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FEATURE Wilhelm Sasnal Interview FEATURE Wilhelm Sasnal Interview: Velocity Equals Displacement Over an Interval of Time Essay: Overturning the Everyday Velocity Equals Displacement Over an Interval of Time By Andrew Maerkle Born in 1972 in Tarnów, Poland, Wilhelm Sasnal is among a new generation of contemporary artists who emerged following the country’s transition from Communist to democratic rule in 1989. He is best known for making paintings that combine elements of rep- resentation and abstraction to depict images based on photographs that he takes himself or that he fi nds in other sources ranging from books to fi lms and websites. As such, these paintings maintain a delicate balance between personal intimacy and distanced irony. Common subjects for Sas- nal include his own family and experiences as well as the history of Poland and the role the country played in the Holocaust during World War II. At other times he “documents” the landscape around Tarnów where he was raised, often using expressive brushstrokes to communicate atmosphere through minimalist gestures, or he will obliterate key details from his source images, as with the paint- ing Untitled (After Metinides) (2003), which blurs behind a fl urry of monochrome hues everything but some fi gures loitering in the background of an airplane crash site that had been photographed by the Mexican photojournalist Enrique Metinides. Yet it is hard to say whether for Sasnal any one subject is more or less personal, or more or less ironic than the next. What one can say is that Sasnal is a keen observer of the human environment, which is also apparent in his separate practice as a fi lmmaker. Shooting primarily with a 16mm camera, Sasnal imbues his fi lms with a painterly eye that is attune to the viscosity of ac- tion, the taffy-like bonds that hold together the plastic world. For example, in Marfa (2005), Sasnal’s camera lingers on oil that spills out from the car he is having refurbished and seeps over the bare, fl eshy torso of a gargantuan mechanic. In The Ranch (2006/07), he is absorbed by the nonchalant barbarity of ranch hands dehorning and castrating young bulls, zeroing in on the freshly shorn testicles frying on a makeshift grill and the men gingerly picking the sizzling meat up with their fi ngers. ART iT met with Sasnal when he came to Tokyo for the opening of his solo exhibition at Rat Hole Gallery, “16mm fi lms,” which includes both recent paintings as well as the short fi lms Marfa, Love Songs (2005) and Centrum (2004). He discussed with ART iT the relationship between his fi lms, the landscape and his paintings, as well as his youth growing up in Poland and his stance toward the country’s history. Considering Sasnal’s practices as painter and fi lmmaker in tandem, it’s tempting to see him as equal parts satirist and off-kilter ethnographer. However, the idea that the artist intends to make an overarching statement about social conditions is always undermined by the inclusion in his works of his own subjective viewpoint. As Sasnal told ART iT, he responds to the world through intuition, a way of seeing or feeling that circumvents the rational order of things. His work is distinct because it fi nds a unique space between the trivial and signifi cant. Part I. Like Everyone Born in the 1940s, My Mother Was a Fan of Elvis Wilhelm Sasnal on the role of chance in documenting the world, and the connections between fi lm, Land Art and painting. Installation view of Untitled (2007), 16mm fi lm, sound, 7 min. Courtesy the artist & Hauser & Wirth, London/New York/Zürich. ART iT: You are known both for your paintings and your 16mm fi lms, so there’s a lot to cover when discussing your work, but I thought we could start somewhere in the middle. In 2007 I saw your exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in Zürich where you showed an untitled 16mm fi lm with found footage of Elvis Presley doing a live performance of “Unchained Melody” shortly before he died. It was my fi rst time seeing one of your fi lms and it left a strong impression on me. What struck me was that the fi lm encapsulated a uniquely transitory moment in society’s relationship to media and historical consciousness, since you were using 16mm fi lm to document a computer with YouTube video of footage that had been shot in 1977. Was that part of the intent of the work? WS: I am aware of the idea that the fi lm has these different convergences of media, but to be honest that’s simply how I use existing images. These images are all around us; they are part of our reality. It’s never been a particular intention of mine to criticize or play with them. I respond to them intuitively. The fi lm and the paintings that were in the exhibition were more or less about Graceland. While doing a residency in the US I made a trip to Memphis and I thought that since I was there I should see Graceland. But when you enter this empty house and see all the tourists walking everywhere, it is profoundly sad. And from being very cynical I responded to the specifi city of that place. So I made paintings based on photographs I took of the interiors and began searching for Elvis on YouTube. The songs in the fi lm are both great songs. When I saw Elvis in that footage, he looked really insane. I think his insanity started quite earlier when he became totally detached from reality, having his handlers constantly “protecting” him. That’s what led me to also include the YouTube footage of Daniel Johnston singing “Casper the Friendly Ghost.” ART iT: How about the fi lm Widlik, also made in 2007, which features footage of your family at the beach alongside voice-overs re- counting the story of a father who disappears from his family, and concludes with a scene of a computer on the beach playing a video of David Bowie singing “Space Oddity”? WS: Widlik is a type of seaweed from the Baltic Sea. I’m a bit reluctant to show the fi lm now because I don’t like the multiple narra- tors, I have to go back and record one person who will narrate the whole thing. But it’s just a made-up story that started from spend- ing time together with my family at the coast and having the camera with me the whole time - this black body of the camera - and of course everyday quarrels about it, “You’re not playing with us!” That was how the story developed. “Space Oddity” fi ts at the end because it tells a similar story, with Major Tom fl ying away in space. And the computer was just what I happened to have on hand at the time. Left: Still from Widlik (2007), 16mm fi lm, sound, 10 min. Right: Still from The Ranch (2006/07), Super8 fi lm, transferred to DVD, 35 min. ART iT: In addition to the untitled Elvis piece, you made several fi lms during your stay in the US, including The Ranch (2006/07), which ends with this great scene of a female TV reporter shooting a report on location underneath a highway overpass. Wearing a mini-skirt and go-go boots, she is shown in soft-focus silhouette, and combined with the soundtrack of Vikki Carr singing the Burt Bacharach song “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” it looks like one of those early music videos from the 1960s or ‘70s. For me, the music accentuates the vanity of the reporter and the incongruity of her outfi t at this very urban scene with a police barri- cade visible in the background. How much does music shape your fi lms? WS: Well, during my stay in the US I had a Super 8 camera with me and I fi lmed a lot of footage, so there is still more material that I plan to use. For the most part the footage is casual, I just happen to be there. The story behind the reporter is interesting. I was in Chicago, where there are large Polish and Mexican Catholic communities. Somebody noticed a stain on the wall of the underpass and thought it was a sign from the Virgin Mary. But it was just leakage. So people came and put fl owers and lit candles in front of the stain, and I happened to be there when they were shooting the report. I think that when you turn the music off the fi lms don’t exist. I’m currently planning a new feature-length fi lm about greed in a Polish village, which will also make reference to events from World War II. When I imagine how the fi lm will take shape I see it starting with documentary footage from the village where we will be shooting. As I play the images in my head, I know the exact music that I want to go with that footage. ART iT: Yes, I was going to ask about your recent feature fi lms, do you make them by yourself or do you have crews and multiple cameras? WS: The fi lms on display at Rat Hole Gallery right now are all small pieces that I did by myself without anyone around me. But in 2008 I made the fi lm Swineherd, which centers on a swineherd who delivers clandestine letters between two young, lesbian lovers living in the Polish countryside.
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