On the Doorstep. A Conversation with Johannes
Gramm by Sabin Borş
The interview on Anti-Utopias 
Sabin Borș: Your photographic art is marked
by a constant reflection on self-definitions and the idea of identity. You
always get involved in this process, and you become the subject of your own
subjectivity. Why did you choose this approach?
Johannes Gramm: Not all of my works are of
such kind. But maybe nearly most of them are. The main reason for creating
images is the desire to know what something looks like.
Later on you can also start to think, talk or reflect upon it etc. But that’s
not the actual reason for doing it! In a world without fixed points in space or
time – physically, socially or politically – I’m the only constant, decisive
component I am able to base myself or focus on. Both these aspects are
essential for making pictures. Occasionally, it may be possible to trust
another centre. But this is only partly useful for pictorial action: We call it
love. And out of that you don’t create pictures but something infinitely more
wonderful!
Sabin Borș: Self portraits are not an ordinary construction,
since the constitution of the photographic subject involves the destitution of
the photographer’s own presence, observation, and representation. You are the
photographer and the subject of your photography at the same time. Do the
portraits coincide with the vision you had before taking the photograph? Are
you the same you pictured yourself to be, or is it another image of yourself?
Johannes Gramm: As someone who is working
with self portraits in a wide variety of forms, you often get suspected to be
an egocentric freak. Self-images (I am always careful with the term “portrait”,
because it describes just one kind of conjuring-trick – a fake) are
nothing but a bemused look into the mirror in the morning with either a smile
or shock.
But this view obtains a shape by the corresponding work of an artist. Now it
has become a designed game: A mise-en-scène
in a very general sense. That is why an image will never be a document. The
decision of how to compose my pictures is done before I actually gather the
components for it, stealing or discovering them.
The idea that a picture of someone or something might accurately depict
the person or object itself (at least in parts) as a clearly legible and
nameable image, is based upon the fairly naive idea that it is possible to
express yourself through a piece of art… But more than 50.000 years ago, we
have started developing languages exactly for this purpose. Pictures achieve
something else. Barnett Newman put it this way: Angels reveal not the glory of
God, but are the revelation of God’s glory, and images behave in a comparable
manner. Pictures are like angels- just without a God.
Sabin Borș: Your photography is a constant quest for
self-differences, self-errors, self-declinations, self-diversions, self-separations…
How many images can one subject have, and where does the subject lie – in the
difference instituted through photography, or in the absence that constantly
avoids the subject’s presence?
Johannes Gramm: Each image is a subject
itself. I think this is a slightly erroneous question but will try to
answer nonetheless: you do represent a subject as an object in your
thoughts. But it is a process: my self is just like a beloved landscape.
Images however offer the illusion that a form or an abidance in this steady
flow is possible. But they themselves are a process.
Sabin Borș: One of the most interesting aspects of your work
is that the body is always very pictographic. Where do you find the difference
between pictography and photography, and why did you choose the body as a
photographic subject?
Johannes Gramm: To start with, pictography
seemed to me very close to our language. Perhaps this assumption tempted me to
choose that subject? Photography is a technique which I can use among others.
It is not about its content, but a methodical choice. With the possibilities
that digital technique has to offer, my photos are often closer to a musical
composition than to “clean” photography… The annoying fact is that they are not
audible for musicians, not brushed-up enough for painters and not documental
enough for photographers. So they very often stand on the doorstep but
are not allowed in. These are technical difficulties, which I have to
fight here. In paintings of fine art, depicting the body or a person in a
specific situation is probably the most beautiful motif you can deal with. It
displays or tells so much, because we ourselves are human beings inhabiting
human bodies. We are what we are, and we look as we look, so it’s the perfect
and most beautiful occasion for: “What would it look like if…?”
Sabin Borș: Photography is supposed to unveil the evidential
nature of our presence. Many times, this presence is hidden from our own view.
Yet your art is never about the evidential. It speaks more about that which
deserts the evidence. How does this relate to your concept of art?
Johannes Gramm: The belief in the
authenticity of photography is still unbroken. It so often has to serve as the
idolized witness, even though we usually return to graphical representations
when it comes to important tasks such as building homes or finding
roads.
I love unbeatable evidence of existence, pictures, my friends, music,
lemon-flavoured ice cream, games, my family, tricks, clowns, butter noodles and
the sea… but the fact that I love them doesn’t necessarily mean I have to
“believe” in them. But my art is not about misleading the viewer, to rise above
them as a know-it-all. In any case, for me, the effect is less important
than satisfying their curiosity.
Sabin Borș: Would you say your photographies relate to
subjective expressions/states, or subjective acts? I sometimes see your images
as lost acts, missed chances, missed roles…
Johannes Gramm: I can’t tell. In the
manufacturing process that might not even matter. I guess that the “what, if…”
feels so incredibly similar to the “What would it look like, if…” and so that
is why this question comes up. And the images change according to preferences
(language, images, cooking etc).
Sabin Borș: There is a strong and profoundly personal approach
to the “attributes” of your subjects. In the Betteri series, the King, the Queen,
and the Jack reveal a multitude of facets and expressions. You explore every
reaction and try to understand the inner state of your subject…
Johannes Gramm: Yes, at least as far as the
outer appearance of this approach is concerned. It is tricky to show the
difference between a work of art that displays sympathy for the outer
circumstances and an artist who creates images and understands the circumstances
as a human being. As an example: A person thinks or acts in awareness of a
political state of affairs AND creates art that may or may not be politically
influenced.
Sabin Borș: A defining element in the Betteri series is that power and
strength are always wounded. How did you reach this vision, and how do you see
this outside your work?
Johannes Gramm: Power and strength combined
with responsibility make one vulnerable. But not every scar gives evidence of
strength and sense of responsibility! But this “being responsible for
something” can be a reason to lose out – sometimes even a whole arm. And how do
I conceive these ideas? All you need to do is to grow older and more
experienced.
Sabin Borș: How close does reality come to our ideals? How real
can our self-images become?
Johannes Gramm: I am convinced that all we
want is really possible – all what we opt for under will… An ideal that
is independent of the will is worthless to me and merely tolerable if at
all. Our self-image determines our reality and is shaped by it. But pictures
are always authentic, always reality because we create them!
It is difficult for me to answer questions about life with my pictures … I
think it is impossible.
Sabin Borș: You see the subject as playing out various scenes.
We play a role. We hide behind an imagistic mask. Do you see this as a role
play, or rather infinitely reflected images of ourselves? Do we come to
understand ourselves by playing this role, or do we get lost in the mirrored
reflections of ourselves?
Johannes Gramm: This is another question is
directed towards the pictures, but ventures clearly into the realm of my
private world. Every individual will find a different answer to the question in
order to evaluate his or her own personal masquerade, not really revealing any
more truth behind the masque. Masks can withhold or reveal the truth, depending
on how they are used. Masks in the world of art are wonderful though, which is
probably why I love clowns so much.
Sabin Borș: There are two more aspects I’d like to discuss
with you regarding your approach. One of them is the naive facial expressions
you involve. There is humor in your photography, yet it always points to
something critical, even tragic at times. How do you understand the relation
between humor and tragedy?
Johannes Gramm: Again it is a reference to
the great clowns: George Carl, Oleg Popov, Grock, Charlie Rivel, Don
Martino, Jango Edwards, etc.! Their kind of humor and comedy oscillates between
sadness and joy or pity and mockery. However, the clown can embody even terror,
as in Stephen King’s It.
The great fascination of both love and suspense is possible failure. Humor and
tragedy are based upon another and even justify each other. Humor, like love,
is a form of this triumph over failure, without the power to eradicate it
completely.
Sabin Borș: The other element, one that I’ve always found
fascinating in your photographic art, is the irony… Art reveals a certain irony
of the way we try to see or picture ourselves. What does irony mean for you?
Johannes Gramm: This question is indeed based
upon the last one. Irony is a rhetorical form and all forms are fundamental
elements of making art. This irony appears – a typical character trait of the
people from the region I grew up in – often to be in very close proximity to
cynicism. But we don’t need mockery in order to see or show something clearly.
A clown’s heart always carries a strong love, thus lending the necessary energy
to any particular form.
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