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the fall guy
Peter Land Interviewed
by Michelle Grabner
Ludicrous antics
and staid reflexivity bracket Peter Land's work. Through the repetition
of the familiar, he keeps us riveted by his abundance of clumsiness,
unspectacular special effects and staunch endurance. He ennobles
human vices and vulnerabilities by giving us a new model for self-esteem;
a model without failure or success. The following interview took
place the summer of 1998 after Peter's return to Copenhagen from
participating in the Nordic Biennial, Moss, The Sphere of Intimacy,
Cahor, Bicycle Thieves, Chicago and Manifesta, Luxembourg.
Michelle Grabner:
In 1996 you conducted an interview with yourself in which you asked,
"So you do not believe in the possibility of philosophies which
attempt omnipotent explanations. I assume that also includes religious
ideas." Your response: "It's not a question of not believing. It's
a question of my failure at doing so. I sometimes wish I could,
life would be so much easier." This, of course, explains our culture's
current obsession with methods of soft spirituality; a new interest
in Zen Buddhism, crystals, whole foods and Birkenstocks. Does making
art provide you with a type of surrogate spiritual fulfillment or
are your projects simply multiple attempts at re-phrasing the big
question: Who am I?
Peter Land: I don't
see my work with art as providing me with some sort of surrogate
spirituality, at least not in the sense I guess religion could if
I was religious. On the other hand, I recognize that a lot of themes
that I deal with in my work clearly relates to this sense of loss
that probably lies behind a lot of people seeking refuge in alternative
religions and the likes. My own concern is to try to formulate visually
my sensation of not having a stable over-all ideology or religion
as the basis of my existence; this feeling of free floating around
without the ideological floor, ceiling, or walls to stand on or
hold on to. Of course this, too, relates to the question of identity
because external ideological/religious factors have at all times
been helpful for people in establishing an understanding of themselves,
or at least they can conveniently use it to label themselves in
front of their surroundings. But I think that the question, "Who
am I?" in my work, in a sense, is a byproduct of the question, "Why
am I?"
MG: How do the two
videos you exhibited at Rhona Hoffman Gallery this past summer figure
into this discussion? "The Staircase," a video of a man ceaselessly
falling down stairs or "The Universe," a video of continuos movement
through stellar space. Do you find these pieces to be either grossly
optimistic or pessimistic views of life?
PL: In "The Staircase"
I tried to visualize the sense of infinity that I relate to the
absence of this ideological floor, ceiling or walls. The feeling
that when you start questioning the very basics of existence, you
are in effect pulling the carpet from underneath your own feet,
and as it's a point of no return, it's very hard to get back on
your feet. You have, in a sense, condemned yourself to keep falling,
just hoping that at some point some kind of stable meaning behind
your existence will appear, allowing you to land on your feet again.
That's the idea behind the man (me) falling down the stairs. With
the other video (of the universe) I was hoping to recreate the same
feeling of falling infinitely in the minds of the spectator. About
the optimism or pessimism of this or any other of my works, I don't
know. I guess some would call it pessimistic, but I don't really
think of my work in these terms.
MG: Why do you use
humor as the vehicle for addressing life's must profound questions?
What do human foibles, ineptitude and infelicity have to do with
universal truths?
PL: I guess the involvement
of humor in my work is a question of my own personal disposition.
I've always found it hard to listen to people who insist on being
taken seriously by putting on a grave face and using big words.
It always makes me want to do something disruptive like fart or
make funny noises. And also we have a saying in Denmark which freely
translated into English would be: "He who recognizes fun as only
fun and seriousness as only seriousness has actually misunderstood
both" (in Danish it rhymes). I also think that a lot of people will
be far more open towards the messages I'm trying to get through
if I allow them a laugh along the way. It helps to lift the otherwise
sanctimonious atmosphere that sometimes surrounds art and art exhibitions.
MG: For the 1998
exhibition "The Sphere of Intimacy" in Cahor France, you wrote,
IÕve always been fascinated, and at the same time repulsed by people
who seem to have a clear sense of purpose in their lives. People
who can distinguish between what's important, and what's unimportant,
and refer to their surroundings in terms of their place in the "Big
Picture." Our goal oriented society is designed to securely locate
each one of us in the "Big Picture" and without "specialization"
and "normalcy" we are considered failures by ourselves and our community.
Are you using the little bit of residue privilege that society has
allotted artists to challenge the standard of social order?
PL: I don't see myself
as a political artist. I'm not out to challenge any social order.
What I was referring to in the text was again an existential observation.
If I'm trying to challenge anything in my work it would be habitual
thinking in terms of the norms and values that we use to define
our place and purpose in Life. But also, in the text, I was as much
trying to describe my own position. I think further down the text
I write that I envy these people too. I have to take an ambivalent
stance because if I was capable of their way of thinking, as you
quoted in the beginning, it would make life much more easy.
MG: I'm interested
in your conflation of popular entertainment devices and classical
music. Are you at all concerned with critique; redirecting authoritative
structures to unexpected sites?
PL: When I use music
in my videos it's most often because the music is necessary for
the story I want to tell. Like in one of my early videos "Peter
Land the 5'th of May 1994," which is a video showing me dancing
naked around my flat, I needed music in order for the dancing to
make sense. The music was chosen at random. I just went to a local
gas station and picked up a tape called "Hits 93" and put it in
my cassette player. In one video, "Step Ladder Blues," the music
actually means something more. I'm using Wagner's opera "Tannhauser."
And except for providing the video with dramatic effect, I also
felt that the story line of the opera in an ironic way corresponded
with the theme I was exploring in the video. The opera is about
this knight on the quest for the divine. At the end of the opera
he finds it, but at the cost of his life. In the video you see a
house painter trying to climb a stepladder in order to paint a ceiling
but who is constantly falling down. In dying, the knight is still
luckier than the house painter who's condemned to keep trying and
falling.
MG: The reoccurring
image of your own, unidealized body in your videos, performances
and photographs seems to mock artist's obsession with identity.
Is it your intention to underscore the ridiculousness of this politically
sanctioned trend?
PL: The main reason
I use myself as a figure in my work has to do with the idea of narration.
I would feel uncomfortable using someone else because I see my work
very much as my statements, and using someone else would feel like
putting words into someone else's mouth. I think it would blur the
meaning of the work. The idea of identity doesn't really interest
me much. I far more regard my own appearance in the videos the way
I guess a comedian or actor would; as someone who takes on a certain
part in order to stage a certain situation. I find a lot of this
art about identity that is being made right now rather boring: like
artist videofilming themselves making faces or going to the toilet
Ñ thinking that in itself is interesting. On the other hand, I've
never thought of my own work as a mockery of that kind of art.
MG: When you were
in Chicago, my ten year old son saw you wearing a white long-sleeved
button down collar shirt with swim trunks carrying your text-covered
suitcase at Ridgeland pool. Unaware the suitcase is a prop in an
on-going performance, he told me he felt sorry for you. The rest
of us knew it was art and went on with our pool party. But after
I reflected back on the event, I realized there was something equally
pathetic about creating the illusion of an unseemly freak and actually
being one. Are you working to collapse the routines of art with
life?
PL: The idea behind
this particular work is very much about being a tourist in the USA.
I guess it's especially interesting when you go from Europe to the
United States because as a European you've often heard, read and
seen enormous amounts about the United States through television,
movies, etc. It almost becomes this mythological place, and it can
be difficult to separate the image that has been built in your mind
from the actual reality you experience when you go there. For instance,
the first time I went to New York I had this strange sensation of
having been there before. I realized it was because of all the television
series and cinema movies using New York as a setting that I'd seen
in my childhood. Also, the news we get from the USA is rather selective.
In Denmark there was a period where a lot of media time was spent
reporting about America's crime rate which gave the Danes the impression
that going to the States was the same as asking to be mugged or
killed. I guess by parading these suitcases I'm trying to confront
some of these preconceptions.
MG: After great success
at Manifesta with your infinite universe video installation, what
are you working on now? PL: Right now IÕm working on a series of
seven drawings for a show in Oslo, Norway. The series is called
"Barsongs" and is based on a series of prints that I made earlier
this year. All of the drawings in the series relates to being drunk
in bars, something that I'm quite experiences at. After that I have
to get started on a video, but I'm not clear as to what will be
in it yet.
First published in
CakeWalk Winter 1999.
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