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the technology changed, and suddenly everything was possible – it was a revolution
Liste Noire: I'll start with the Optical Vessels that you made during 80-90's, perfect examples of surfaces escaping their two-dimensionality. Can you tell us more about these early works? Why those classical geometric patterns and those particular vintage colours?
Karen Bennicke: I can explain with my statement from those days: “I am preoccupied with illusion. I am preoccupied with working with optical effects on surfaces and form. I am preoccupied with expanding the dimensions. I am preoccupied with getting my things and the space around them to flow imperceptibly into one other”. I wanted, and still want the mystery… I’m not too fond of clarity as such. I like the works to keep a secret that only becomes visible after a time. Everything shouldn’t be revealed. The hidden speaks its own language, and your imagination tricks you.vezi tot articolul
I don’t see the “patterns” as classical. I used the optical phenomenon for creating form and space.Sometimes I made small series of 3 to 4 pieces. I began with a completely flat surface, for instance a vessel - and ended up with a completely 3 dimensional form, like a sculpture –using exactly the same optical drawing. The matt colours/glazes are typical for my work in the 80`s. I had always dreamt of glazes with bright colours to use on stoneware, but until then it was impossible. You usually saw dark and heavy colours. But the technology changed, and suddenly everything was possible – it was a revolution. I used white stoneware clay together with the coloured glazes.
LN: I'll stick to color for a little while. Usually colour hides the texture and the natural shade of a material. It seems linked with emotions most of the time, and because of its urgency we notice it first. Where is the thin border when color and shape meet in a sculpture to convey an idea?
KB: The function of the colours is mainly to divide the surface into different fields - thus provoking an optical illusion to take place. The choice of colour has something to do with strengthening the visual poetry.
LN: You work mainly with ceramics (stoneware). Why? It feels like most of your works could have been done in any other material, like plastic for example. Why are you using ceramic?
KB: I get that question quite often, and I do use different materials – mainly when I work with public assignments. I have worked in plywood, iron, cast iron, aluminium, plaster and bronze. For me clay is a very patient material. It is soft, warm, changeable and gives the possibility for considering, until I decide the work to be ready for the fire.It is easy to use for sketching - it is possible to work in a very large scale, you can build houses with it, you can use all the colours in the world that you like, also not only ceramic-glazes, but ordinary paint. You can give thousands of variations to its surface and texture.The process is very important for me. I need to do everything myself in a long dialogue with the material, from the first sketch plan to the final result. Working in clay I am acquainted with my means … That’s why. But I admit - I sometimes dream of plastic too.
LN: You almost drove me to the next question. Many artists nowadays prefer not to “get their hands dirty” in the process of realizing a new work, be it sculpture or painting, and work with different craftsmen to help with production. Damien Hirst and his famous factory, is the first one that comes to mind. As an artist today, how important is to “get your hands dirty”?
KB: I don’t think it is important to ”get your hands dirty”; generally, it must be a matter of personal approach to the work, and maybe a question of generations.Being a craftsperson (I was trained as a potter) the knowledge about the material and the process, is an obvious part of the whole concept. For me it is very important to possess this knowledge, to be able to execute any idea that comes to me - the craft itself must never be an impediment. You must be able to do what you want to do!When some of my works have to be made in some material that I don’t know anything about, I participate in courses or contact specialists, just to see and feel how this special material reacts. That makes it easier for me to plan and make the models for the project.But there are thousandths of individual ways to approach art making… and no one is better than the other – as long as it ends up with good art.
LN: What is the role of the pedestal in sculpture? Did it change lately? How would sculpture look if pedestals wouldn’t exist? How do you work with gravity in your works?
KB: I don’t think there are any special roles for using pedestals. There are of course many ways to present a work – but it absolutely depends on what kind of work and what kind of situation, we are talking about.Most of the time the pedestal is made to lift up and support the form and message of the sculpture. But quite often you see the pedestal used as a part of the work (Brancusi). Even though you are in no doubt about the two parts – podium and object – the work will be read as a whole all the same. I have always dreamt of making floating sculptures - to cancel the gravitation so to speak. But my material is - in more than one way - earth bound.The Belgian artist Panamarenko which I admire a lot, is trying to make flying sculptures - very poetic and very funny too.
LN: What I find absolutely delicious in sculptures is the shiny glaze artists use on top and all over their objects. What’s glaze for sculpture?
KB: Glaze means a lot to a sculpture. The glaze can accentuate or support the form. The glaze can be smooth and caress the shape – you can’t keep your hands off the object, you simply have to touch. Or it can be rough, hard and scaly, underlining the story.But there is one main rule: by using shiny glazes the form and surface of the sculpture will be camouflaged (or at least partly interrupted) by reflections – the shape will not appear as distinct and sharp as when glazed with a matt glaze.
LN: Being born in Denmark, do you sense that there is a splash of “danishness” in your works?
KB: It is difficult to answer. Denmark has a long tradition of making ceramics, maybe because there is a lot of clay (earthenware) in our underground.Around 1930 a handful of young and powerful female ceramists appeared on the art-scene. They made their mark with a strict and simple idiom and understated decorations – as usual an understandable reaction against the former generation. This has influenced Danish ceramics for years, but times changes and new generations try again to put their own personal finger mark on the top of tradition.And now I come to the point: You will always, in your work, find marks of the tradition in which you were raised. But I think I am a European ceramist – inspired of what has happened in art, architecture and landscape architecture in our part of the world, within the last 100 years. And right now, when the internet has connected the whole world – everything comes closer to us and inspires our way of thinking and acting.The other Scandinavian countries don’t have a long tradition in ceramics making – they made beautiful glass instead. Nowadays they educate ceramists – but with a more international inspiration, as we do here in Denmark too.
LN: Please name few people that influenced you and describe how.
KB: After having worked with clay for 50 years, I have been inspired by many things. As I said before, I was trained as a potter – i learnt the craft, and was of course inspired by, and looked up to those powerful ladies of ceramics I just mentioned.Later on, in the late seventies, I participated in a course about the German group “Bauhaus”, at the University of Copenhagen, and there I found the key to myself and a more personal way of working with my art.I am deeply preoccupied with our time; I think it is the most interesting time on this earth – ever. We live in a period, where the visual expression – in good and bad - is a dominant factor. Because of the computer, it has in many cases changed the world completely. For my personal case I am deeply fascinated by the 3-D animated idiom used by the architects. It has really changed the traditional way of thinking and using form. It is now possible to create a line, a form, a building that you’ve never even dreamt about. Not I use such a program myself, but I try to analyse that idiom and adapt it to my own work and material – to my own personal way.There is a small bunch of artists that has inspired me. But there is one particular person I feel connected to artistically, and that is the British sculptor Richard Deacon. I think we share a common way in working and defining sculptural space. But looking back over all those years, I can see a red thread running through my whole production: the strict and simple idiom. The fascination of complexity in shape and simplicity in expression.
LN: If a young student would like to start working with clay what would be the first rule to know?
KB: I think the first and only rule or question must be: are you absolutely sure that you want to do this?
