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Robert Lucander
Relationship to tradition?
My direct connection is obviously with figurative painting,
although I still have, after all these years of confrontations
with it, difficulties with the word ‘tradition’. For me,
it refers to a very heavy structure and mechanism, kind
of a closed-up Academic attitude, which does not interest
me in the slightest. For me, this Academic attitude refers
to ‘good’ and ‘proper’ taste, which is the main enemy
of creativity. Basically my background is the overall
surroundings where I am, work and live, it is the immediate
environment. The point is how do I relate to it, and how
is it recorded and used in the works. It is not animals
and nature, but the common cityscape that people in those
situations share.
Possibilities of painting?
I believe revolutions are still possible in painting.
Not all of its resources have been used. The possibilities
simply lie in the way that it provides one available medium,
among others, for reflecting what is going on today.
Of course, as a medium, painting is characteristically
slow. However, I try to act and react fast. I have a rather
direct and fast relationship and attitude towards pictures.
I am moving more and more in the direction that I do not
see my works as paintings, but as pictures. Pictures which
compete and clash with thousands of other pictures in
our daily lives, which are flooded with images.
What is special about painting is that you can lie with
it endlessly. There are no boundaries. You can lie as
much as you can stomach it. Other mediums, such as photography
and cinema, still carry with them traces of authentic
reality, but painting does not have this burden anymore.
Painting does not start from reality, and that makes it
unique.
What do you read?
I have no hierarchical approach to what I read. In mornings
I go through the daily newspapers, then later on in the
day I read different kinds of magazines. It is the material
of my paintings. This is the general background that in
a way belongs to all of us. My work is about shaping and
making this relationship with commonly experienced public
material. It is about my personal take on it. Without
this straight-forward connection I would not have that
much to say. The last book I read was Sheriff McCoy,
the autobiography of Andy McCoy, an 1980s rock star from
the group Hanoi Rocks. It was highly entertaining.
Artists’ morality?
I don’t think an artist ought to be morally superior to
other people, such as politicians. I want to stay on the
side of the good. But art does not judge. Art is not evil.
Evil exists in reality, in the things that are for real.
Relationship to the chosen subject?
My attitude is critical, combined with irony and humour,
but the paintings have to stand by themselves. I don’t
think the act of making parody of painting can still be
pulled off in the style of, for example, Martin Kippenberg.
Those jokes or wanna-be scandals are no longer funny.
I am very aware of my starting points, the background
from which I choose the image. I need to consider it,
but I have to be careful not to follow its path. I have
to take it somewhere else myself, I need to remove and
distance it from the beginning. I want to face and confront
matters that are extremely common, images which are recognisable
to all of us.
My purpose is to make visible certain aspects in the image
that have caught my eye and are interesting for me. The
strategy is to underline, for example, embarrassing details,
although the idea is not to laugh, but to be provocative
on another level. It is to revisit the image, and also
to rethink and restate the apparent questions in them,
questions which are bound up with the context, from which
the image comes, and how it is done. It is the interplay
between background and foreground, or in other words,
between public and private.
Autobiographical elements?
You can’t avoid them, but they are not primary in my works.
What is clear is that I use images which are familiar
and close to me. I do not utilise images of events or
matters to which I have no relationship. In other words,
I would never take a picture from a war, or images from
the Bible. I would never tell a story about me crossing
the fields of Siberia on foot. I always stay on a personal
level in this sense.
Narrative elements in your work?
I paint things which I do not want to leave in the private
sphere. Things I want to push into public knowledge in
a rather uncomfortable way. I am not at all interested
in illustrating any given points of view. What I am after
is to collect and store everyday moments, which might
otherwise be difficult to reach.
Any specific narrative means and elements that you
use in paintings?
Again, they are common memories that belong to all of
us. Particularly the strategy expressing the view that
the world is both good and evil, and that no single version
wins or conquers. With narratives, we can claim alternative
positions and views, a plurality of visions and memories
– no great deep thoughts that just cause huge disappointments.
Mika Hannula
Contemporary
Fine Arts - Berlin: www.cfa-berlin.de
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Robert Lucander
Ich mache alles! Ich wasche ab, staubsauge, putze und
mache die Betten
2001
crayon and acrylic on wood
140 x 100
photo: Jochen Littkemann
Collection Kaufmann, Berlin
Courtesy of Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
Robert Lucander
Mit Verklemmtheit hat das nichts zu tun
2001
crayon and acrylic on wood
170 x 120
photo: Jochen Littkemann
private collection, Hannover
Courtesy of Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
Robert Lucander
Kommt nicht in Frage, das ist mir zuviel Arbeit
2001
crayon and acrylic on wood
70 x 100
photo: Jochen Littkemann
private collection, Düsseldorf
Courtesy of Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
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