Credits
Models · ELENA and LORENA at MONSTER BADD and FABRIZIA at VISION STREET
Photography · ARIANNA GENGHINI
Fashion · ALICE MANFRONI
Casting · GIOVANNI at VISION STREET CASTING
Makeup · ELENA GAGGERO
Hair · ERISSON MUSELLA at BLEND MANAGEMEMENT
Fashion Assistant · VIRNA MARCHESE
Makeup Assistant · EDOARDDO BACIGALUPI
As one enters the exhibit – the soft stumps of the shoes break the silence – the first instinct is to graze the fingers over the relics of Domenico Gnoli, to violate the laws Fondazione Prada upholds just to caress the paintings on display and test their hyperrealism. As the sensation passes, a new emotion washes over: the awareness of stepping into someone’s home and looking into their private lives, becoming an insider and an outsider at the same time. The artist may not have intended to cause such an emotion, but there it is in its youthful peak. From the shadow clothing over the fabrics and wave-like curls of the hair to the figures sleeping under the sheets, Domenico Gnoli mastered narrating the everyday life everyone tries to hide.
Fondazione Prada presents the exhibition “Domenico Gnoli” in Milan from 28 October 2021 to 27 February 2022. This retrospective forms part of the series of exhibitions that Fondazione Prada has dedicated to artists – such as Edward Kienholz, Leon Golub, and William Copley – whose practice developed along paths and interests that took a different direction from the main artistic trends of the second half of the 20th century. The exhibit marks an exploration of Gnoli’s practice within a discourse free from labels and documenting the international cultural scene of his time, all while understanding his art’s contemporary visual relevance and recognizing the inspiration he drew from the Renaissance to illustrate the value of his works.
Conceived by Germano Celant, the exhibition brings together over 100 works produced by the artist between 1949 and 1969 and will be complemented by as many drawings. A chronological and documentary section featuring materials, photographs, and other items will retrace the biography and artistic career of Domenico Gnoli (Rome, 1933 – New York, 1970) more than fifty years after his death. The project has been realized in collaboration with the artist’s Archives in Rome and Mallorca, which preserve Gnoli’s personal and professional heritage.
A homeowner touring a sojourner in his abode encompasses the arrangement of Gnoli’s artworks at Fondazione Prada. The yellow seat covers form uniform patterns, so freshly washed and pressed for an elegant dinner party that Santiago Martin-El Viti – based on Gnoli’s portrait of him sitting in one of the sofas – would attend. A beige shirt soon appears on a yellow tablecloth with silhouettes of flora in green, the creases and folds of the shirt visible even without scrutinizing the painting. From the living room, Gnoli heads towards the bathroom where an empty bathtub awaits next to a branch of a cactus that adorns the minimalistic interior.
Author: Domenico Gnoli (1933-1970) Title: APPLE Date: 1968, signed and dated on the reverse Dimensions: 117 x 158 cm Medium: Acrylic and sand on canvas Inscriptions: on the reverse inscribed by Domenico Gnoli: D. Gnoli 1968 ” apple ” (1,60 x 1,20) Inv. Fundación Yannick y Ben Jakober no.51 Fundación Yannick y Ben Jakober
“Many things have changed for me: I finally feel I have shrugged off many constraints and prejudices,” Gnoli wrote in 1963 and a letter to his mother. “I paint as I feel without worrying about the current culture and my responsibilities towards it and I intend to live the same way: free and faithful only to the truth that I feel now. Life begins now; up to this moment I have been apprehensive of too many things: school, friends, modern painting, socialism, marriage, culture, maturity, responsibility. I have painted a whole load of imaginary characters: a large woman reading the newspaper, a gentleman peeing against a tree, an office worker, a poetic waiter with blue lips, and then numerous portraits, but with a difference: instead of people seen from the front, they are seen from behind. Because, I thought to myself, mountains are painted from every side and so are houses, flowers, animals, trees: everything. Men and women are not, however. They are the exceptions and are only painted frontally, in three-quarter profile or from the side. Why?”
Down the hall, guests find the elevator that will take them up to the private spaces of Gnoli’s home. As the doors open and the bell dings, they stumble upon the guestrooms where intoxicated guests may sink into one of the well-made beds. All the beds are available except the ones where Gnoli and a woman sleep. In a couple of his paintings, they break up and make up in a span of two canvases, implied by the joined and separated figures under the sheets that Gnoli’s art style highlighted.
Author: Domenico Gnoli (1933-1970) Title: CURL Title during the exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery, even though it does not appear on the catalogue this painting was exhibited Date: 1969, painted in s’Estaca, Majorca, October 1969, last paining painted by D.G. Dimensions: 139 x 120 cm Medium: Acrylic and sand on canvas Inv. Foundation C. no. p23 Courtesy Fundación Yannick y Ben Jakober
From the exhibit’s text: “For many years Gnoli’s work was interpreted in relation to the forms of realism that arose in stark contrast to the abstract and conceptual currents of the 20th century. Gnoli was viewed as a pop or hyperrealist artist by contemporary critics, who nevertheless recognized the peculiarity of his poetic imagery and artistic production. Over the following years, art critics drove their attention to those paintings made from 1964, characterized by a photographic cut and a specific interest in the human figure and objects, acknowledging the inspiration that he drew from the Renaissance or underscoring his ability to create paintings capable of creating a dialogue with the observer.”
The connection between Gnoli and the viewers sizzles, the manifestation of the intended dialogue. From one alley to another, the transition in storytelling simmers in the next paintings. The house party is about to begin. The noise of the invited crowd on the ground floor filters through the master bedroom where Gnoli and the woman deck up. The private and public lives start to blur the more the viewers wander around to gaze at Gnoli’s paintings.
On his canvases, the selection of hairstyles – neck-length, braided, and curled – comes first before choosing the shoes to wear for the party – flats or heels, leather or synthetic. Next up, Gnoli’s artworks zoom into the details of the clothing to don: the folds of the shirts’ collars, the pearl buttons of the dresses, and the zippers of jackets. Almost ready, the artworks display a necktie and a bowtie, both in stripes, and an ironed suit with a pocket square. Gnoli and the woman close their bedroom door and head for the elevator, a huff to expel the breath of excitement and agitation before inquiring “Ready?”
In 1965, Gnoli expressed how he had always embodied his art practice, but it did not attract attention due to the abstraction’s moment. “I have never even wanted to deform: I isolate and represent. My themes come from the world around me, familiar situations, everyday life; because I never actively mediate against the object, I experience the magic of its presence,” he commented. Only then, thanks to Pop Art, that his paintings became comprehensible, the employment of simple, given elements that he neither amplified nor reduced.
Three years later, the artist deemed his system as a vehicle of showing two scenarios in one space. “You begin looking at things, and they look just fine, as normal as ever; but then you look for a while longer and your feelings get involved and they begin changing things for you and they go on and on until you don’t see the house any longer, you only see them, I mean your feelings,” he penned. “For instance, take some of these modern pictures where nobody can tell what’s what; they are a mess because they only represent the feelings rumbling about without giving you any idea of why it happened.” At Fondazione Prada, Domenico Gnoli welcomes the viewers into his home and hands them an invitation to reminisce the legacies he left.
Raw concrete, old brick and pale gravel glow under the golden light of the sun in Mérida, the capital city of Mexico’s Yucatán state, which is considered as the centre of indigenous Mayan civilisation. When designing Casa Mérida, architect Ludwig Godefroy asked the question “How is it possible to build architecture that reflects and considers the Yucatán identity, to make this house belong to its territory? In other words, how could this house be Mayan?” Inside the decor is as simple as the outside, with wood, stone, and pops of blue which mirrors the turquoise swimming pool at the back of the property.
The site itself has rather odd proportions for a house, it’s only eight meters wide and eighty meters long, resembling a road or pathway more than a traditional plot of land than a home. However, Godefroy has turned this to his advantage, inserting open patios between the buildings to create traditional airflow cooling concepts in a city which is known for its extreme climate and high temperatures. He also references a Sacbé, which is the name for the ancient Mayan road system which would connect the indigenous people’s of the land. “Those straight lines used to connect all together the different elements, temples, plazas, pyramids and cenotes of a Mayan city; sacred ways which could even go from one site to another along a few hundred kilometres.” NR Magazine joins the artist in conversation.
How do you think cultural identity influences design and architecture?
Definitely, it does according to my way of thinking. I always look around me and since I arrived in Mexico, it’s been now 14 years, my architecture changed, became heavier, made out of concrete, stone and tropical wood. Mexico changed my way of designing, I started to look at prehispanic architecture and mixed it with my personal taste, the bunkers from Normandy (where I was born), my European education and background working with OMA and Enric Miralles / Benedetta Tagliabue.
But now, I definitely consider myself a Mexican architect and not a French or European architect anymore. Mexico is the country where I live, it’s my inspiration, and it’s made out of Mexican references and Mexican moments of life. The way I’m building right now is also Mexican, more handcrafted and less industrialised, always integrating locals knowledge and details coming from Mexican vernacular architecture and ways of building it.
My architecture became a bunker from Normandy on the outside, protecting my personal Mexican pyramid on the inside, both connected by the use of vernacular simplicity; vernacular simplicity from my fisherman village in Normandy being, in a way very, close to the vernacular simplicity of the Mexican countryside where I build.
Do you think there is much to learn about sustainability from indigenous’s cultures like the Mayans and which of these methods were used when building Casa Mérida?
It’s a very complicated question, the context of our lives radically changed, and the globalisation as well. But definitely, our relation with nature is the one that suffered the most. I don’t think we have to feel ashamed of building, I mean I’m an architect and it’s my job, but probably what I’ve learned from indigenous cultures and, in my case, more specifically from pre-hispanic civilisation legacy is: what do we want to feel inside of our buildings, how can the atmosphere of my architecture can remain sacred and sensitive?
According to my thinking, the relationship with the emotions you will feel in a space is the very essence of a project, which means once you created emotions in architecture, you don’t need much more. You can naturally step back to more simple architectural elements, made out of simple but massive materials, with the ability to get old instead of getting damaged by time. I want to run away from the “everything throwaway mentality” of our modern society, getting rid of the unnecessary, creating timeless spaces which will slowly change under the action of time, ageing being part of the architecture, an architecture which will get covered by a new coat of materiality: “the patina of time”.
Are there any new technologies in architecture that you are particularly excited about?
Not at all. I really love technology, I need the internet non-stop, computers and smartphones but I still remain a peasant. I was born in Normandy, in a fisherman’s village and I still like what’s most simple in life. I still like to push and pull a switch to turn on and off the light, I don’t need my fridge to tell me what to buy, and I still like to open the curtains myself in the morning. I like the wind, I like the light, I like the heat, I don’t need much technology around me, only music. I enjoy waking up in the morning to prepare a nice black expresso coffee and go to my garden to observe the plants, the trees, the birds and the lizards; it’s my process to start working on my projects every day, contemplation.
Rising temperatures are becoming an increasingly huge issue and you designed Casa Mérida specifically to combat high temperatures without having to use AC. Do you think housing around the world will begin to implement techniques like these in the future or will the majority continue to rely on AC?
No, I don’t think so! I also understand there are parts of the world where it’s almost impossible to survive without AC, and Mérida, Yucatán is one of those. Casa Mérida is a house designed for pleasure, it’s a vacation house, it’s easier than a main residence, or an office space. I made a project based on natural crossed ventilation to avoid the use of AC, thinking if you offer the option to live in a well-ventilated space, maybe you’ll help people change their minds.
My vision of architecture focuses on changing people habits, rather than looking for technological improvements, towards a more simple way of living with fewer necessities, to minimise our impact on the ecology of our planet. It’s basically what vernacular architecture does and always has done, I’m not inventing anything, but just trying to go back to basics.
You kept elements of the old house including the front facade and the old buildings ‘bones’. Do you think this kind of perseveration is vital when modernising homes like this one?
Yes, I love it. I always think you belong to a permanent work in progress. There were people before you on the construction site you’re working on, and there will be people after you. I see architecture as a palimpsest, when you clean up the lamb parchment, the previous story will never vanish 100%. There is always something remaining from the past story in the back of the new story you are writing on top of your palimpsest.
You have stated that Casa Mérida reflects Yucatán identity, in what specific ways does it do so?
I always design my architecture as a peasant would. I always draw short structures, using short beams, between 4 to 5 meters long; dimensions I know any mason in the world is able to build without any specialised skills. I know this way everything will be local, starting with the workers. A house in Yucatán has to be built by people from Yucatán, It´s for me the first step to start belonging. I want my architecture to respond to local techniques, the stone, the wood I use will always change according to the region where I am building. As I said before, my architecture is always playing with temples and pyramids references. In the case of Casa Mérida, the house is organised along a Sacbé ”white way”, the Mayan roads that used to connect temples and pyramids together, ending in the swimming pool which looks like a concrete cenote.
Blue textiles have been used to mirror the house’s swimming pool which is inspired by cenotes. This reminded me of David Hockey’s swimming pool series, is there any connection or inspiration there?
To be honest no, but I really like the idea! Hockney’s work is beautiful, and I like the way it’s simple, almost naive sometimes, it matches with my architecture I guess.
What challenges did you face whilst working on this project and how did you overcome them?
I would say the concrete. Mérida is not a place where people are used to rough concrete. Rough concrete is something more common in Oaxaca state or Mexico City. So we had to learn together with the constructor in charge, explaining to the workers what we wanted to reach. For a mason rough concrete is unfinished, they don’t catch the beauty of it at the beginning. We had to explain it to them.
But definitely, our concrete is not perfect, This is part of something I totally accept, having un-perfect concrete, trying to get better and better during the process of building. Accident is part of my aesthetic, I always tell my clients to stop looking at Tadao Ando, we won’t make a Japanese concrete, we will make a Mexican concrete, rougher than the Japanese one, A perfectly un-perfect concrete.
What advice would you give to young creatives who are interested in architecture?
Don’t buy books and magazines on contemporary architecture. Only buy books and magazines that were published up until the 80s. This way, with those references, you won’t be tempted to literally copy them, you will have to reinterpret them, so this way you will make them yours.
Are you working on any projects at the moment and do you have any plans for the future?
Yes, right now I’m finishing three houses, one outside Mexico City, one in Puerto Escondido Oaxaca and another one in Mérida Yucatán. I have also one hotel under construction in Puerto Escondido Oaxaca. I’m about to break ground for a new house in Mérida Yucatán, a house/Airbnb hotel close to Huatulco Oaxaca, and another house/Airbnb hotel in Roca Blanca Oaxaca. Meanwhile, we are working on three new projects in the conceptual phase in the office.
Multidisciplinary artist Naomi Gilon has a rich history of experimentation that encompasses a wide range of methods and materials. The Brussels based artist combines beauty with the macabre in a strong effort to break away from the restrains of the art world’s expectations.
Gilon’s ceramic work has a life of its own. Consisting of a series of sculpted bags with claw handles, vases with long witchy fingers and high heels with mangled toenails, her pieces challenge our perception of the medium. Drawing on a wellspring of inspiration from pop culture, fashion, gore, and mythology, Gilon explores the aesthetic and psychological potential in everyday objects and breathes new life into them through her process of metamorphosis.
Gilon embraces the fiendish and the unconventional in her practice and crafts her pieces with a glaring sense of beauty. Her ability to transform everyday items into otherworldly hybrids subvert our attachments and relationships to the objects, forcing us to sit with and question our sense of discomfort and ultimately, our sense of being.
NR Magazine speaks with the artist to find out what makes up the weird world of Naomi Gilon, and what her monstrous creations can reveal about us all.
Does the desire for experimentation with your work stem from anywhere? Do you channel this into other aspects of your life?
It’s my way of expressing what I think. I have always been a shy child who listened to the needs of others. It’s not easy to extricate yourself from this behaviour when you become an adult. It’s both a work on myself and on others. I try to have a sociological point of view with my work. It’s a reciprocal exchange between my art and me; I bring reflections to my work through my reading for example, and conversely my works teach me a lot about life and myself. So, this desire to create and to experiment is simply a desire to live. I also channel this energy through botany. I like to see the evolution of plants.
Your practice has evolved a lot over the past few years – you’ve created installations with found objects and explored the tuning industry, whereas now, your practice has moved towards ceramics and crafting objects from scratch. Can you talk about this development?
It’s true that the discovery of ceramics was a revelation for me. Before that I worked mainly from assembly methods, textiles, car body parts, stickers, etc. The hybridization process was already present. As a self-taught ceramicist I’m able to not be in a system of appropriation of forms, but creations. I have almost total control over the objects I create.
Also, my subjects contrast to the ceramic material: fragility and violence, the sublime and the monstrous. I like it a lot because we are looking for confrontation. Beyond that, my thinking remains the same, over time I’ve just deepened it. It draws its source from popular culture. It’s a very large and constantly evolving subject.
Is constant artistic evolution important to you?
Yes of course, it’s linked to our personal development. As I mentioned before with experimentation, the evolution of our work is needed to live.
You’ve exhibited your work in lots of places in Europe. What is most important to you when displaying and showcasing your pieces?
What is most important to me is sharing a story, first and foremost a fantastic story and something that makes you dream. We try to widen the boundaries of the mind and share it with as many people as possible.
I also realise that my works have their own existence. Once out of my imagination, they travel without me. We see them for what they are, and I become secondary, as sometimes I answer questions for interviews. What I mean is that my works don’t need my words to create a discussion with the person who encounters them.
Throughout the development of your practice, I’ve noticed that your sculpted claws have remained present in most of your pieces and have become a sort of key signifier for your work. Could you talk a bit about this recurrent motif? What is the narrative behind it?
The claws appeared to me through the imagery of car tuning – the beast under the hood, the roar of the engine, etc. Then at the same time I discovered the book ‘Crash’ by J. G. Ballard, the film ‘Christine’ by John Carpenter, and the film ‘Titanium’ by director Julia Ducournau.
Following this car-related imagery, I plunged into the world of gore and horror films. They’re an inexhaustible source for questioning the identity of a monster. I also turned to mythology, folktales, Nordic stories, etc, as well as representations of the figure of the monster in paintings through the centuries. It’s a timeless fascination.
“I consider my hybrid ceramic objects as the chimeras of our humanity. It’s the sublimation of the horror in our lives.”
Your work, and your recent ceramic pieces in particular draw on aspects of horror, gore, fashion, and pop culture. What are your specific influences and what intrigues you most about these things? Have they always been of interest to you?
The human hybrid has fascinated me since I was little. I’ve never been a big fan of monsters before; it was through my painting studies at ENSAV La Cambre in Brussels that I explored these interests.
I’m influenced by the cartoonist Emil Ferris, the authors Aldous Huxley, René Barjavel, Philip K. Dick, George Orwell and the authors of the Nouveau Roman like Alain Robbe-Grillet. Also, directors like Ridley Scott for Blade Runner 1982 (my favourite film), Dario Argento for Suspiria in 1977, Rosemary’s Baby, David Cronenberg and Videodrome…. the list goes on and on.
The image of the monster can take different forms, it adapts to the times and that is what fascinates me. It’s always a reflection of society.
What is it like living as a creative in Brussels? Has Belgian culture influenced your work at all?
Living in a large multicultural city is very rewarding, and Brussels has lots of great qualities. The arts scene is important, but I don’t draw inspiration from it directly. Everyone is obviously hugely influenced by the internet. Subliminally my influences are global.
But still, I love the work of Aline Bouvy and Xavier Mary – they marked my debut in the art world.
What was your aim when creating your online shop?
To break the notion of art acquisition. During my studies we were told that walking into an art gallery is like walking into a store. I never found it easy, and I think most art spaces want to keep that aspect of privilege. By creating an online shop, I feel like I’m breaking away from these principles. People who enjoy my work can acquire it as easily as going to collect bread in a bakery. We buy unique things in an almost banal way. And the direct creator-to-buyer relationship is easier than having one or two intermediaries, but I do enjoy collaborations and discovering new networks of people, I think that’s really important.
The form and texture of your pieces have always been interesting to me. What’s your approach to working with different materials, and are there specific materials you enjoy working with the most?
I really like materials that imitate others, like faux fur textiles or mock snakeskin, or materials that drip, or spread like a disease. I love studying the set design and makeup of 1920s gore films.
I also love having my hands in clay. It feels like a real connection to the earth. My favourite part is the last step; that of enamelling. There’re always surprises. The colours are always unique and have an almost captivating depth. It flows, it bubbles, it can be matte, shiny, satin – it’s great.
What have you been finding inspiration from at the moment?
My creations of monstrous shoes were inspired by the exhibition ‘MARCHE ET DÉMARCHE’, at MAD in Paris in 2019. My interest in the historical journey of objects emerged from this exhibition. This is a process that is now part of my thinking and methodology. My new bag series is also based on a nod to the past; it’s an object with great history and connotations, that never ceases to evolve, like a living being.
You’ve mentioned that with your work you try to put societal fears and desires into narratives, words, and images. Why is this important for you, and has this always been a focus of yours?
It’s a way of making memory appear physical, and to create memories of objects. When I started out as an artist, the term ‘connotation’ was a big part of my way of thinking. The spare parts of cars whose sheets were crumpled, bent, and scratched were the vestiges of a moment in time and of an emotion.
The concept of time is very important to me because it moves so fast and takes with it the things that have forged us like words, objects, smells and people. When I make a piece of ceramic, it’s a product of all the thoughts that I have during that moment that permeate the clay. I’m a very nostalgic person and I must highlight all those moments that will eventually disappear. I think that’s a big fear of mine – my ‘monster’.
What is your usual process for creating hybridisations and distortions of objects?
It’s not a process, it’s just an automatism. Bringing everyday things to life that we no longer pay attention to.
“Everything is important and nothing is trivial. I don’t have a specific method.”
You work a lot with commonplace objects. What interests you about working with them? You describe your work as ‘unique and precious banalities’, so it’s clear that you see a lot of creative and critical potential within these objects.
It’s like listening to the radio every day and hearing the number of people who have died from Covid, migratory accidents, wars and attacks; it hits us for a few seconds and then we continue with our daily life. Like the words of Hannah Arendt, its ‘the banality of evil.’ This might be a bad example, but humans make everything that doesn’t directly impact them uninteresting and unimportant. I’m not interested in the individualistic human.
I like the idea of asserting individuality and sharing it. I want to banish the idea of normality. Recognising its privileged position is the first step in thinking about things differently.
What is left on the day you die? The image of us, but it is not eternal. Objects into which we’ll have slipped a few words of love, the words on the back of a postcard, or a compilation of music that we have probably listened to hundreds of times. Life is abstract and complex, so you we should go beyond it and make the mundane things unique and precious.
What things outside of your practice do you feel are ‘unique and precious’?
The people we love and the mysterious things that bind us to them. I’m a lonely person (besides being nostalgic), but I love being around the people I love and listening to them talk. I love to read and taking the time to do nothing.
With the theme of this issue being Identity, I thought it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how you explore your own identity through your work.
My artistic approach is mixed with my personal matters, it forms a hybrid. The evolution of my works reflects my own determination and of the way in which, little by little, I come into alignment with who I am. We must establish a harmonious cohabitation between our inner and outer being, between the angel and the demon. We should learn from our mistakes and accept that we will make them. The monstrous hand kind of symbolises this oscillation between the two sides of our identity.
Many aspects of your work revolve around monstrous forms. Could you talk a bit about how you explore the concept of the body?
I see the body as a hybrid object, something organic that evolves and distributes energy, both positive and negative.
Like J-M Gustave Le Clézio said, we’re contained in a sack of skin. I find once again that it’s something incredible yet minimised. Moving your body, feeding it, making it work properly is a wonderful thing and full of mystery.
I really like the vegetable head portraits of the painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo because he presents us with a vision that goes beyond our human limits, and which reminds us of the fact that we can be anything. We’re not that different to vegetables and we too will rot one day.
I’m also influenced by the chaotic landscapes of Jérôme Bosch, where we can see the energy of living and the beauty of heterogeneity.
Where do you see your practice heading? What can we expect from you in the future?
I’m working on many new projects. Hopefully I can still work collaboratively in the world of styling. I also want to explore new materials alongside ceramics. I have a solo show at the end of October in Brussels and joint show at the end of November in Amsterdam.
Credits
Images · NAOMI GILON
Interview · IZZY BILKUS
Discover Naomi Gilon’s work here www.naomigilon.com
Based between the UK, Italy and Indonesia, photographer Alessia Gunawan captures a unique and mysterious sense of reality in her world of images. Not one to limit herself to a strict definition of her creative practice, Gunawan’s approach is one of fluidity which sparks important questions and delves deeper into burgeoning social issues in contemporary society.
Taking a peek into the photographer’s ethereal images sheds light on issues prevalent within internet and pop culture, socio-political frameworks and the interconnectedness of modern life. Gunawan’s work often takes on an otherworldly feel. Her photographs are staged with great consideration and ease, and there is a tangible sense of uneasiness within them that tease and invite viewers to take a closer look. With a sharp gaze, Gunawan captures the uncanniness of the everyday.
Influenced by her changing lifestyles and travels across Italy, Indonesia and England, Gunawan seeks out an interconnectedness in her work and places a great importance on her ability to break free from the limitations of academia. Gunawan claims that she doesn’t see a specific style that is present throughout her work. For her, it is more a case of exploring narratives in the themes she explores. She aims to unveil the various aspects of the globalized and seemingly connected contemporary culture.
NR Magazine speaks with the photographer to delve deeper into her creative background and how she explores her identity as an artist through her reflections on modern life.
Could you talk to me about your creative background and what initially attracted you to working with photography?
Growing up I was always surrounded by creativity, mainly because my parents are fashion designers. Although our interests and styles differ significantly, I always saw them drawing and doing research. At one point, when I was 16 years old, I did a short course at Central Saint Martins. I initially thought I would get into fashion design, but while doing the course I really enjoyed the art direction and executive part.
When I moved to Italy, I began living in a tiny city in the south called Lecce, in Puglia. Although I had the chance to create fond memories there, I was bored most of the time, and started taking photos and creating narratives of my own. Sometimes I’d take self-portraits, and other times I’d use my friends as subjects. I was captivated by its performative aspect, especially when contextualizing them after in whichever platform I thought they’d work the best.
I was able to create different personas, and it was accessible at any time. So it was a way to make mini-movies for me and my friends to enjoy.
When do you feel like you first started to shape your creative vision?
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment it happened. Maybe this means that I haven’t fully shaped my creative vision yet. It’s never fixed, and it’s continuously changing as it moulds into something different, reflecting my interests and the growth I am going through at a particular moment in my life.
I am saying this because I have never really had a definitive idea of what I wanted to do and what direction I wanted to take. I gave myself the opportunity to experiment with different things I might want to do. Also, having friends in London with whom I could collaborate helped me a lot in the process, and it all came about quite naturally.
University also played a massive role in this. My BA course under stimulated me, as it was too traditional and fixed in academia, but I tried to find stimuli elsewhere because I wasn’t enjoying it. If you live in London, this can be very easy. There are a lot of events and workshops happening all the time, so you can find your own way of learning, and that’s what’s so special about London – the DIY culture that drives its creative industry.
As I found my BA to be unsatisfying, I took the time to understand what I wanted to do, and after a year, I decided to do an MA in a school that helped me develop my practice. I was fully committed to it, and I was in the right mindset to start the course. I think this was also the first time I let myself trust my practice and my mistakes. Looking back, it was probably the first time I felt like I was doing something that was right for me.
With the theme of this issue being Identity, I’d love to know how working between the UK, Italy and Indonesia has impacted you and the evolution of your photographic style.
Each country I’ve lived in has helped express different aspects of my interests. Visually, politically, and socially speaking, they all offered other narratives. Still, sometimes they would interconnect in unexpected ways, and that intersection is what my work is always trying to explore – the subtle glimpse of our globalized network.
Having moved around so much, is sharing your personal experiences and displaying a sense of interconnectedness throughout your work important to you?
Yes. Our work is often a reflection of our experiences. Whether we want to speak about it in the first person or through different characters or narratives is a choice. For the stories and themes I have chosen to explore further, I felt it was necessary to talk about them from a place of personal experience.
How do you see yourself as a visual narrator and curator?
I hope to see myself as never fully fixed, and as someone who can question and create conversations with the necessary depth by involving others (in and outside the art world) and by constantly experimenting through different modes of communication.
One of my favourite projects of yours was your documented trip to Morocco. You’ve mentioned that this place made you feel a genuine need to go back to the instinctive desire to take photographs – this sense of intuition definitely comes across in the series. Have any other places affected you in this way?
Travelling often creates this feeling. When we’re unfamiliar with somewhere, we tend to get excited and curious, and we use cameras to satisfy our need to distil a memory and connect with the surrounding context.
When I’m traveling and not doing it for work, I usually let myself be intuitive with my camera. I’m not too precious about the things I capture. It’s like small talk – you start the conversation for the simple need to connect, which sometimes will lead you somewhere unexpected. It’s very different from the work method I learned at school, where everything had to be schematic and pre-calculated.
In these scenarios, I tend to trust the process and have fun with it. It all started when I first travelled to Hong Kong on a family trip. I went there with the Indonesian side of my family, and as we were a big group, we travelled by bus and had everything planned. I wanted a break from the tourist stops, so I decided to walk around and take photographs. I was 16 and a very anxious child, but I felt like it was one of the first times I felt a sense of independence, and I was having the most fun doing research and taking photos of all the places I found interesting.
Looking at your body of work, you have a clarity of purpose and a unique eye for expressing intimate and almost otherworldly moments. How has your style and vision evolved over the years, and where do you see it heading?
I guess that someone who isn’t familiar with my work might see it as chaotic at times, as I’m constantly shifting my position between fashion photography and my artistic practice. Although they are both very different worlds, they do inform each other sometimes. For example, fashion photography has a faster pace in digesting trends and information around you, and the art world has a slower way of processing things.
When I was living in London, I was mainly collaborating with my friends. They sometimes wanted to try out styling or graphic design, and I wanted to try out fashion photography, so things started naturally, and I enjoyed it a lot. Towards my last year in London, I felt as though I wanted to do something different. When I started my MA degree in photography, I dedicated most of my time to developing my practice through short films, installations, and anything I found worth experimenting with for my work’s purpose. As a result, I naturally gravitated towards what I wanted to do and felt free once again in testing out different things. That was a definitive moment, as I then tried to use photography more narratively – as if it were contaminated by my artistic practice.
After mostly working in fashion photography, I want to dedicate more time to my personal projects, so I started researching again for a project I have been planning to do for the past year, and after this long pause, it feels good to be doing it again.
You work with videography as well, and your project ‘Ur My Final Fantasy’ explores the subject of intimacy. Could you talk a bit more about the influences behind this project?
‘Ur My Final Fantasy’ came about when I was questioning our current understanding of intimacy. I had just moved away from London, and I was interested in the fast-paced approach of the intimate connection of big cities and the sudden growing interest of people in approaching relationships through spiritual guidance. I started wondering about people’s interest in tantric sex and building connection through breathing, observing and other nuanced and powerful gestures.
I began researching the subject from a sociological point of view to better understand the changes occurring. I was also exploring the camming wave that has been growing exponentially in the past few years, primarily due to platforms like OnlyFans. I loved looking at the interiors – the soft lighting, the teddy bears in the back, the tacky IKEA frames filled with generic quotes about life. They all became symbols that suggested an intimate space where both agents could feel safe and comfortable.
Something similar also happened with role-playing videos. My favourite video was found on Pornhub, and I became obsessed with it as soon as I saw it. It was a boyfriend role play video and had a first-person point of view where you (as the viewer) would be put into bed, all tucked up, and serenaded with an acoustic guitar. He would then give you a forehead kiss and talk to you in classic ASMR style to help you fall asleep.
I’ve noticed it on YouTube too. Many vloggers have started to adopt these small gestures to overcome boundaries and create a deeper connection with their followers. It feels odd, but it works. That’s why people are also making mukbang videos a lot. Viewers feel closer to people and less lonely.
I love your work for Garbage Core’s Season 07. How important is fashion and experimentation to you? What was the process like when shooting this lookbook?
Fashion and experimentation have always been important to me. I can’t go a long period of time without creating space for myself to experiment in fashion. I love working with a team that inspires me, and fashion allows that. Editorials can be very fun, and depending on which magazine you develop them for, they can be less commercial and have more freedom. You can have the freedom to question the boundaries of visual language and how they engage with fashion, art, and cinematic narratives. There are so many exciting magazines nowadays that do that, and it’s exciting to see how it’ll develop.
Shooting Giuditta Tanzi’s Garbage Core collection was amazing as always. She shares her studio with my partner, so I get to see her all the time. I’ve always been a fan of her work. I’m interested in how people rework existing items, and her dedication and attention with each garment inspires me.
Working on the last lookbook came about naturally. Because we see each other quite often, we tend to exchange our interests and discuss things a lot. Also, as this collection included a lot of semi-transparent materials and minute details, we thought it would be best to keep it simple and to have the right lighting to highlight those aspects.
What do you value most about your image making process?
Depending on the project, researching and developing ideas in the first round of shoots is always fun. You get to understand what works and what doesn’t. I always show up with lots of written ideas but never end up completing them most of the time. Instead, I end up following the energy of the environment, as everyone in the team creates an important dynamic. I tend to trust that most of the time, because it’s better than what I could have imagined on my own.
A lot of your work has an ethereal and eerie feel to it. How do you go about creating this aesthetic?
When visually developing a project, I tend not to confine myself to anything. I’m constantly questioning and experimenting with various modalities to better understand which one is the most effective.
Your projects like ‘Jill Army’ and ‘Counter Faith’ take inspiration from aspects of different elements of pop culture and contemporary social issues. Have these subjects always been something you felt the need to interrogate with your work?
Yes, I’m constantly questioning globalized ideologies of pop culture – in some projects more than others. ‘Counter Faith’, contrary to ‘Jill Army’ feels more domestic, as the project starts as an investigation of my family’s experience as Chinese Indonesians in the confines of the segregated communities of Jakarta. But as with every project I have done, it always tries to tackle and question bigger issues, and how these feelings evolve with the involvement of new technologies. In this particular case, I was interested in how we digest and portray violence and how certain media reduces narratives, breeds trauma, and generates extreme ideologies.
How do you feel you explore different aspects of your identity in your work?
I’m always writing, and when I have a question persisting in my mind, I tend to explore it and try to understand why I am so fixated with it.
Sometimes my research doesn’t move forward much, but it does develop into something more tangible.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, rapper Goya Gumbani moved to London as a teenager. Landing a retail job at the London branch of Pharrell and Nigo’s streetwear label, Billionaire Boys Club, Goya joined a hub of fashion and music. The story goes that when the store closed, BBC would become a de facto studio – with industry heavyweights passing through its doors. Goya went on to pursue music, notably with the release of the 2018 EP, Morta & More Doves, but fashion has remained on his orbit. For one, he walked the Louis Vuitton AW presentation earlier this year – a far cry from ‘[modelling] in mad streetwear stores basements’ five years ago, as he shared on Twitter. Goya’s slick personal style is both an amalgamation of his inspirations (‘I like shit that looks 80s – pro Black, UK Reggae and Dub man from Brixton,’ he told BBC), and a visual embodiment of the London music scene that has come to influence his sound. Last year was a busy year for Goya, releasing five EPs with the likes of producer Oliver Palfreyman, on November’s six track EP Truth Be Sold, and with Bori on Steps Across the Pond from March (which got a limited edition vinyl pressing last month, a year after its release). Goya’s catalogue is consistent in its warmth. Often reflective and contemplative – and at times, existential – Goya’s vocals are perfectly matched to the soulful, hazy beats that are coming to define the artist’s sound.
How do you set the pace of making music, and when do you know if something makes the cut for release?
I do this every day – at this point it’s like breakfast or dinner. I wake up and think about something music related. The making the cut process really just depends on where I’m at sonically or visually.
“Being from Brooklyn, living in London” is something of a tagline attached to your name. In terms of your sound, style and influence though, how do these elements come together?
They are both two great cities, they have both taught me different things from different perspectives. Both cities are in my DNA at this point, so they make me – if that makes sense.
I’d love to know if working at Billionaire Boys Club opened up your experience of London in different ways. How much of working there influenced your transition into music?
Yeah BBC was like a hub, everybody from every crack of the world used to pass through. So I met a lot of people in all fields, but most of the people I worked with there, also made music. I use to think I would just meet people to meet ‘em. But soon after, I realised you meet everyone for a reason. It’s not only to talk sweet nothings, but to build an grow to some degree.
At what point did you feel ready to share your music with people around you?
Few years ago, I just had something I wanted to show, which kinda lead me to a place where I wasn’t fazed by my own self-doubt.
I really love the EP covers/videos, and how they’re all quite different – is there any relationship between the music and the visuals you use? (If so, to what effect?)
The artwork and visuals are a lot. I feel like that’s gonna speak to you before you even hear anything. So it’s chosen with the intent to grab and leave wonder… Everything relates though; it’s all one big canvas of imagery that can speak on its own if needs be.
Besides appearing in the Louis Vuitton AW21 presentation, what defines ‘style’ and your style?
Style is expression and personal touch to me. I worked in a couple menswear spots back in the day, so that gave me the knowledge into different eras and how style was a time stamp. But, my old boy Jack used to tell me: “if no one likes it, you going in the right direction”, Which I took as get dressed for yaself and you can’t go wrong. So that’s the motto.
What are you currently working on, and what can we expect from you this year?
I got a collab project coming out with [the producer] Subculture and a solo tape coming out this year I’m excited about. Few things with some familiar faces too… Oh and catch me on a few festival line ups!
Credits
Photography · DAVID REISS
Styling · SERGIO PEDRO
Creative Direction · NIMA HABIBZADEH AND JADE REMOVILLE
Interview · ELLIE BROWN
Mother of Dogs
“Mother of Dogs is a project that I began and completed at the beginning and middle of quarantine. Life had been tossed in the air once the pandemic hit, so my partner and I began taking daily walks by the train tracks next to our house in order to introduce some stability. That project could be related to growth considering our development towards balance and steadiness.”
An old glasshouse stands but continues to shatter as the wind runs through it. From its corroding rafters hang hair-like strands of organic matter, draped in entangled troughs that no longer grow but choose to speak in muffled rustles, envious of the birds that idle overhead, they are filled with longing. They are like exposed roots, barefaced and all out of tears, they sway in the breeze and pretend that they are flying. Gravity hums, its vibrations oscillate between remembering and forgetting what it is to be defied.
The Glasshouse sits at the edge of each of our individual ideals. Sometimes waves crash beneath it and within its walls we are surrounded but not safe. Others remark at its fragility but when I reach out to touch it and slide my palms down the old wood, I say that it is strong. I wrap my arms around myself and say that it will hold me like you used to, pulling at my shoulders for a tighter embrace. Defiance doesn’t always look like a lie. I learned to protect myself from within these walls, I tell you that I trust you but speak through them. I want to build a home with you but I don’t know how to leave this house without burning it down.
These sentiments are presumed, coaxed out of my subconscious as I press “Play” on a video that displays the work,
Glasshouse created a decade ago by the Icelandic artist, Sigurdur Gudjonsson. I was watching a screen, from my computer screen, with no tangible distance between perception and reality. This is Sigurdur’s strength. As the recipient of the 2018 Icelandic Art Prize as Visual Artist of the Year for his 2017 exhibition, Inlight, and the selected artist who will represent Iceland at the 59th Venice Biennale to be held in 2022, Sigurdur is a master of the senses. Utilizing moving imagery, synchronized soundscapes and installation, the viewer is dropped into an emotional fragment, engineered through layers and loops that create an immersive world numbed by specificity where feeling is not a derivative of direct experience. Having installed his projections in locations like morgues and churches, Sigurdur first sets the scene by taking the viewer out of his or her respectively normal settings and then transports them into his projections where the metaphysical becomes an invitation to surrender. Whether it is the innards of the Glasshouse, a lone pillar erect in the sea, or an electron-microscope’s magnification of carbon, the contours of these incongruous visuals become hyper-narratives that the viewer projects meaning onto as if reaching to reclaim a shard of something broken and without genesis, like a memory evading recall.
The footnotes of our innermost psyche are lured to the fore as viewers ascribe meaning to Sigurdur’s often poetically abstract works.
You’ve said about yourself that you’re often “quick to come home” when you find yourself abroad, what does home mean to you and how has it shaped your work?
I have been lucky enough to both travel, live, study, and work abroad and that has been very important for me. I currently live in Iceland so you could say that it is my home now, although I might choose to live elsewhere temporarily later. There has always been fascinating energy in the Icelandic art scene which has always fascinated and inspired me, both in visual arts and music and I think I can say that it has shaped my works in many ways. However, I think it’s incredibly healthy for every artist to stay abroad for some time and broaden their perspective and build new relationships. This is something I try to do every year, whether it be in connection to working or exhibiting.
What does Iceland provide that has made it a place that you have decided to stay and find success in your work?
Reykjavík is a small city when it comes to population and you are quite close to the sea with a view over to the mountains, it’s also only a short drive into the wilderness which I count as a blessing. I guess you always take some inspiration from the environment and the people you meet on the way and all of it somehow weasels its way into the subconscious, which I guess must be reflected in the works I make. At the moment, Iceland suits me well as I am focusing on a large-scale project for the Venice Bienniale in 2022. I work with a great gallery here in Reykjavík named BERG Contemporary and I have a nice studio close to where I live with my family.
How were you and your community in Iceland affected by COVID19? In a place like New York for instance I think it really altered the ways in which we were actually connecting with people. We’re always moving at lightspeed, often with a set of priorities that aren’t our own and it was a way to be forced into introspection.
COVID19 has been handled quite well over here. In March almost everyone stayed mainly at home for a few weeks and then we managed to get rid of COVID19 during a large part of the summer so people could enjoy each other’s company without worrying too much for a while. But now we are facing the third outbreak over here and I really hope for an international solution soon. If we look at Iceland specifically it has been affected by so many things, apart from the obvious and most serious effect on those that became ill. Iceland has been a popular destination for travelers over the past few years, so the travel industry is struggling. Theatres just opened again for the first time since March, but there are only half or one-third of the usual numbers allowed into the auditorium. Musicians haven’t been performing and of course, art exhibitions have been postponed as well. But I am lucky as I’m working in my studio all day at the moment so it doesn’t affect my everyday life too much at the time being.
The perceptive experience is an anchor in your work where emotional fragments can be strung together to mirror something whole in its potential for universality. What do you want people to experience when they come across your work? Is the desired result always a certain emotional response and do you want that response to be singular?
I’m interested in creating a surrounding experience for people, multiple layers of perception, a world you can immerse yourself in, not only an emotional one; it can also be strong visually or physically and hopefully it moves something within the audience.
It’s interesting because we all experience life as individuals, but when you put us in this context where the individual is surrounded, their perception is controlled in a way that almost forces them to confront something more subconscious. Are the frames you build mirrors for humanity almost?
I hope so. That would be amazing. I guess it’s easier for an outside viewer or audience to answer these questions, it’s rather difficult to know what impact one’s work has on others.
For me, it’s created from within but often also it’s a way to express what my eyes have caught when I walk through life.
So my work stems from an inner drive and sometimes a need to put focus on things that have caught my attention, which can be anything from machinery, man-made construction, or technical relics for instance. I hope that the audience experiences their read of the different layers of the narrative within each piece and that the whole space comes together simultaneously, combining different elements
You use the word narrative, do you consider yourself a storyteller?
No, I think I’m always trying to hide the story.
In what way?
I like it when a narrative becomes more of an undercurrent.
You mean it’s something that you want your viewers to bring out of themselves to fill the piece?
Exactly. It’s always a pleasure when that happens. Perhaps we could say hyper-narrative.
The creation of a narrative through perception is interesting. You often work with musical composers and sometimes there are inherent narratives present within sound, especially when things are instrumental and there are no lyrics to guide you in terms of emotionality. Where do you find those nuances?
When I’m in the process of doing work, it’s sometimes a very unspoken process because it’s not a specific path that I’m following. It’s almost like wandering around until I feel that I have reached an area of interest. Then I start to make different implementations and play around with it. This process is sometimes like tuning an old radio back and forth until you catch the frequency you like.
Normally I think we assume that the ways of working are like, okay here’s a video and we need to engineer a sound for it, but how is it working in the inverse, like making videos for sound? What is the dialogue that you’re having, not only with yourself, but with the other artists that you’re collaborating with?
It’s a different process with different artists.
Like with Anna Thorvaldsdottir, a composer I worked with on my latest work, Enigma, it’s a very intuitive process. We almost don’t have to speak. I know her quite well and she knows my aesthetic, and vice versa and the outcome is somehow always interesting. We throw ideas back and forth for a while and then they start to take form.
A lot of your work is time-based and in tandem, it seems that the relationships you’re cultivating with your collaborators also work on this scale. Do you feel like the collaborations themselves are also like time-based projects?
In a way, yes. Some of these projects are unique and created in the moment, while others have evolved further and manifested themselves into longer partnerships. But it can be said that the works themselves take care of how they develop, whether they grow or not. If that happens, it’s always a pleasure.
Right and inherently there is a level of intuition that comes with relationships that allows for a deeper level of empathy and perceptiveness that becomes activated through collaboration. What do you think is the connection between creativity and intuition and to what extent are both tools for society?
I think the process of all artists is a combination of intuition and knowledge and it is important to trust it and follow it.
When I look at a piece, the experience engendered seems quite universal and that’s a rare thing because it signifies that you as the artist, have been able to trigger someone’s emotional response without knowing anything about their experiences or their personal narrative. It’s like the work is looking outwards somehow and sees us individually, is this your intent?
Thank you. Those are big words. My answer is maybe.
How do you know when a work is completed per se? Is it because you feel a certain way after you look at it or how do you know?
You never know. It’s usually defined by the moment when the piece goes away, you have to stop at one point. I like when the piece gains its own life somehow and starts to grow inside a space; when it becomes possible to play with the video in a performative way where its surroundings activate the video somehow and the reading of the work becomes completely different due to its placement.
Locations are so interesting for you. You’ve done exhibitions in a morgue and church and when you take your pieces out of these settings and into a museum for instance, how do you think that changes the piece? Is its intent or means of communication ever impacted in a negative way?
I am very inspired by the space I work in each time. So very often the environment influences my work.
Fuser was deeply influenced by the old chapel in Hafnarfjörður which I found when I worked a project for ASÍ Art Museum in Iceland and later the work was also screened in an old barn in a farm in the North of Iceland. Even though it was created in a chapel it works well within a gallery, so that’s not to say that even if a work can be created and inspired from a house or a raw space, there’s always a new layer that is added to it when it enters a gallery or even a museum.
Do you think you lose anything though when you take it into the museum space or a space other than what you created a piece in?
It can happen, but at the same time the focus on the work can become clearer, which sometimes makes it better.
Do you think a work should always be malleable? You’re actively having to change a piece that you thought was “complete” so is that exciting for you as an artist to have to rethink something that you thought was finished?
No, I don’t really change pieces after they ́ve been performed unless it ́s another score that I write for it. It can be interesting to reflect on an exhibition in two different locations and reshape it.
Do you consider your work to be accessible? Is this something that is important to you?
It’s hard for me to say. I’m rather in search of nuance or something that clicks rather than thinking too much about what happens when the work is ready. I guess it would be risky to think too much about how people receive the work. For me, it’s about taking on the journey of creating the piece and challenging myself in the process. It has to be risky somehow otherwise it would be boring. You have to take a risk and make the most of the ride, the rest is up to the receiver.
We think that people exist outside of their work as if it could be separated, but for you, do you think your work is a reflection of your inner psyche?
I guess it’s influenced by what I see and explore and what I choose to show to others and in that way, it’s very much so related to who I am. Some videos I create from images that I have imagined or an idea that comes from within but in other cases, I choose to show to others what has caught my attention. I guess art can have its own soul or psyche as well. It becomes its own character. My work is fuelled by my inner psyche without me being able to explain that further or analyze it. I’m not aware of how. Too much analyzation can kill the work, there has to be some mystique and some danger or risk you take along the way.
How does your work make you feel? How has it changed who you are?
I ́ve never thought about that. It’s more about expressing an idea in my mind and finding the right form for it. I tend to be thinking and focusing on the next project rather than dwelling on the ones that have already been produced.
The names of your pieces are rather poetic. Ranging from the idea of a veil, connection, even a deathbed, are your titles meant to guide the viewer?
For me, the title is always a kind of trigger that possibly poetically expands the work.
Sigurður Guðjónsson is an Icelandic visual artist based in Reykjavík. Working with moving imagery and installations, his works carry carefully constructed synchronized soundscapes, and provide organic synergy between sound, vision, and space. His works often investigate man-made construction, machinery and the infrastructure of technical relics, in conjunction with natural elements, set within the form of complex loops and rhythmic schemes. His all-immersive multi-faceted compositions allow for the viewer to be engaged in a synaesthetic experience, that seems to extend one’s perceptual experience beyond new measures. Sigurður has often collaborated with musical composers, resulting in intricate work, allowing the visual compositions, to enchantingly merge with the musical ones in a single rhythmic and tonal whole. His newest work, Enigma (2019), is produced in partnership with Anna Thorvaldsdottir (composer) and comprises of a string quartet and video. Created for an immersive, full-dome theatre experience, Guðjonsson broadens a fragment seen through an electron microscope into an extensive 360-degree video, exploring scale, perception and the poetic notions of the-in-between. Recently on tour with four-time Grammy nominees, TheSpektralQuartet, it is due to be presented at The Adler Planetarium, IL, Carnegie Hall, NY, Kennedy Center, DC, The Reykjavík Arts Festival and among other exhibition places in 2020. In 2019, it was announced that Guðjónsson had been selected to represent Iceland at the 59th Venice Bienniale, to be held in 2022. The artist was awarded the 2018 Icelandic Art Prize as Visual Artist of the Year for his 2017 exhibition Inlight, which featured video installations set within the defunct St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hafnarfjörður, Iceland and commissioned by Listasafn ASÍ. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world, in such institutions as the National Gallery ofIceland, Reykjavik Art Museum, Scandinavia House, New York, BERG Contemporary, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany, Arario Gallery, Beijing, Liverpool Biennial, Tromsø Center for Contemporary Art, Norway, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, and Bergen Kunsthall Norway.
Credits
www.instagram.com/sigurdur_gudjonsson
www.sigurdurgudjonsson.net
Photos
Nostalgia knocks on D’Anthony Carlos’ front door with branlike knuckles. Memories materialize into wispy shapes and heavy eyelids flutter conjuring the fading, fluorescent pink lights reminiscent of discos past. Blink twice and the heavy strobes from sold-out shows and basement parties alike flash as he drifts in and out of jet-lag induced sleep still hours before dawn. The DMV (meaning places accessible in Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia by the metro) native is better known as the Grammy-nominated rapper, Goldlink. He’s home for a few days between touring with Tyler, The Creator on his US Igor tour and gearing up for his personal biggest tour to date of the European continent to promote the release of his newest album Diaspora, and he’s trying to recalibrate. Having become a household name in the hip hop industry having birthed sans uterus a genre of his own called “future bounce,” Goldlink splices thumping house, eyes-wide-open club and silky R&B, to create an auditory landscape solid enough for his hometown to call a foundation. An identity turned dance floor.
When Goldlink’s home, he doesn’t leave the house. Success becomes clear when he returns to standing in front of his bathroom mirror, where his reflection remembers and exhales on its own. If the shower’s running the steam gathers to spell out retribution. He’s come to understand the rest of the world by first understanding his city and considers comparison to be a fruitfully empathetic lens. The DMV’s rich culture is steeped in its “Chocolate City” roots, wrought by fables of the American Dream, gentrification and dancing feet that echo the drum snare. He strives to preserve the city’s original vibrance by coloring sound with feeling and you can bet that it evinces in shades of brown. Having grown up as a product of divorced parents in the District’s darkest years as the grim reaper plucked lives with outstretched hands and eyes closed, Goldlink turned to music as his forever sensei. Through it he’s been able to find the answers to the lingering questions of ‘why me?’ as his path is hand laced with perseverance. This unwavering dedication to his community has in turn grown to understanding that sometimes to love home, means having to leave it. Growth is not only an open wingspan, it is the flight itself, a reinvention without reincarnation.
Whether it’s from reading previous interviews or dissecting the verbal homages that live between the bars of your lyrics, it’s no surprise that home and the DMV, not only mean a lot to you but it’s a defining factor of your identity.
Home for me is the space that you’re most comfortable being in. A place that you can reset yourself you know. That’s really it, I’ve been a lot of places that feel like home but there’s no place like home really.
When you’re kind of talking about resetting yourself I think it’s this idea of like holding up the mirror per se. I don’t know if it’s this way for you, but for me and being from Hawaii, it’s going to my grandma’s house or something like that. What does resetting yourself look like?
Yeah it’s chopping it up with the homies, seeing my son, seeing my family, resetting in that. It is the mirror aspect you were talking about and being able to look at and see yourself clearly in that mirror. It also allows you to see all the things that you’ve been able to accomplish while you were away and it’s the perfect time to do that.
Right and I feel like it’s also this level of honesty that you’re forced to face and it causes you to question what your personal definitions of fulfillment and success are. For you, you’re an artist, a musician and pioneer per se but you’re also a father, a son, a friend. Have your definitions of success and fulfillment changed at all?
It hasn’t changed much. It’s changed a few times throughout the course of my career but it’s kind of stayed the same recently. I think it’s as simple as focusing on something, accomplishing that task and that’s generally what succeeding means to me. Success can be anything really, it doesn’t have a linear definition as in like, oh this is what it is. I feel like I’ve just set certain goals for myself, accomplished them and then reset new goals and then I try to accomplish those things next.
Right and it exists in tandem with a level of perseverance. In regards to your music you’re always striving to have people understand how you grew up, your home, things like that but where does this need to be understood come from?
Being understood is a basic human need because it’s what we need to be supported. I also know that there’s a balance to it. People won’t understand everything, let alone understand it right away so I never really look for the acceptance of understanding immediately depending on what it is that I want to do. When I released Diaspora, I understood that it would come with delayed gratification. I ask myself if what I’m doing serves a purpose immediately and then if it will continue to serve that purpose in time.
What do you what do you mean by delayed gratification?
I am much a delayed gratification person because I understand where music is going, I understand the trajectory of things and I make it a point to do a lot of research to remain ahead of my time. Sometimes you need to be ahead of your time to serve a purpose in the landscape of today. We need those unsung heroes and I try to be that as much as I can.
And with Diaspora too I feel like you know obviously At What Cost from 2017 was so much about home, life in the DMV, creating that sound and then with Diaspora it seemed like you were extending outwards. Was it more so about just taking the next step in your career?
Yeah, it felt like the next step. It was like I tried to find myself locally and then was able to travel internationally to understand myself and my home even better.
Yeah there’s something to be said about leaving home and what it does to your own understanding of yourself.
I mean I still haven’t left but I’m okay with leaving because you have to grow as a person. I don’t feel like people should stay somewhere if they feel like they can grow somewhere else but you just stay where you’re needed. I’m never going to leave home entirely and I’m not confined to the definition of what leaving is, there’s multiple definitions of what leaving can mean. If you really love your home, you have to leave it to make it better. If I left and go around the world and compare my home to things that are happening in other cultures to understand and get a better read of why my home works the way it does. You know in order for you to change something entirely, you have to understand it from an external point of view.
Right. What does growth mean to you and is it always synonymous with change?
Yes. Like in order for me to grow I have to change so I think change and growth are like the same thing, not always but they should be.
How are they different?
Growth and change? Well, in order to grow you have to change. In order to change, it doesn’t mean you have to grow. It’s not like backwards compatibility, it’s not like it works only one way.
Yeah but it’s interesting in conjunction thinking about this idea in tandem with the concept of diaspora and the array of experiences that both differ from and are similar to our own. What does diaspora mean to you?
To me now, it really just means that everybody and every community is experiencing the same social economic problems and are dealing with it in the same way but they’re just different things. That’s really what diaspora means and we’re very much connected. You might do a Harlem Shake but in Hawaii you call it something completely different thing and in DC, we’ve got our own version too but we can understand each other and empathize through our own lenses.
You’ve mentioned having to deal with survivor’s guilt and the inherent inequalities of the American Dream and now that you’re in the spotlight it must feel like it’s been magnified. I think it doesn’t really necessarily go away, maybe it changes but I think it sticks with you.
Yeah it just kind of changes. Instead of being weird about it and feeling guilty, that guilt grew into me doing something about it, whatever that may be. It’s asking yourself, “that’s how you feel, now what do you want to do about it?” My answer was that, I’m going out and trying to make it fair for kids like me to be able to find a place to make it feel like they’re a part of something.
“I want to create the necessary stepping stones to making sure that that guilt continues to transform into something positive really.”
This issue is obviously called the reinvention issue and I think it’s interesting to think about reinvention in relation to sacrifice.
Ultimately it just depends on what you’re trying to accomplish in everything because everything is some sort of sacrifice and we all make sacrifices. I sacrifice my time, often my social life, to make sure that I accomplish my goals. I don’t feel any guilt anymore, I felt it at the time, just because I felt like “Why me?” I found all the answers to those questions. So it’s like I don’t feel that anymore and it doesn’t make sense to feel that way anymore actually. If you want to succeed, you decide to make the necessary sacrifices to get to that goal and you keep working through that goal indefinitely, and when you succeed where is the guilt? What is the guilt?
Right but it’s also perhaps also having to feel guilty for your success sometimes right?
Right, it’s just knowing that I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do to succeed. I knew what I wanted. I went to go get it by any means necessary and I worked really hard. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink, I’m not fucking, I’m just working and trying to be great. But what happens? You succeed at writing poems.
I felt guilty because it was so surreal, I’m going back to the community, writing the song, but why me? Why me? I have to tell myself it’s because you fucking tried and you cared. You did everything right. So you just succeeded.
Yeah. And I know you also talked about this whole idea of taking the slow road versus the fast road.
“Reinvention takes time but in a world of instant gratification we don’t give ourselves the time to process things.”
A lot of great people take the slow road. It’s just that algorithm of life, greatness takes time. Nothing and I mean nothing in the world comes fast and works forever. I don’t care what, who, and how you are, it’s never going to work. Things need to balance and things need a base. When you go too fast, you’ll miss it all. You’ll miss the hard part of things. You’ll miss the important thing that create sustainability. That’s why you can’t just be the greatest pianist overnight. You don’t know what it feels like to not be great. You don’t know what it feels like to lose. You don’t know what it feels like. Or, Steve Jobs is a perfect example of that, people like Jay-Z and Kanye West are good examples of people who take their time, every time they did something it felt like it was the first time but then when you look up it’s been 20, 30, 40 years, they take their time to learn something new. To continue to grow is a hard thing to do. There are certain things you can’t cheat, the universe you can’t cheat. If you think of anything that’s worked immediately, it never works forever, ever. It’s like a rule of thumb. I just always make sure that I’ll take the right road.
I think the misconception about me is that I could have blown up a really long time ago but I didn’t because that’s not what I wanted to do. It’s not that I can’t get on a track with Beyonce — granted that’s a hard thing to do. But it’s just like how am I going to enjoy being on Beyonce’s song if I’m one or two tapes in? That’s not smart. Beyonce has been making it for 25 years and that’s because she’s doing something right consistently and it still feels like she hasn’t dropped the biggest album of her career because she continues to grow, it’s amazing to see. It only feels like she can only get better. So that’s why a lot of the greatest people told me to take your time, so I take my time.
Yeah. And I’m wondering do we go through multiple reinventions or just one turn of the tide?
You go through multiple reinventions throughout your career, you can reinvent yourself as many times you want as long as you decide to grow. You’re not going to be the same person as you were when you’re 20, you’re going to be different when you’re 25, 32, you should decide when to be different, to reinvent. It’s nothing changing. It’s just adapting.
Team
Photography · BRENT CHUA
Creative Direction · NIMA HABIBZADEH and JADE REMOVILLE
Fashion · LUCAS CROWLEY
Grooming · MARCO CASTRO
Interview · LINDSEY OKUBO
Designers
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS — In my work and especially during the creation of my long-term Imag[in]ing America Project, I have often focused on a sense of isolation found within contemporary American society, lately that isolation has taken on an even more somber tone.
So this series of images newly rediscovered and edited from my archive was created with that in mind.
In response to, in the absence of, and in anticipation toward change.
Jennifer Garza-Cuen is an artist from the Pacific Northwest. Currently Assistant Professor of Photography in the Department of Art+Design at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, she received her MFA in photography and MA in the History of Art and Visual Culture with honors from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her BA summa cum laude in comparative literature was completed at the American University in Cairo. Garza-Cuen is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for Photography. Additionally, she has received awards and fellowships to attend residencies at The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Light Work, Ucross, Oxbow, Hambidge, Brush Creek, and the Vermont Studio Center. Public collections include Light Work, The Do Good Fund, the New Mexico History Museum and The Rhode Island School of Design. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and published in contemporary photographic journals such as Contact Sheet, Musée, Blink, PDN, Der Greif, The Photo Review, and Conveyor as well as on-line journals such as i-D, Feature Shoot, Aint-Bad, Fubiz, iGNANT, Dazed, and Juxtapoz.
Credits
Photography · JENNIFER GARZA-CUEN
www.instagram.com/deadpanphotography
www.garza-cuen.com
Photos
