Tal R

ARTIST   INTERVIEW2

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I think I really need to talk in a physical way.

Can I ask about the sculptures? You made each pieces together?

installation view at Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2007
© Tal R

Yeah, same time. But they... I mean in the studio I work at many different projects at the same time. Some project they take three months, some take two years. So these ones, when I did these ones, when I looked at the paintings I thought that could be great to show them together.
And these sculptures, they work between on this fine line that you asked about before of completely being abstract and then being very concrete. And play also with the Freudian tone. But it's also choice. You can choose whether you want to see it. And I never point towards, for instance, sexuality. I just call it a stick and a ball.

But you can take it where you want. For instance when you read fairly tales. You can always choose to see it as just beast and dark forest, prince and princess. But you can also choose to read it in more sexual context. It depends on what you want. How you wanna read it.
So these sculptures plays with something that usually you can't put together. When you talk about minimalism, those are quite minimal. You always talk about minimalist being clean. Minimal is often in art history considered clean, reduced, high, fine, hygiene. But I work with minimalism in more dirty way. It's like… it's done like this. Full of mistakes… it looks like that the artist had a bad day. So I want to mix dirt and minimalism. Usually dirt is here, minimal is here. For instance if somebody likes, really likes heavy metal, death metal, how come a person very often has a black long hair, How come a person that appears to be very quiet does not love death metal. My thing is like I like to try to see if I can connect it. And it's more interesting if the way person looks and what people likes are not the same. Its not like a package. So these works they are playing the dirty version of minimalism.

Is the imperfection of pattern created intentionally, or happened to be like that? Like the little cracks here, do you intentionally make it?

"Gate" / © Tal R, 2007

What I do is that, first of all, the reason why I do is if you make a shape like this and you say Gate, it's so tight, then you go close and I got you, Gate! But then you cannot recatch it because the way it's painted with all these mistakes. What I do is that I make a working structure.
So there things happen. In this gate, what you usually do is you put tape here, you paint red first and you paint blue because then it's sharp. But I don't do this. I only put the tape, so the paint, you never know how it works. If it's too wet, it goes under the tape.

So I just create games, and the way I do this one is, this one I did not paint myself. I mixed the color, I draw the line, I said this red, that red, and I asked boys to do it. Then at one time I say "Ok. These five we keep, this we paint again, this we paint again." So I am more working with them but it's very important for me that they do it. When they do it I can stand it and I can say "Ok. I take this one, this one, no. but I want this one." So we work very close together like this. What they are doing for me is not just label, they are part of the process.

About the posters, those pinups are your image sources?

They are like… most of the posters have a title called "Adieu Interessent" it means "good bye everything interesting".

It's so ironic.

Tal R and installation view at Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2007
© Tal R, 2007

You could say it's ironic, and you could say that it's like…You know, If you could read a magazine, you say "Woo I like this. I am interested in this." You don't think why are you interested in, it's just your eyes are just picking up things. For the reason of the way you are brought up, the way you are educated, and your interest, and your family history, that you will pick up certain images. So for me I noticed that I am interested in certain things but I don't think about it. I just pick it up. I like it. I am interested in this, and I put it up. And I collect amounts of material. In my studio, the whole floor could be covered with books and the pictures that I like.

So these are the collections of my interests. You could say, you know what footnotes are? Those are the footnotes for the other work. The reason why I say "Adieu, or good bye" is cause I also would like to get rid of it. Get it away, get it out of sight.

What is your motivation to create the work?

You mean art in general? I think, for me, it's my first language. Even Danish or English is second or third language. I think I really need to talk in a physical way.
To do art is a quite physical way of talking. I think that something people always talk about art history. But there is a history of long it's like really old, you know people that have inside, desire to eat, you wanna make babies, you have to do this, but one of the other instinct is that you also want to express yourself. For me, since I was a kid it's been a really strong desire. Sometimes it feels like that you want to remember.The way it feels like is that you actually want to remember with something in your hand.
I, in a way, work a lot but on the other hand I am lazy. Why? I can only work when if it's really really important for me. Otherwise I prefer sleep. I have to always search for the point where it's important, where I am nervous about it. If I reach the point where it's just a job, I stop. It's not a rule it's just my way.