Fotografía: Reportaje Viviane Sassen

19.10.18. THROUGH A LENS, BRIGHTLY
Dutch photographer Viviane Sassen on Africa, Escher, death, and her strict no-heroes policy

Striking a deep chord with her captivating, hyperstylized imagery of Africa, Dutch photographer Viviane Sassen also snaps her signature pics for the likes of designer Christian Wijnants, FrameV. "Living statues, labyrinths, and Escher" are the photographer's current inspiration, all of which makes for a style that's graphic, boldly colored, and a little bit surreal. With a brand new baby and an upcoming book, as well as an exhibition to launch in the major cities from this month, Sassen keeps her vibrant outlook poppin'. Kaira van Wijk

1. What are you working on right now?
A photo report for the artist Grcic who is known for his futuristic furniture. Quite the autonomous project which is always interesting. I also have my book coming out, as well as exhibitions in Amsterdam and Milan (possibly also London and Paris) that mainly feature my African work. The title is "Flamboya," which is a beautiful and very personal association to me. I lived in Africa as a kid and flamboya represents a tree growing in Kenya that produces these huge, orange flowers and smells incredible. Speaking of childhood, I just had my first baby.

2. What inspires you at the moment?
Living statues, labyrinths, Escher

3. How did you get into photography, was it always a dream of yours?
Not in that particular way, but I did always aspire to do something in art.

4. Which of your projects is your favorite or most personal and why?
My Africa work. Africa is a place so close to my heart. It fascinates me how vibrant the place is, how alive. There is so much energy. It's just much more intense: the smells, colors...it's like your senses instantly open up. And I love black skin, I think it's gorgeous. Those people, their radiance, and their body language—it's always been very special to me. As a youngster, when away from Africa, it felt like the real world was over there instead of in the place I was physically at. Now I wouldn't want to live there full time, but I am happy to visit often. Amsterdam and Africa make for the perfect balance.

5. How would you describe your style?
Graphic, although that might be too formal. Surrealistic, intuitive, and with a tendency to create confusion. I am interested in strong shapes and colors. I have always been attracted to a sort of graphic style. In Africa I thought the very harsh sun was something I should take advantage of. For most photographers it's horror. But I felt like, No, this is how it really is. In my photography you see a lot of transformed bodies, or faces that you can't really see. I like to create confusion and to make people to think. I also think this medium of photography doesn't really do justice to the subject that is presented. I mean, a photographed portrait doesn't say more than a portrait that's painted. In a photo you always see the vision of the photographer translated. It's not objective, it's tainted.

6. Who are your heroes?
Heroes, heroes. There are so many people I admire when it comes to photography or art, I wouldn't know where to start. I'd rather name 30 than 3. I guess I don't really believe in heroes in that sense.

7. What is your biggest fear?
Death. I have seen and experienced it so often, it feels like I moved through it. I guess it's also something you see in my work, or at least I hope so. You can approach it in a lot of ways, but I don't mean in a political or aesthetic way, more in a psychological sense. The transitory nature of it all, that time passes by, and there's no escape to it.

8. If you were to invite five people, either alive or dead, to a dinner party: who would they be?
My father, he passed away a while ago. But further, I don't really have 'heroes'. Of course there are people I'd like to meet, but not so specific. No, I would stick to my dad.

9. Biggest compliment to your art?
There was this one Jewish lady that thought my Africa pictures are so intriguing and that I represented African life in such a refreshing way. She felt it did justice to the country. I thought that was special, because she is from Africa. Not to mention: the talented writer Moses Isegawa liked my series so much that he offered to write for my upcoming book. That was quite the compliment.

10. Which picture you snapped recently took a lot of effort/got you in strange positions?
Well, working while I was 9 months pregnant, I was so nauseous. It doesn't really affect your creative process, the state of mind, but obviously it's more tricky.

11. What is your main drive, even if you're at a low point?
It happens to everyone who's in a creative process, to get stuck at some point. You don't always have that much energy or inspiration. When my dad died it felt like I was paralyzed, also artistically. But than I thought: I better create something that's bad than not create anything at all. It's about the action itself, to fully jump in again and establish something new.
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Photography Viviane Sassen

www.vivianesassen.com

Plástica: Dahn Vo

T ARTIST AND PROP MASTER DANH VO EXPLORES THE GRAND THEMES OF HISTORY AND RELIGION A highlight of this year’s Art Statements at Art Basel, the work of Danish-Vietnamese artist Danh Vo is currently on view at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, and at the European contemporary art fair Manifesta 7. Born in 1975, Vo, who currently resides in Berlin, draws from his personal history to create installations that oscillate between storytelling and pure testimony. He sat down with V before embarking on a trip to Asia, and told us about German strawberry fields, lusty silkworms, and the convenience of carry-on luggage. Simon Castets SIMON CASTETS While your installation for the Stedelijk makes use of an archival aesthetic, a sense of fiction also pervades the works. What part do facts play in your autobiographical narrative? DANH VO Narratives based on conventional logic bore me to death. I tend not to build clear narratives since I’m more focused on displaying (arti-)facts that disturb and interrupt linear storytelling. That’s the main reason for me not to be the producer or, you could even say “author,” of the stuff that I show. I prefer to choreograph and arrange pre-existing facts and objects that have an established history—their own lives and intentions—and use them to portray either biographical or political issues. I'm interested in displaying, not in creating any kind of fantasy or illusion. SC Still, your selection of facts and objects develops into a story, repeated in different forms over your latest exhibitions. DV Okay, I admit there is a narrative, but it's a narrative in the way of Shohei Imamura. It's about a protagonist you can't rely on. SC To which of his films would that most relate to? DV The Eel is a classic. A Man Vanishes maybe, but the one that really inspired me is Unholy Desire/Intentions of Murder, from 1964. It's about a woman in an abused marriage. One day she is home alone and a burglar breaks in with the intention of stealing money, but he ends up raping her. During the rape scene, she thinks back to the very moment that she discovered her sexuality. It's a flashback scene in which a silkworm crawls up her skirt; the situation gets interrupted by supposedly her mother or another woman. There is a perverted and highly sophisticated jump in the logic in between these scenes, something very Bataille or Genet, a message beyond logic, and it is amazing how this confused narration can trigger multiple emotions and new stories. SC Your installations reflect similarly striking contrasts, like the old sword next to the Nixon dress in Basel. DV I think that the overload of images today is not necessarily informative but often used as an opium for the masses—image dope, a soma to pamper, to comfort, to evoke instant emotions, and to silence. If we look at mainstream cinema today, it is used for people to blow their minds in a way. You select a film depending on your mood, not because you want to get enlightened or disturbed. If I were a director I would like to make movies that would make people freak out, get divorced, or quit their job. Film has such potential. But I'm not a filmmaker and maybe my installations are a modest compensation for that. SC Maybe they are props for a potential film. The recent ones seem to be all connected to a single chronicle. DV Yeah, I like the terms chronicle and props. I must admit that my work is strongly depending on certain existing narratives, even though I might disagree with them. SC Can you tell me more about the title of the Stedelijk exhibition, "Package Tour"? DV The “Package Tour” is something that I always had an awkward relation to. As a kid in Denmark all my classmates went with their parents on these all-inclusive tours over the holidays. But coming from a refugee family and belonging to the lower middle classes, my summer vacations would consist of visiting some family members in Hamburg and helping them pick strawberries in order to earn some fast money. They lived like characters in a Dardenne movie, surviving by peeling shrimp at home or working in strawberry fields. But actually, I remember these summers as being pleasant experiences because we could eat all the strawberries we wanted and we were in the countryside. The only problem was that I could not tell the same stories as my classmates when I returned home. So I just invented them. I heard stories about Mallorca and Ibiza but I had no real clue what my classmates’ holidays would be like. Of course later I realized that this kind of holiday isn’t exactly as magical and prestigious as I imagined them in my fantasies. SC Your recent installations explored a particular area of history. What about your upcoming projects? DV I go back and forth. My next project is about missionaries and Christianity. I'm very attracted to them. I feel a strange sympathy for their utopian beliefs; there is something very common in our approach. It's just that we have very different ideologies. I will show projects focusing on these topics at the Yokohama Triennale and the Busan Biennale. In Yokohama I am showing the saddle of the last missionary who traveled by horse in the central highlands of Vietnam, and in Busan I'm displaying this sculpture of Joseph from the 17th century, a very beautiful one made of oak, that we sliced up in six equal pieces, very precisely, so that the chopped up pieces fit into my carry-on luggage. Upon arrival at the exhibition venue, I will simply unzip my little trolley and unveil the sculpture. SC What prompted your decision to use a sculpture found in an antique store in Amsterdam? DV When I discovered the sculpture I immediately fell in love with it. I wanted to transform it one way or the other, and then Mia, who works for me, came up with the great idea of chopping it up and putting it in carry-on luggage. I think of the slicing up as a response to world history, to the dominance of western cultures. We have always brought these items around the world, and the exportation of religious relics is similar to the transport of art for today's international biennials and art fairs. I think it makes a lot of sense to put a piece as ancient as Joseph—a sculptural work made for the pilgrim roads—in a Samsonite carry-on and display it on another continent. Above: "Package Tour," installation view Artwork Danh Vo Courtesy Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

ARTE: Grillo Demo

From left: Marella's Jasmine Portrait, 2008; Bambino with Falling Jasmine, 2000; Marguerita, 2008

ARTIST GRILLO DEMO MAKES THE MAGIC LOOK EASY. ALL YOU NEED IS A LITTLE JASMINE

In Renaissance-era Tuscany, only Alessandro de’ Medici, the Duke of Florence, was allowed to grow jasmine. “The flower is an iconic pattern,” says artist Grillo Demo. “It is my discipline. It is my yoga in the morning. It is my daily vision. And it is an overwhelming presence in my garden.” Demo would have made a fine duke. The 52-year-old Argentinean, who now lives and works in Ibiza, made his name by painting jasmine petals onto found photographic portraits of the rich and famous, including Marella Agnelli, Elle MacPherson, and Margherita Missoni.

His current exhibit at Phillips de Pury in New York, Demo’s first major exhibition in the United States, features over 20 works, ranging from the expected flower-petal portraits to ceramic vases and tables produced with his longtime gallerist David Gill. Demo’s pronounced taste for the surreal translates into unexpected shapes. “I do not pretend to be a designer,” he says. “Everything comes from my diaries. I like spontaneity. As a kid in Argentina, I always had to create my own things.” It is an underlying need to create fanciful, dreamt-up environments that drives him, he explains. “Everyday is a wonder; osmosis is what I live by.”

Demo delights in life’s quirks and twists of fate. Asked about Bambino, one of the works presented in the de Pury exhibit, he launches into a typical story. “Everything I do comes together in a very unexpected way,” he says. “I found the original portrait for Bambino in a garbage can, and used it as an amulet. Then I blew it up and applied flowers to it. Then, when Madonna had just moved to London, she came into the gallery and bought three editions. She had no idea who I was. But Madonna and the child, the bambino—it was so perfect. My life is a miracle.” Simon Castets

Artwork Grillo Demo