The following text constitutes the foreword to my upcoming book An Art Apart. It’s been a long and winding road through different media but now it’s all on course and quite soon docking in the harbour of your mind (I hope).
An Art Apart
In early 2013, I was sitting in a hotel room in Tallinn, Estonia, staring at an insanely ugly orange coloured wall. I was there to supervise the printing of an art book, feeling quite miserable. The book didn’t interest me at all and yet I had promised to deal with it. The printing, of course, did not go well. What to do? Dive into escapism, of course! Any excuse I could find to distract myself was more than welcome. The closest thing at hand was a small point and shoot camera that I’d borrowed from my daughter. Ugly wallpaper, ugly fridge, ugly bed, snap, snap, snap… After that, I was so bored I decided to try and shoot some video of myself. Boredom-infused narcissism! After a moment of hesitation and embarrassing silence I started talking straight into the camera, as if it were a very small TV crew. The words that suddenly came out of me were those of a host or reporter talking about art. Not any kind of postmodern bullshit, like the images of the book I was there to supervise. But rather soulful, intelligent art created by exciting, radical and groundbreaking people. I stopped and played it back, realising I sounded like some kind of enthusiastic Richard Attenborough of the underground. I genuinely hated my voice but started loving the concept.
That moment became an epiphany that immediately got hold of me on deep levels. I’d previously written so much for magazines, papers and books but the print market seemed ever dwindling by the day. So why not use a video camera instead and go for it again? That is, just meeting interesting people, letting them tell their own story on their own terms and see what comes out of it. I realised I was on to a new obsession and immediately started making notes about whom to contact.
My best friend Henrik Møll was as enthusiastic as me about it, and luckily he worked as an editor for television and film. Supported by his technical expertise, I ventured into a frenzied state of mind and just shot, shot, and shot material in Sweden, Norway, the US and the UK. After dealing with close artist friends first, I drifted into unknown territories with new acquaintances. Suddenly I was up to ten shot films, and tried to define the project as such:
“Some artists create groundbreaking, radical, provoking, transcending, transgressing, mutating works of art that continuously change the culture we live in. What goes on in their minds? What motivates them? And why do they create in the first place? An Art Apart is a series of documentary portraits of artists whose creations and concepts have inspired thousands of people worldwide – who in turn take the ideas further and into new environments. An Art Apart examines these artists’ creative processes, emotions and stories in intimate and revealing conversations. From the most esoteric underground expressions to the mainstream culture we all share, An Art Apart shines the light on what art really is – or can be.”
As we were about to start editing the first film, Henrik died. That was a big blow. Not only because of the fact that he was my best friend, but also because he had all the knowledge I lacked as a pathological technophobe. I was very close to abandoning the entire project when mutual friends talked me into continuing. One of them being the very first interviewee in the series, British artist Andrew McKenzie. At Henrik’s funeral in Copenhagen in August of 2014 I promised the assembled folks that each film would be dedicated to his loving memory.
Andrew has skills. A lot of them. Thank God. So we just daringly jumped into editing and trying to figure out how to actually go about making documentaries. And then, one by one, the films started appearing. During 2015 I was Sweden’s most productive filmmaker, with five documentaries, one art film (a tribute to experimental British filmmaker Derek Jarman) and one feature length psychological thriller under the belt. Some extra manic energy, support from the film gods and a devoted team of two can definitely get you a long way.
Then came that dreaded moment in time and space that most creative people don’t really like to think about: selling the product. I have always evaded and avoided this and did so again with these films. So much incredibly boring work to deal with. Not for me, no thanks. Although some of the films probably have real potential, I instead retracted to the safe haven of pen and paper (costs nothing, great joy, solitude, no technical gobbledegook). After a full circle jam-packed with cinematic hubris and many adventures in art-land I was back at square one: poor and in debt, slightly disgruntled but basically quite happy that I had at least tried it.
That was the short story of why this book exists. The films I actually finished have had very little outreach, and yet the minds and material of all these people I’ve met are so inspiring I feel they just have to be out there in tangible form. Now they are, and the concoctions are still dedicated to the loving memory of Henrik Møll.
Carl Abrahamsson, Stockholm, 2017
Featured artists: Andrew McKenzie/The Hafler Trio, Vicki Bennett/People Like Us, Charles Gatewood, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Gustaf Broms, Michael Gira, Kenneth Anger, Angela Edwards, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, John Duncan, MV Carbon, Mark McCloud, Val Denham, Joe Coleman, Stelarc, Alison Blickle and Gea Philes. This book is due out in the spring of 2018.
