfection.
Does that mean you felt more like a foreigner in Germany than being in
Sweden with a German passport?
At first I never thought about what "foreign” and "domestic” meant. It’s
society that brings such words into play. The expression "foreigner” always has
something to do with being outside. One draws boundaries where we are inside
and the others are outside. We celebrate it every day. We developed things in
this direction and now have to come to terms with the result. But that is
not easy. Perhaps one possibility would be laughing more about it. I think it’s
good when someone can laugh about himself or herself. Perhaps there would be
fewer problems if we were to laugh more about ourselves. But when I meet
someone I don’t immediately think about this person being a foreigner, but I
find this new person alone interesting, and I can learn a lot from him.
I’d like to return to your contribution to this year’s Architecture
Biennial. The title was "Future by Feet”. The expression "future” appears in a few of
your works, and the executing organs hand and foot also play a certain role
such as in "Doing by Hands, Looking by Feet” your new work for the Werkstadt
Graz. The attitude of going "on foot into the future” or "discovering things
on foot” was expressed in your Biennial project in that you walked through
Venice.
That really was part of my project and during that time I have been sitting and drawing
at various places. I had approximately 150 photos from all over the world which I
had to work on with the computer so that only the outlines of the motifs
remained. I drew over these images there. I ate in squares filled with tourists
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like San Marco or Giardini as well as in residential areas. If someone came up
and wondered why a person would sit there and draw, then he, too, could sit
down and draw over one of the images if he wanted.
At first sight the project was somewhat paradox because you went through
Venice on foot, which is a process of slowing down, while, on the other hand, at
the beginning of the project in Venice you set up the website "geismar.net”
ad used the fastest information medium. Are you a balancing act between the
"discovery of slowness” and "stepping on the gas”?
This also has to do with fun. Whoever looks up the site first reads
"www.geismar.net”. The expression "net” stands for networking. I chose this domain
name, above all, because it stands for my own networking. I have never used my
name before. My other web sites are called "next to public” or "around the
world”. In this case it’s essentially about my point of view. Basically one
sees short films and photographs I’ve made on my trips around the world – photos
of people, cities, architecture, nature, animals, in the daytime, at night.
I send these images to the person looking at it. This person sees something
different every time. She may visit a site and is in Yamaguchi. She leaves the
site, goes back again and is in New York. Next time she is in Venice or
Stockholm again and so on. The places are not only different, but also the times.
One might be in Düsseldorf in 1984, then in Stockholm in 2000 or in London
of 1996 or Istanbul. What I show there does not necessarily have to be seen as
art. Someone who has nothing to do with art can just look at it and might
then see a film about New York for a few seconds.
What you just said is also true in a sense for your exhibitions in general.
Whoever visits one of your exhibitions sees works made in different years
that then become something like parts of a more complex meta-work. Whether in
1998 in Göteborg, 1999 in Bregenz or 2000 in Yamaguchi – we are confronted with
works from different years that not only enter into a conversation with each
other, but also create a unique feeling for time. What is really shown is
Jårg Geismar and what he is interested in, and it is shown that it’s not about
single works, but about the more complex context of an entire life.
When a film shows some city, then the place where the camera is pointed is
also "ME” in a sense. This is the same as when I draw a line on a piece of
paper. This common factor is also a reason why I have recently shown more
drawings. In my drawings I was more restrained because drawings are especially
beloved merchandise in the art market. I didn’t want to be absorbed by this
mechanism. Still, I did further develop my drawings, of course, and now I
sometimes show drawings. But it is still a tricky situation. I know that my drawings
can be destroyed by the odd mechanisms of the art market, which means I’d no
longer have any desire to draw.
Your drawings do have peculiarities. You like using carbon paper, which is
not exactly the usual medium for drawings. Or you may take computer-generated
images and draw over them. Another aspect is that certain approaches to
drawing are employed for many years. You have been working on the carbon series
for ten years or more. Any given sheet could be from 1990, 1995 or 2000. This
approach certainly is a differentiation from others who draw.
For me, it has a lot to do with breathing – and also naturally with fun. I
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am fascinated when the lines move. I’m also fascinated with the colour of the
carbon paper – using a red or a yellow paper, for instance. Every colour sets
something I’m looking for free from within me. This is also related to where I
am at that moment and whom I am with.
What you say and do gives one the impression that your work is always
concerned with human beings. Your art is essentially motivated by this and revolves
around it – how you involve people and so on.
In my eyes one cannot exist without the other. Every project lives from the
people involved in it. In my exhibition "To Whom It May Concern”, which I
realized in 1995 at Gabriele Rivet in Cologne, it was about this question: "Who
am I making this for?” When I make an exhibition somewhere each space does
belong to someone. In November 2000 I had my fourth exhibition in this Cologne
gallery and this exhibition also naturally had something to do with the
person directing the gallery. My museum exhibitions have just as much to do with
the people who organize and curate them. When Niclas Östlind asked me three
years ago if I wanted to come to Gävle and put on an exhibition although this
city lies at the end of the world I told him, "Of course. If you’re doing it,
I’ll come.” Then the first time I arrived at this small Swedish town I had
the idea for the exchange between Gävle and Zambia. I explained to Niclas that
I would like to do this and added, "but you must come with me”. This "you are
coming with me” in which the curator sees what I am doing and that I’m not
doing it for me alone came from this situation and from what I had seen over
the years. It was also like this in Japan. During "We Meet In : : :” I’m sure
I met, photographed and filmed over 100 people in those months. One condition
was also that Michitakass Kono, the curator, always accompanied me. I can not
work with someone if there is no dialogue with him. Otherwise anyone could
install my work. As nice as it is to exhibit your work it’s not about
exhibiting alone, but about the exchange that takes place between people.
Internet Addresses:
www.geismar.net
www.artnode.se/geismar/ (Interview with Daniel Birnbaum)
www.gavle.se/kostcentrum/arkiv/arkiv.htm ("Living, Loving and Doing”, Gävle
and Lusaka 1999)
www.handbyfeet.mur.at ("Doing by Hands, Looking for Feet”, Graz 2000)
Interview Otto Neumaier - Jårg Geismar: "frame" p. 94-99, Vienna, Austria No 5 January/February 2001
Translation from German: Rosanne Altstatt