| Catherine Y. Hsieh: How did you become a photographer? And how did you make the transition? Asger Carlsen: I have a background in newspaper. I was doing newspaper for a few years. I was doing crime stuff mostly. I started back in…’91; I can’t remember anymore. You know, up until 2000 I was working as a newspaper editor, and then I was freelancing, and then you know everyone knows the newspaper business is not in a healthy economy anymore, so work was less, so I was kind of done with it. I started working more and more for magazines. |
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Asger Carlsen, interviewed by Catherine Y. Hsieh
Catherine Y. Hsieh: How did you become a photographer? And how did you make the transition?
Asger Carlsen: I have a background in newspaper. I was doing newspaper for a few years. I was doing crime stuff mostly. I started back in…’91; I can’t remember anymore. You know, up until 2000 I was working as a newspaper editor, and then I was freelancing, and then you know everyone knows the newspaper business is not in a healthy economy anymore, so work was less, so I was kind of done with it. I started working more and more for magazines.
CH: Your work reminds me of Jeff Wall. Are you in any way influenced by him?
AC: Yeah. I like him more as an artist than a photographer. I like his ideas. I like this whole idea where this guy was locked in, you know, this picture where this guy is cleaning? He took this picture where he asked this guy to come in and started cleaning the floor or something and started shooting him, and “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe what I’m seeing.” So then he hired him for a whole month to do the same, and then after a month he said, “OK, now I believe him.” But I’m not really inspired by that.
CH: Right, then who are you influenced by?
AC: Um, I think Louise Bourgeois. I mean she likes to play around with reality and molds and shapes. It’s basically about being curious, curious about seeing stuff and experiencing moments. And I guess that you know, I’ve been having that feeling for a long time, but my Wrong project was more, it’s kind of realizing that reality is not enough for me. I need to see something more than just colors, but still has the same kind of voyeurism.
CH: What is you creative process?
AC: My creative process is pretty much working hard. Like trying over and over. I spend a lot of time on it and then I leave it. I’m not looking at it for a day or two. And then I get back to it.
CH: What kind of camera equipment do you use?
AC: I use all kinds of cameras, some of them digital, some of them not. It’s not about techniques at all as I see it. It’s sort of a destruction of my own aesthetics. It’s not about being a good photographer.
CH: So the O or the 0 (zero) series? Which is it?
AC: It doesn’t matter.
CH: OK. So this series and the Detour series are very color-saturated, and I was wondering why you would turn to black and white in the Wrong series?
AC: I was just tired of dealing with colors. Too much work in the retouching process. I was just tired of it, and I was doing these really strong manipulations of photography, so I wanted to make it more believable and not pretentious.
CH: When and how do you decide to do black and white or color, before or after the shoot?
AC: The first ones I did in 2006, and I actually did that in color. And I remember I worked on them for a week or something at like four images, and then I didn’t show them to anyone because I thought it was too “art.” I wasn’t ready for it. I just happened to have some time with my camera, playing around. So I actually didn’t show them to anyone until a year after. And I showed them to one of my friends and he said, “This is great.” So I didn’t really start to work on it before 2007. Besides I thought it was too “art,” too away from the photography I was doing at the time.
CH: So we see characters like Superman and Marilyn Monroe in the Detour series. Are you specifically looking for the American stereotypes or just documenting them?
AC: I had this whole thing about doing a road trip, so it was about that. It was more like an aesthetic exercise for me. But still it has some similarities to what I’m doing now. I like odd moments. I like this whole odd moments; I like to see. I like to look at people. Sometimes it gets me in trouble; I look too much. It gets me in trouble a lot.
CH: Are you commenting on society, contemporary culture, or consumer culture? Or are your works about the individual that you photograph?
AC: Neither. It’s just me. It entertains me. It feeds my curiosity. And that’s kind of what makes my day when I go around in the streets, and I see small stuff, and I see moments, and it’s difficult to explain what it is that you do sometimes. With my Wrong project, sometimes I’m almost doubting what I’m doing. It’s so different from what I’ve been doing in the past as a photographer. I mean, I’m almost pulling myself away from being a photographer.
CH: But you’re still using photography as a medium?
AC: That’s just because that’s the medium I’m most familiar with.
CH: Right. But you’re trying to do something different. So you’re pulling yourself away from photography with photography?
AC: My shots in the past have been more static, more designed, a lot more framed. This one is more of an aesthetic expression. It’s a lot more about photography, about being a good photographer. Some of the images can’t even be considered photography. You know, it’s too sloppy; there’s nothing to it. So in that sense, I feel like I’m destroying my own aesthetic a little, which is healthy; I enjoy it.
