"Sympathy for the Devil"

interview with Jerome Sans, Tema Celeste 92, August 2002

JS: You have become very successful in the last 5 years with your very powerful and violent installations. You recently affirmed the de visu of a new direction in your work . Why and where are you going ?

KG: Last year in June whilst I was installing my piece Truth or Dare (Jan Hoet) for Sonsbeek I suddenly fell very ill for no apparent reason. One morning, I was simply unable to wake up, to even complete my work or attend the opening and have lunch with the queen of Holland. I was delirious and slowly made my way back "home" to London where the doctors were unable to diagnose the cause of the illness. I now put it down to an Art Sickness because, in between my dementia and hallucinations, I realised that what had caused the collapse was really a loss of faith in a system that I had, up until that moment been living for. Whilst I had always taken the system with a pinch of salt and made the difference between Art and the System that surrounds it, I had still somehow managed to lose my way.

I think it was the painful realisation that success or failure in the art system does not really have anything to do with what you make or your belief system but that its rather about whom you charm or dont offend and how many business cards you hand out at the Venice Biennial. I also came to the painful realisation that art had become spiritually bankrupt and had absolutely no relevance to the world I was living in. Visiting exhibitions has become as boring as it is tedious. I have spent most of my time since researching the signs and symbols that predate the stupidity of twentieth century art and return to a conception of art as something that can make a difference to the way the world functions.

JS: What do you think the essential difference is?

KG: Even though many people now think of Clement Greenburg as a joke his legacy is as strong as ever. His influence runs very deep even if it is in ways that are probably making him roll in his grave. Twentieth century art differs from that of any other century in that we have become obsessed with the material and visual aspects of art, at the cost of everything else. Previously colour, form and material support was a means to an end and all the elements had symbolic meaning and signification beyond the physical. In a classical structure like Chartes Cathedral for instance every number, letter, sign, symbol, shape, pattern or design has a meaning. I do believe that these meanings function both on a conscious level for those who are able to decode them and on a subliminal level for the rest. I have always been interested in what makes us human - pain, love, fear, guilt, desire and so forth but now I am searching for that which helps us be more than human, to make a difference beyond the ordinary, a search for the spiritual without losing your way in the sentimental.

JS: Do you think that this new concern will be clearly visible in your Sympathy for the Devil exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo ?

KG: Yes and no. Its not a material shift or even a drastic change of style. What has changed is the way I conceive of art and the logic behind the production of my work. I do think that it will be clear from the outset that something has shifted for the show is a lot more subtle and certainly more poetic and definitely more spiritual than anything I have ever exhibited before. But you are going to have to look beyond the obvious to understand that. On the other hand its still me and I am still working from my life's experience to create my work so there will still be a lot that links this project with the earlier work.

JS: Why a search for something more spiritual ? It sounds like Malrauxs idea that "the 20th century will be spiritual or not" and the body and the mind must be on the same track.

KG: Its very French to look for a French theory behind every idea. After my collapse I spent a lot of time in the National Museum in London and especially with the work of artists like Jan van Eyck , Lucas Cranach and Bosch. When I speak of spiritual its certainly not some hippie idea of "free love" or even anything vaguely religious. By spiritual I mean a belief system that extends beyond the physical and even beyond our conception of reality. My understanding of the spiritual has more in common with Edmund Burke's concept of "the sublime" than anything from the Malraux's mouth. Even though his thesis was written in 1757 it remains one of the most powerful and dangerous theories of art, which is probably why so few people have even heard of him. It is something like experiencing a feeling of intense and uncontrollable vertigo just by thinking about the possibilities and potential of art. Yes sure the body and the mind should be on the same track I truly believe that our politics constantly manifests and reproduces itself in our quotidian actions.

JS: Why the reference in the title to the Rolling Stone album ?

KG: I am very happy that you asked that question because it is very specific - my titles always are and so few people seem to notice. Sympathy for the Devil completes a cycle that began earlier pieces like "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" and "Speak of the Devil" The title is not only a Rolling Stones Album but it also the title of a Jean-Luc Godard film from 1968. In French it was called "One Plus One" but for the American audience the title was changed. Its a film about the spirit and importance of Revolution, about the tradition of radicalism in the arts, the faith in the ability to change the world with art and culture. It now seems awfully idealistic and romantic to even imagine that people once believed that but I think that we have since replaced it with an awful cynicism that is for me unworkable. It also makes a connection to the site because Godard used to have his film school and studios in the Palais de Tokyo.

JS: Do you consider yourself a political artist ?

KG: I have always tried to create works that are complex in ways that demand of the viewer to assume a position in relation to it. Its always important for me that the viewer accept responsibility for their presence in the work as much as the gallery and curator have accepted responsibility for their collaboration in the process. You are free to walk away but if you decide to enter the work, physically or otherwise, then you should accept the consequences for the decision for I conceive of art as an active process rather than something passive. In this way the positioning that takes place is political or emotional or psychological and makes the participant conscious of themselves and the process of constructing value and meaning. I hate so-called political art where the artist has made a moral judgement and prepackaged their propagandist opinion. Its very arrogant for artists to think that their political position is superior to anybody elses and then still to be paid large sums of money for the objects that announce that position. Advertising who they voted for does not make an artist or their work political, for everybody votes and in that way artists are just like everybody else.

JS: But you cannot deny that there is a strong political aspect to many of your works&..

KG: The kind of politics that interest me are the daily decisions that we make, the quotidian. What you decide to eat, wear, who you will have sex with, how and where, with a condom or without, what music or film you will watch or listen to, these are all quotidian decisions that embody and inscribe our politics revealing who you really are. Making those processes complicated is an inconvenience that becomes a portrait of your true political being. The bourgeoisie hates anything out from the ordinary or different from the comfort zone and so will be repelled by and reject any art that invites them to get out from Matisse's sofa and accept responsibility for their privilege.

JS: What is your relationship to the quotidian ?

KG: I have always tried to work with the concept and strategy of recycling objects, images, texts and such from the quotidian into the realm of art. I am curious about what happens when you try to translate the untranslatable aspects of colloquial culture into high art. The brash rawness of toilet humour or drunkard politically incorrect jokes, pornography, horror and B-grade films and childrens games are extremely difficult to assimilate into the cold detached an-aesthetics of art. The parochial is the anti-universal and the contrary of internationalism and thus I feel very much at home in that space. Its what makes me an individual and different from something detourned by Nike or Diesels globalist agenda.

JS: Your book My Tongue In Your Cheek makes a strong point in its lack of translations. What was the intention of the book and what do you mean by this title ?

KG: My Tongue In Your Cheek is a title that cannot be translated into French or German or in fact cannot function in any other language than English. The references are too specific and are lost in the translation. For the same reason the texts in the book itself are going to remain in their original English, French and German. I am interested in the edges of language as I am interested in the limits of experience, for I believe them to have a very close relationship. What cannot be described or imprisoned in language cannot be conceived of. In my work I have always sought to conjure an emotion or an experience that cannot be described - the unsayable, unmentionable, untranslatable. "My tongue in my Cheek" is an expression in English that denotes a sense of self conscious irony or a playful deceptiveness or even a nihilistic black humour. It was also the title of a Duchamp work. The inversion into your cheek, makes the irony more erotic, more violent, more or a dialogue with my viewer, an invitation to be implicated.

JS: Do you think that the book will give the reader a better insight into the complexity of the way you conceive of your world ?

KG: Yes the book covers my work and thinking from the past 15 years and I am hoping that it will make sense of my journey and help the reader better understand my conception of art. I know that my work confuses many people because I have very consciously avoided the trap of making work in a single style or material. I have tried to avoid the franchise idea of art where you get known for one particular piece that you then spend the rest of your life re-making in small, medium, large and bronze versions. My work is tied together by a thought process and a psychology rather than a style and this book will I hope make that very clear.

JS: Do you consider that book as a retrospective of your work ?

KG: I certainly do not because I hope that my language is still very much alive and still developing. The structure of the book is not chronological but visual. Every image leads into the next image and every theme influences the proceeding theme as it was influenced by the preceding theme. As a result there are often 10 years difference between the images juxtaposed. I tried to follow the logic of a comic book or graphic novel in developing the structure so that even if you do not read the texts you will see be able to decode a great deal by simply flipping through the pages. It does not matter if you begin at the end or the beginning because the last image precedes the first and vice versa.

JS: With a title like My Tongue In Your Cheek do you thus affirm that violence remains at the heart of your work ?

KG: I still believe in the conclusions of activists like Baader Meinhof, Nelson Mandela, Franz Fanon and Malcolm X that the only way to effectively change the way things are is through violence. Moreover the act of creation is by definition an act of destruction. Even in a classical painting context the paint on the canvas destroys the beautiful virginal white potential of the canvas. Yes violence remains within my thinking process but the violence is less nihilistic now and more sensual. Its an erotic violence that affirms one's existence through methods of provocative transgression.

JS: How do you think an artist can be more effective today?

KG: I fully accept and acknowledge that the notion of Genius, the historical Avant Garde and even language itself has historically been prejudiced and is Euro-centric and laced with sexism, classism and racism. But I think that we swallowed the hook, line and sinker of French theory and threw the baby out with the bath water. When its good art should be a catalyst that starts a chain reaction in the imagination of the viewer and at its most extreme even changes the way that you understand your world. I am now convinced that artists have become lazy and lost their way, forgotten the keys that can be used to unlock these chain reactions. In the past 2 decades as art has embraced all that awful theory, it has lost its soul in the process and at the same time become overly professionalised.

JS: I do agree that in the past two decades art has become more a professional world than an engaged field and political and social issues has gone out of vocabulary. Why such an disengagement ?

KG: When I visit the Basel art fair for instance its clear that artists are being lured by large sums of money to behave more like the bourgeoisie and less like the dangerous animals of Platos Republic. Moreover advances in travel and the proliferation of the internet and email now means that its easier for curators to maintain contact with each other and thus compare notes. This translates into a very very small little system being influenced by the tastes and fears of a very tiny number of powerful individuals with leadership qualities. There is definitely the sense today that we are all trying so hard not to offend somebody or get caught exhibiting something vaguely offensive that its safer to exhibit something banal than be asked to take a position and accept responsibility for your actions.

JS: Do you think artists are different in that sense from curators ?

KG: We too are guilty for we seem to spend more time and energy today making decisions about being over-exposed, under-exposed, who to be seen with, not seen with, which curator to not offend, have dinner with and network with than actually making art. Its clear that the art world descends on Kassel or Venice not to look at art as much as to network and get the list of names. This professionalisation of the industry is compounded by the fact that we no longer really fear anything - Western culture has lost the fear of death, fear of disease, fear of war, fear of everything including the fear of God. The 11 September may have changed that for suddenly many people were made aware of the fragility of their world and how easy it is to die. I dont think that its a coincidence that since then many artists and curators are now looking for something more substantial from art than decorative escape and D€$IGN€R DI$$€NT.

JS: How do you consider big art events like the Dokumenta in which you participate ?

KG: I try not to think about such things for rarely do they have anything to do with what I make. At their worst they are really just occupational hazards but they can also be great opportunities to test out new theories or new directions, a moment in which discussion and debate with ones colleagues can sharpen your work and thinking. I do not under estimate the strength and need for the critical mass of contemporary art thinkers but sadly its more often than not just an excuse to party.

JS: You seem to have stopped making video installations. Is it because that recently became academic?

KG: Indeed I am giving video a break because it has become the new Academia and you cannot see the pixel for the monitor any more. I have never thought of myself as a video artist and always understood the video image to be just one element in my work and equal to the scaffolding, cables, construction, volume, space or sound. Anyhow I was never really drawn to video as much as to the sound element that I was able to use within the video context. It is a way of contaminating the white cube with something that cannot be controlled or contained for the sound always leaks out. (and inevitably gets me into a lot of trouble) But there are also other ways of working with sound like in Shooting Gallery, my piece for Dokumenta and which you first exhibited on the Taipei Biennale. There the sound is made by placing a live microphone inside a slide projector and amplifying the sounds made by the slides changing over.

JS: What is your attraction to the analogue ?

KG: The more high tech and digital the world becomes the more I am drawn the analogue, the old fashioned electronica rife with its imperfections and flaws. Whenever I am standing in front of another virtuoso video loop or double projection I cannot help thinking about how far that aesthetic is from the realities of my body and experiences. Its reminds me of being anaesthetized. The basic pleasures of having a desiring body with all its odours and functions seem more appropriate within an analogue system than a perfect photo-shopped reality.

JS: For the Villa Medicis "Tutto Normale exhibition this summer you installed a huge neon sign outside with the word "BELIEVE" but where the middle 3 letters LIE were flashing in the direction of the Vatican. Are you making a point about all the lies the Vatican is currently facing ?.

KG: Like organised art, there is something truly repulsive about organised religion. Yes my piece BE-LIE-VE is about the lies of the Vatican. But its also about me because all my work begins from myself. I cannot conceive of myself outside of language and outside the moral and ideological structures that predate my coming into the world. I can try to find my way through the labyrinth but its very difficult to see over the top. As much as I have problems with the Vatican I can also see how their influence on the world has translated into an influence within the private domain of my own life and that makes me culpable too. Every belief system has myths built in that are in fact lies but without which the same belief would be impossible. The problem is that we are all entrapped within the prisonhouse of language and that by definition is a lie for pure faith or pure belief should lie (sic) outside of language. Its a bit like the zen idea of listening to the sound of one hand clapping - its impossible to have faith outside language as much as it is impossible to have faith inscribed within it.

JS: For Tutto Normale and for your solo exhibition Mondo Kane you are working under a different name, that of K.O.lab. Why this different persona ?

KG: K.O.lab is a parallel project that specifically deals with language in the form of the text. Its a laboratory of the word thats open to all kinds of experimentation and abuse. It can also be collaborative and in theory need not even include me. The alter ego gives me freedom to do things that are not possible as Kendell Geers.

JS: Originally from South Africa, your life has been very nomadic for the past few years but recently you have decided to settle down in Bruxelles. Is that connected to the changes in your work and thinking ?

KG: I will always be a nomad for as long as my thought processes remain fluid. I decided to settle down in Brussels because I was drawn to the chaos of the city, to the fact that it too remains fluid and confused. Brussels does not seem to know if it wants to be part of France or part of Holland or a suburb of Brazzaville. Perhaps thats why the European Union decided to place their parliament there. More than anything else its a good city for me because its only a few hours away from London, Paris, Koln, Amsterdam and so its very easy to leave and thus escape is inevitable. More than anything else its the most Euro-African city I have found outside of South Africa so I feel at home.

JS: What is your relation today with South Africa , since you have been seen as a white contemporary South African artist dealing with the violence of his everyday culture ?

KG: I was at a conference in Helsinki just after the 11 September and of course the discussion focused on that event. Afterwards Isaac Julian told me that he understood my work so much better as a result. I think that he is not alone in that understanding because the (art) world now realises that the problem of violence, political or otherwise, is not unique to South Africa. Sure my experiences there influence what I make but it was more my understanding of what the human being is capable of that is the starting point of many works. There is a point where every one of us can become Joseph Conrads Kurtz or a Idi Amin or Fidel Castro. What makes a perfectly normal middle class school kid wake up one morning and shoot all his class mates? The question is at what point will YOU make the shift, why and for how long ?

JS: You must be influenced by the fact that Johannesburg, the city where you were born and lived most of your life, is now the most violent city in the world ?

KG: I have used violence in my work because I have thought of it as a valid strategy in displacing the passivity of the experience of art and as an effective way to engage in a discussion with my viewer about the limits of the languages of art and in the process, I hope, expose its self congratulatory pseudo-liberalism. The violence in my work is never gratuitous or indulgent but rather a means to an end. Its the very same sort of erotic violence you find in any classical painting of the crucified Christ or the "Slaughter of the Innocents" or even a Memento Mori still-life.

JS: What relation do you now have with South Africa ?

KG: I am not a nationalist and I have never made a single work of art about South Africa. I have only ever used my personal experiences in that context to inform what I make and to complicate the question of art. Europe has its dark sides and its extreme violence too, only its usually hidden in the suburbs and never quite makes it into the newspapers. To locate the violence within the South African context alone is an easy way out and a refusal to look at whats really happening in the world in places like Palestine, Afghanistan, the outskirts of Paris or the Bronx. My relation to South Africa today is that of self imposed exile. I have huge problems with the attitude of my president to the subject of Aids as well as his policies (or lack thereof) on Zimbabwe. But more than anything else he has made it impossible for me to live in South Africa as an artist.