Interview with Hans Wingerden — Contemporary Art Curator Magazine

Your journey from photorealism to a more conceptual approach marks a significant transformation in your artistic paractice. Could you discribe the pivotal moments or influences that promted this shift? How do you reconcile the tension between technique and concept in your current works?

It seems rather significant, but the time lapse between the different art forms I have discussed and researched is evident. There is quite a bit of time between one and the other, as befits a thorough investigation. After graduating from the Academy, the most important period was focused on my development of the technical aspects within the photographic realist painting style. I succeeded, as evidenced by the award of one of the most important art prizes in the Netherlands, namely the Royal Subsidy in 1977. However, a few years later there was no longer any interest in the photographic realistic painting style. Moreover, in the eighties, one style of painting after another tumbled over each other. There was no stopping it. This state of affairs created a need on my part to investigate how I could approach my position in painting differently. To this end, I made a number of attempts to master different styles, from figuration, geometric abstraction to a free style, which I called 'Neither Language nor Sign', a form in which painting was developed by me to the extreme, without retaining any meaning. After this period I understood that it was an opportunity for me to subordinate every technique of painting with the aim of developing an expressiveness. In this way, everything suddenly came together to put every expression at the service of the message or meaning.

You’ve spoken about the lending of images and providing them with a new visual meanings through manipulation and context alienation. Can you elaborate on your process for selecting and transforming these images? How do you ensure that new context you provide resonates with contemporary audiences while maintaining artistic integrity?

The message, story or confrontation consists of images, referring to the social level of consciousness of contemporary humanity, but often in a kind of contradiction. In my view, my work aims to enter into a confrontation that is more social. To a large extent, humans are programmed and conditioned. Only the deeper unconscious layers show an elusive drive. To summarize that in a visual language, I consider it my mission. After all, everything has more or less already been painted, sculpted, filmed in an artistic sense or experienced as an environment. I am trivialising this a bit, because there are certainly exceptions to the rule. But walking through the art fairs, I still see a lot of repetitions in one way or another, as an addition to the existing ones. That does not mean that it has no value. I am not going to comment on that. A devaluation of the originality of a work of art is also inevitable because of the possibility of showing the work of art to an ever larger audience through the media. Then the cult value of the artistic image becomes more and more secularized and the representations of the substrate of its uniqueness become more indefinable (quote: 'On the Reproducibility of Art'). But personally, my research into originality has led me to a different form in which new or different layers of meaning can emerge. Sometimes topical, sometimes universal; Sometimes contextually alienating, sometimes penetrating. It may have taken a 'Ceci n'est pas un pipe' to understand the layering of meanings. But there can always be other forms of presenting a new vision, perhaps in a more complex form.

Throughout your career, you’ve incorporated various technologies, from neon lighting to electronics. How do you these elements enhance the thematic concerns of your work? Could you discuss a specific piece where technology played a crucial role in conveying your message?

Yes, I introduced electronics to create an attractive form, a contemporary concept that could generate new possibilities to give meaning to the visual form in a different way. A work that can be seen as one of the first of a number of these works is a work entitled: 'Still Victory', which shows the ancient symbol of freedom, the V-sign, but at the bottom of the neon letter releases the drops of blood as a penetrating meaning that freedom is actually an empty promise. The depiction also consists of a background of a newspaper photograph from the time of the 2nd Techen War, in which Grozny was completely destroyed, as a meaning-enhancing representation. In the same way, in other works, sometimes with old neon letters, which once adorned the facades of factory buildings and have been snatched from destruction, are used to give explicit form to a meaning.

You’ve experimented with diverse materials, including glass and neon, alongside traditional painting mediums. How do you decide which materials to use for a particular concept? What challenges have you faced in intergrating unconventional materials into your artwork?

The application of different materials is brought together by me. These correspond almost entirely to what is happening in my head, leaving the space open to allow spontaneous expressions. The creative process is a process of creation in which all kinds of means of expression are combined. The aforementioned layering is a part that is taken into account in order to sublimate the maximum, without compromising the visual aspects. By integrating the different starting points that relate to the image, the total concept can be discovered and composed.

Having excelled in both painting and photography, how do you navigate the conceptual and aesthetic differences between these two mediums? Do you view your photographic work as an extension of your paintings, or do they occupy distinct spaces in your oeuvre?

There is no need to find a solution between multiple disciplines. It doesn't bother me! It is true that the image shows other possibilities through photography, through a different form of looking, which also creates a direct form of presentation. The connecting factor is always the artist who allows his way of perceiving to be the determining option. Photography also has the possibility to work in series, to turn it into a project, with multiple images that use the same basic principles. In my other work, the project-based can be seen in a broader view. So photography runs more or less parallel to my other work. That’s why photography in other works are not away, because it’s intergrated very often in diferrent positions.

You’ve mentioned that travel impacts your photography significantly. How have your experiences abroad influenced your conceptual work? Are there specific locations or cultures that have notably shaped your artistic vision?

All impressions you gain as a visual artist have a certain impact. There are no specific observations that have made a significant contribution to my work. Some journeys in a certain period of time have shaped a growth in the way of looking and judging, in which people were often central at first. You can also speak of how you translate the processing of visual material through intellect. That is a general observation. Later, meanings have merged more into a trace, which have stimulated awareness of concepts and growth processes at the level of consciousness.

You consider postmodern style concepts outdated. How do you position your work in relation to contemporary art movements? What do you believe is the role of the artist in an era dominated by mass culture and digital reproduction?

Indeed, I believe that Art in the postmodern era shows that a certain degree of originality has been lost. I have already mentioned this in question 2. I also think I see some levelling off over time. I take into account that when my art practice began, the Avant-Garde was still decisive. I now mostly only see representatives of existing art forms, with relatively small individual differences. As a result, there have been hardly any style icons in the Postmodern era. I don't see that as a negative thing because the emphasis at the moment is more on personal imagination. The fact that postmodernism is used as a dividing line shows that a different period has emerged. In today's day and age, the 'personal' is considered the most important visual language. There is hardly any need for a broader form of art appreciation underneath this, perhaps also due to the fact that this is not so surprising due to the ever-increasing growth of the individual life idiom of man. Visual imagery in the social system is growing at a rapid pace, in many facets, which makes me wonder what future generations will have to do with Visual Visual Arts. That is, of course, decided in the future. But the role that the mass media has developed in society provides a latent form of interpretation, in my opinion. The artist will also have to detach himself from the bombardment of images in order to appeal to his own creativity.

In your conceptual work, you often divide the image into two parts to strengthen the wiping action and emphasize commentary. Could you discus show this technique serves as a critique or commentary on specific social or cultural issues?

For the last 20 years, I have allowed my painting to consist of two parts, because of the interesting opportunity to expand the conceptual nature, to enhance the expression of meaning and to emphasize the commentary or the critical commentary. The painterly means of expression also indicate other possibilities, which remain faithful to painting and also allow the conceptual preferences about painting to be packaged in an attractive visual language. This requires a different approach, which requires a different form of inspiration, because the technical treatment of dyes obviously requires a different approach.

After decades in art world, how do you perceive your legacy within contemporary art? What do you want future artists and critics to remember or learn from your body of work?

I don't attach much value to the visual legacy of my work so far. That is not to say that all my research has no meaning for me, but what my work leaves behind has no real value for me and does not provide a way of thinking in connection with my motives. Much of what is discussed in contemporary art expressions and picked up by art critics has to do with certain ideas that often seem to emphasize a general context, but from a broader point of view turns out to be just as subjective as they have ever been in other times. It therefore remains difficult to put the value of the art, which does not mean commercial value, in the right perspective. In art criticism, a lot of learning material was developed in the Avant-Garde era. Major exhibitions in our time by, for example, Anselm Kiefer or Ai Weiwei show that public acceptance needs a longer lead time and were initially determined by smaller curators before the major museums ventured into it. The mechanizations of the art world are rather subject to subjective standards of judgment, which are time-determining and which are basically quite far-reaching for the recognition of the artist in question. Personally, I don't attach much importance to recognition, because my motives are not determined by it. I have never been guided by certain factors of the art circuit, partly because there is no assessment that does justice to real value in the longer term.

Looking forward, how do you see your art evolving in the next decade? Are there new themes, techniques, or collaborations you are eager to explore? How do you plan to continue challenging both yourself and audiences?

How to let go of a prediction about what art means in the future is a perilous undertaking in this day and age. Art is not a condition of life; Maybe for the maker, but when times and circumstances get worse, art always suffers. Especially conceptual art, because people are not so much open to new views or insights. Humans then usually retreat into familiar territory. Personally, I don't feel the need to take on new challenges. I have arrived at the place where I am at peace and have the conviction that it fits within my motives and ambitions in the art profession. Every creation of a work of art has its own challenge. Every work of art is also essentially conceptual. I no longer see any substantial substantive changes in my work, except to place the conceptual approaches that have already been formed in an appropriate context. In it, I allow the appropriate expression to emerge in freedom, formed in the large space of my head, a kind of working brain where inspiration eventually arises and comes to fruition.

https://www.hansvanwingerden.nl