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Between 2001 & 2005 my life was filled with all kinds of miseries. Mom died in 2001 of heart failure, my grandmother died of old age in 2005, my father died one month later (lung cancer) and then me and my girlfriend broke up. When strangers used to ask me what my art was about I would always say “Whatever is on my mind at the moment.” In those five years I had nothing but death and misery on my mind and I decided that if I wanted to take my art and myself seriously in the future I needed to address all that darkness.
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Von Zammla Mina Mannar & Ida – Jonas Ohlsson
Between 2001 & 2005 my life was filled with all kinds of miseries. Mom died in 2001 of heart failure, my grandmother died of old age in 2005, my father died one month later (lung cancer) and then me and my girlfriend broke up.
When strangers used to ask me what my art was about I would always say “Whatever is on my mind at the moment.” In those five years I had nothing but death and misery on my mind and I decided that if I wanted to take my art and myself seriously in the future I needed to address all that darkness.
I did an installation called Eeuwig Kind Vernedert Dood (Eternal Child Humiliates Death), based on the idea that, mathematically speaking, life triumphs over death. A lot of people die every year, but yet the mothers of this world still create even more babies. I was also dealing with questions surrounding art making in the face of death and the grand myths surrounding suffering in art.
One text that I had written on a wall said: “Misery doesn’t automatically lead to great art, otherwise everybody in Rwanda would be a great artist.” With all this gloom and doom, I felt I needed to call in some backup support, and I called in my leftover family and all my friends for help.
Together with my solo show, I curated a group show called "Von Zammla Mina Mannar & Ida." This show pretty much received its name from the Swedish 70s experimental folk music group Sammla Mammas Mannar (later renamed Von Zammla).
When I left Sweden for Holland in 1996 I left behind me a large network of friends working in the field of experimental, electronic music and art. Ten years later, everybody was still active and going strong.
It was time to introduce my Scandinavian friends to the Dutch art scene.
It was also time to do this since basically everything I do, I do (at least partly) to impress my friends (and also good-looking girls). So, it made sense for me to drown myself in this warm bath of friendly love with this show, and it similarly gave me the courage to tackle all the misery surrounding me.
With this in mind, if you want to make cool, honest art, make sure you surround yourself with cool, honest friends.
By working with friends, I also wanted to avoid some of the classical problems in curating, like the eternal friction between artists and curators. One point of irritation between curators and artists (from the artist’s point of view) is that curators can be about as faithful towards artists as the prostitutes in Amsterdam’s red light district are to their customers. By inviting friends that I have worked with over the last 20 years (in some cases), I avoided that dilemma.
I also surrounded myself with people that I admired and looked up to. These were artists that I could give total freedom to since there was total trust there. There was this great aesthetical understanding between us all, and so the music that was performed at the opening made the art look better and vice versa.
Another way to solve the curator vs. artist dilemma is by not choosing to be just one, but to be both. Since curators are basically DJs (selecting other people’s work) and artists/musicians are the ones making the work, if you combine the powers of both you have a lot more potential.
Curators vs. artists, what’s the difference? Usually curators have come to art through the letter, through reading and writing. Logic is important for them, it is basically an Apollonian attitude, not totally unlike Protestants and their relationship to the bible. Artists, on the other hand are more like Catholics. To them, the bible is less important.
They instead have a mystic, intuitive relationship towards faith, they love the virgin Mary and the blood of Jesus (wine), confessions, incense and myths.
Basically they love all the soft, juicy stuff. It is a more Dionysian attitude. Curators, on the other hand, are more free than artists to come up with themes and ideas for shows since they are not tied down to any oeuvre of their own. They are however less free when it comes to fulfilling their dreams since they are dependent on artists to execute their visions. So basically if the curator would sometimes act more as an artist and just do it themselves, then that problem would be solved.
The lesson that artist could learn from curators is that we don’t ALWAYS have to do everything ourselves. Say you have this certain feeling that you want to express but you realize that Picasso have already expressed it, and better than you ever could.
Then just take the Picasso painting and put it in the show (or a copy of it, if it’s hard to get a hold of the original). Learn from the DJs of this world, we don’t want to listen to your boring coverband version of Blue Monday on the dancefloor, we want New Order! And no we don’t need the studio master tape, a CD Rom version is good enough.
Anyways the show I curated was described as a “BIG Scandinavian grouphug” by Xander Karskens, curator of De Hallen in Haarlem (the real Haarlem in Holland). I think we managed to get a lot of warmth, energy, happiness, truth and intimacy into the show, and this is a formula I will stick to when it comes to curating. Surround yourself with inspirational soulmates and do both (curating and arting). Please check out all the artists, they are all great, weird and inspirational…Google them.
