The aesthetics of old-time functionality.

Sometimes the artwork I craft out of an old object is inspired completely by its looks and aesthetics, without really taking into account story and background of owner or object. It all depends on how strong and immediate associations an object gives me, but I guess that especially when I work fast and intuitively, as in the art repair shop, it is hard for me to separate how much of the inspiration comes from seeing an object and how much comes from talking to its owner. In this case I just saw the possibility of another shape and function inside the object presented to me.

There is enough running around in life as it is.

The great fun in immersing yourself in a project like the art repair shop, where you just have to make art out of what you are dealt, is to surprise yourself with ideas that you could never have imagined you would have. If I would try to describe the experience it’s a bit like if the idea was already in the object, and you just pick it open and out it pops. Sometimes these ideas are really silly, and I need to give them further thought before starting work, but sometimes they come out just right and all I have to do is make the artwork. I have the feeling, that the more skills you have acquired in making, and the less you inhibit your immediate mental impulses, the more ready and finished the idea appears. Sometimes, like in the case of the hamster couch, the idea appears to me exactly like it will be, with a clear idea of how and with what materials to make it, title and interpretation.

The only thing missing in the cage is a telly.

Both the strength and the weakness of these collage-like artworks is their reliance on shared cultural signifiers, allowing a crazy associative mind-jump of the artist to be picked up by the audience. That’s why comedy can be so culturally specific and also time bound. The most interesting aspect for me is not necessarily in imagining what a crazy idea an artist had when he made a specific artwork, but how the world implied by such a crazy idea would have to look like, and in extension, what this says about our own world, i.e. installing little wheels in rodent cages so that the rodent can still get the exercise he is stopped from getting by being locked up in a cage in the first place.

Object no. 42