Mads Lynnerup
February 07 2009
We had the amazing fortune of having Mads and his wife, Cally, drop in on their cross-country trek from San Francisco to New York. Though things were a bit rainy, Mads assured us it was much more comfortable than New York in February. Of course, we already knew that. Together we shared great food, great conversation, and great company. At one point during his stay, Mads grabbed the mini recorder and headed off into the orchard to tell us a bit about art having a function, the joys of spending more money with your kids and his work as a Que card holder for other peoples' lives.
Walking alone through the orchard. It’s a beautiful day out here in the wilderness, walking on the avocado ranch. Actually right now I’m just looking at one of the many citrus trees that are also on the property and these citrus’ have millions of lemons on them. I can’t believe it, it’s probably one of those things that you can’t really tell how many there are just by looking at them. Last night me and my wife Cally Martin-- we’re traveling back to New York, driving cross-country and we stayed the night here-- we had beautiful fresh guacamole and a really great bean soup that Rochelle made us. When we arrived yesterday it was raining but has since cleared up. So everything is a little wet as it should be in February. Brian is not here but he asked me to go for a walk and talk a little bit about my intentions as an artist and what inspires me to make art. I haven’t really thought about it too much lately but I have thought about it a lot over the last few years for sure. It’s one of those things that when you do something a lot you don’t get to think about why to much. When you just enjoy doing something you just do it but sometimes you enjoy thinking about it so this is a great opportunity.
I make art because it gives me something that reality may not have to offer. Art gives me an opportunity to think about things that are not really valued by any form of money or other things that people seem to acknowledge as valuable. As tough as it is sometimes not being able to make a living doing it, feeling like I can reach that point makes it worthwhile because there is freedom in doing something that is difficult. To give you an example, I often work strange jobs besides making art and I’ve been lucky enough to maybe do half and half. I have also been in school for the last two years and that was a great opportunity to just focus and not have to deal with student loans. It gave me the time to do what I need to do and now that I’m done, I’m back to my old routine of working odd jobs like hanging art and then making art. I just did a gallery show that I was really happy about, but as it always is, it’s difficult to sell art and sometimes especially the art that I do: sculptures or video… but it’s doable. It’s not a great financial success story but I do what I gotta do. I think that's my main thought about making art. I like to focus on things that don’t necessarily get looked at so often in day-to-day life.
One of the more recent projects that I did in Copenhagen while I was there last summer was to focus on daily routines in a specific location in the middle of the city. After spending a month altogether in observation I discovered up to thirty or forty routines. I picked ten of them that involved the people I had been following and observing. I then made a video where I would stand in front of the camera with Que. cards, much like the ones they use in movies or television so that the actors can remember their lines. I stood in front of the camera holding these signs with the text of the routines that were about to happen in the background. As the routines were happening I would then flip the Que. card with corresponding text describing the routine as was happening behind me. So by doing this I foretold the viewer what was about to happen behind me.
This is just an example of how I observe and acknowledge the things that occur around us everyday and also how these routines that people have characterize the environment around them. This is something that I find fascinating, to interact with either the viewer or the people living in a particular environment and in so doing provide a service or function addressing these issues.
Lately, as a result of my curiosity regarding functionality and environments, I began to notice their inherent importance. Another example of this would be my recent exhibition in San Francisco. In this particular project I decided to collect water from the neighborhood establishments surrounding the gallery where my exhibition resided. I realized that once you get above street level everything is just anonymous. I didn’t know personally what was in these buildings but I decided to go around with one of those five-gallon water containers and collect fresh water from the drinking fountains located inside these businesses. I would ask if I could get some water from their drinking fountain… After visiting many offices I eventually filled the entire five-gallon container with fresh drinking water then took the container back to the gallery where visitors coming to view my exhibition could enjoy a sip of water from all of these different places. So again this was a way for me to discover what was going on around the gallery and also incorporating the gallery with all of these strange businesses. Like classrooms that trained firefighters and nurses how to perform CPR. I got to witness firsthand these classrooms in action. It was really fun. Another business involved a gay and lesbian society where they collected paraphernalia from the gay community in San Francisco and then put them on display. It was very fascinating. I also visited and collected water from restaurants like Chipotle. Amazingly enough the managers were very receptive and interested in what I was doing. And although I had to explain to them that my work as an artist differed from their traditional understanding of what artists do, like paint pictures or make sculptures, it seemed to trip them out when I explained that I was collecting water as a piece of artwork. It is difficult even now to tell why it’s even art but I think it had all the elements of an artwork. It engages the viewer and also questions the environment that the artwork takes place in. It also inspired interesting conversations with the people that worked in these strange businesses.
Mads Lynnerup, Untitled Pink (from the series Time is Money, Money is Time), 2009, ink on colored paper, 10 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches; Untitled Red (from the series Time is Money, Money is Time), 2009, ink on colored paper, 10 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches
Lately I’ve been working a lot with text and I began to notice curious uses of text in advertisements, billboards and posters. I began to notice the effects that text was having on my brain so I made a series of drawings as a result. For example, any time I noticed a sentence that had the words “money” or “time” in it I would flip them. So if saw an advertisement that read “GET MORE FOR YOUR MONEY” then I would change it to read “GET MORE FOR YOUR TIME.” It is fascinating, actually, how the words “time” and “money” share so much in common. Like the term time is money and money is time is true in some strange way. This is why I am fascinated with text, sometimes the use of text is funny and other times it’s a little more desperate like “MORE MONEY WON’T MAKE YOU HAPPIER” becomes “MORE TIME WON’T MAKE YOU HAPPIER” or “SPEND MORE MONEY WITH YOUR KIDS...”
Another project involved a video where I recoded time for twenty four hours using an old fashioned digital clock, this became a crazy endurance piece for sure. I realized how time influences our way of being as common knowledge. It was important to read about and discover that the clock made it easier for factory owners to keep their workers working longer and to take full advantage of the worker by just having the clock; they wouldn’t have to wait for the sun to come up to know what time it was. Interestingly, I began to understand how time controls us and by recording time in my video it actually created a function. I think people dismiss art for not having a function these days.
Mads Lynnerup, Collecting Water (San Francisco) Stills, 2009, digital video, dimensions variable
So with all of this said I think its time to say goodbye and in doing so I would like to say how much I appreciate staying here at the orchard and I’m really interested in seeing this whole archive of artists who have been and yet to come here unfold. So thank you Brian and Rochelle for doing this and for letting us stay here. I can’t wait to come back and do more.
Thanks for listening.
Bye.
