INTERVIEW NATALIA WEHLER AND LUANA JULIANO

INTERVIEW NATALIA WEHLER UND LUANA JULIANO

LJ:

For the past two years, people’s everyday realities have been shaped by the current Corona pandemic. Even though it is a global crisis, the impact on individuals can be quite different. As a freelance artist, how have you experienced current world events so far?

NW:

I have to say that I feel quite privileged in that regard. I have talked about this with many colleagues. We have the privilege of being able to work, even in lockdown. That is something that is inherent in art. I can do it whenever I want. Of course, it influences me in what I do and I will certainly work something different or work differently than I would without this, if you will, catastrophe. But compared to other people who have to deal with crowds for a living or have to constantly expose themselves to infection, who are in the hospital fighting for other people’s lives, I’ve really always felt that I’m relatively safe here. Even despite all the cutbacks that have been made, of course, in the social and public spheres, I really appreciate that.

What is indeed problematic is the way culture in general is dealt with, such as the rapid closures of museums and art spaces. And also with this exhibition, some things are different from what was planned. The Japanese artists, for example, cannot be on site because of Corona. Because of the unplannability of the situation, sometimes you also have the feeling that you have to work five times as much as you would actually have to work anyway – that gets to you.

LJ:

Long before the current pandemic, you started your work that deals with tragedy in terms of content. Since 2011, you’ve been working on a woodcut series on the subject of the nuclear age. Were the events in Fukushima at the time the starting point for the series?

NW:

I had already made series that were “political” before that and every now and then. However, I really came to this specific topic at that time through Fukushima, through the catastrophe there and also through the impact it had on me. Among other things, there was this inconceivability about such an accident in an industrialized country, which is technologically quite comparable with Germany. This circumstance created a certain closeness for me. Equally striking was the feeling that everything was going down the drain. To this day, it is impossible to say what impact the events of that time will have. That’s what prompted me to work on the subject. At the beginning I tried to approach the whole thing with my classical media, with painting and drawing, where I actually come from. However, I quickly realized that these were not adequate means for me to deal with this complex situation. That’s how I came to the woodcut. This was also due to the relationship to Japanese woodblock printing, the method with which I also work. I was looking for a medium that represented a connection to the culture and the country that was affected.

LJ:

In addition to traditional woodblock printing and its cultural connection to Japan, you also use modern multimedia elements in your work. You also exhibit not only the woodblocks, but also or only the printing block itself. What role do media and their function play in your work?

NW:

The combination of the printed image and the printing block is an important aspect for me. There is a certain potential in technology that is traditionally found in printmaking: duplication. Print graphics have always been strong, especially in times of crisis. Whether for illustration, i.e. visualization of conditions, or also with technical reference in books. Wherever there was an attempt to show something and to bring it to the people, print graphics played a role. Thus it is also a medium of communication. This aspect is inherent in printing and in the printing plate itself.

The modern media fit right in organically. In the age of the Internet, the printed image or text may be secondary, yet people continue to communicate and mediate by means of image dissemination. So from that point of view I play with all perspectives of media and duplication.

However, it does not always have to come to duplication. Sometimes I stop my pictures and do not finish them. That is, they remain in the drawing or it does not come to a print. The process is crucial for me, as a kind of invitation and indirect questioning of one’s own potential.

LJ:

Does unpredictability play a role then, in the sense that you don’t plan to finish the work at a certain point?

NW:

Partly, yes. I already plan the motifs, I also stick very strictly to my ideas. But the unpredictability is the part that is due to the respective process and where I therefore also don’t know beforehand what will come.

LJ:

In a portfolio on nuclear catastrophes you write that a tragedy like Fukushima leads to the assumption that there would be clear conditions “afterwards”. An ensuing society would have to be described in clear terms, since the problem, the actors and what happened with its consequences is presented in the media in an almost orderly and controlled way. Would you want to contradict such “clarity” after a catastrophe?

NW:

In any case, because this clarity is not given. I often imagine that if you read about Fukushima or even Chernobyl in a history book at some point, what will it say? Some facts, maybe two or three perspectives, possibly a critical sentence. But that will be it. Much more will not be conveyed to our posterity. There will hardly be anything written like “Tepco screwed the Japanese government and the Japanese people” – probably not.

For me, a kind of interplay begins there, also in my work: what is conveyed in an image, what does the recipient see in it? I have many works, especially from the early days, where you see blooming fields or beautiful landscapes that actually only become political through the context – in the sense that you then know they have something to do with nuclear contamination. I try to explore this attraction, this field of tension.

In recent years, this aspect has also intensified in the works, in which I have begun to “zoom in” more, so to speak. Before, I started more from press images and from a strongly international view of things. Now I look at certain countries, currently Japan and Germany, go into more detail, work with my own films, my own photos, and try to get a different view of certain themes. This is actually a kind of research trip for me, because I never know for sure what to expect. I try to be open-minded about it. In a way, I often move between art and exploration.

LJ:

Would you say that this is also a kind of task of art, in the more comprehensive exploration and then also mediation than perhaps other media achieve?

NW:

That’s a difficult question to answer unequivocally. When art is supposed to do something, I always start to get suspicious (laughs). That’s something we artists don’t like to hear. I didn’t set out to do that either. I never set out to do anything particularly political. I do what I do, and of course I think about what I do.

Yes, it’s true that art makes things visible and that it’s also “its job,” if you will, to make things visible. That happens, too. No matter how clearly I express myself on a certain subject or how clearly the subject is apparent, many things also happen on subconscious levels. That is also something that art can do and that literature can do, something that other disciplines perhaps cannot do. Which is a uniqueness to “reach” people, if they want to be reached. That is true.

But what is never true, and this is also something that unfortunately is often never properly understood, you cannot formulate from it the claim that art has to do something. That doesn’t work. Art is free and art does what art does (laughs). It is also always dependent on what the viewer ultimately sees or wants to see. That also has something to do with preparation, with the art market, with the art business. That’s a difficult discussion and very exciting. I think it should be held right now, and it is being held.

LJ:

On the subject of “Zoom,” I’d like to go into more detail about the work you’re showing in the exhibition. In “Caferunde” we are in private spaces. Can you tell me a little bit more about the work and why this work is part of the exhibition project “Redraw Tragedy”?

NW:

“Caferunde” actually shows a coffee round, unspectacular at first (laughs). This coffee round is localized on a small Japanese island located in the Seto Sea. The island has the problem that the construction of a nuclear power plant has been planned on its doorstep for a good 25 years. The local people have resisted this construction for the last decades. In many cases they still live in subsistence, from fishing, agriculture, so they are very rural. A different world.

If you were to build a nuclear power plant there now, it would have an impact, not only in the event of an accident, if something were to happen, but also by its very existence. The entire infrastructure would change, a form of modernization would take place. The sea, which before was only there for the fishermen, would become the foundation of the nuclear power plant.

This is exactly the tension I wanted to show with the work. There are disputes in the community: 90% are against the construction, 10% are for it. One thing that impressed me a lot on site was a young man who told me that he had “escaped” to the island after Fukushima. In recent years, however, it would now be so bad to see how this controversy with the nuclear power plant had destroyed the cohesion of the community. The differing opinions on the subject have adversely affected the entire social fabric on the island.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that it doesn’t take an acutely erupted catastrophe, but just the threat of it looming over you at that moment can lead to dire consequences. That is the story behind the picture, so to speak.

What you can see, this community or group sitting there very harmoniously with each other, is once again a symbol of the fact that this aspect of cohesion and community is very important, especially in times of crisis or disaster. For me, that’s a beacon of hope.

LJ:

You are not only the creator of the ideas for the “Redraw Tragedy” exhibition project, you are also an exhibiting artist and have also helped to design the spaces. What advantage or perhaps disadvantage do you see in the fact that artists are also, as it were, curators of their own exhibitions?

NW:

I don’t normally see myself as a curator, and I also attach great importance to being understood as an artist. For me, that is also a moment for this exhibition that I find important. I certainly approached the selection of people differently than a curator might. The exchange of content was very important to me. That doesn’t just mean talking about it, but also communicating at the level of the works. I found and still find very exciting the parallels or also contrasts that one can recognize, especially in the international context.

I didn’t select the works according to what fits particularly well in the space. Nor did I put the works together according to the motto “I need another large sculpture here.” These are aspects that a curator would certainly have solved differently, but my driving force is different. For me, it’s about exchange, about networking, and also about what you can see if you look. That’s also one reason why I decided against texts on the walls. The visitors should look first and then look for support in the texts. But first I want to give another possibility, with all the risks that might come with it.

LJ:

“Redraw Tragedy” is extremely versatile not only because of that. The media used by the artists, for example, are equally diverse. Each artist also shows his or her own handwriting in the material and the presentation. How does this diversity become a kind of unified exhibition concept? What is, if you will, the common thread that guides you a bit through the exhibition?

NW:

I would say, fundamentally, it’s the theme of tragedy. This thinking together and also seeing things together, that’s the part that’s exciting for me as well. I think for others too, at certain points. To discover what someone has done who works with a completely different medium, but who is perhaps in a similar situation to myself. Of course, we are not in a museum context, but we move in a self-organized institution and try to fill this open, free space with the works. What is really a pity is that in the course of Corona, not all artists could be there. Unfortunately, we had to cut back.

LJ:

Keyword Corona, why not a pure exhibition about Corona?

NW:

In Umberto Uribe Castro’s work with the soaps, we took up a very classic Corona situation. Corona is not otherwise included in the works, that’s true. There will certainly be a lot of exhibitions on the subject, I’m not worried about that (laughs). At this point, I would be worried about a pure Corona exhibition, whether it would be too striking, but maybe I’m wrong about that.

LJ:

At the very least, this is a red-hot crisis that we’re in the middle of.

NW: That’s actually also a very interesting question, which will also come up again in the last panel, the question of time, art and catastrophe. The confrontation with what is current can also be quite appealing. But I wouldn’t jump on the bandwagon just because something is current. It’s not as if many artists are constantly changing the subject they’re working on. This is a problem that can often arise, especially in the funding landscape. I think there is a lack of freedom in art, which would be necessary in many places. That would be something I would like to see, in order to be more resistant to crises or catastrophes, that the art landscape also changes a little bit and adapts to the fact that we now live in different times.

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