Seven Questions for Adam Saks
In a double exhibition such as this, with two artists side by side, it’s crucial to highlight their different characteristics. What do you think happens to Jorn’s ceramics when confronted with your paintings?
Firstly, their chromaticity is accelerated and secondly the mark making or gestural qualities of Jorn’s paintings are brought forth. Not because you have to look for bird-like creatures or other beings, in exhibitions like this it’s all about how the individual surfaces are composed in relation to each other. Cooperation would be said too much, as there is no collaboration, but, in any case, there are certain parallels.
And the other way around, what will happen to your paintings in face of Jorn’s ceramics?
There are some aspects of my work, drawing or the focus on the linear, which will clearly resonate with Jorn’s swaying hand. In the way he is contouring the figures lies a kind of plasticity akin to certain things in my paintings.
Is this the first time you are part of such a dialogic exhibition with another artist?
To this extent, yes.
In the 1960s, there were many younger artists who felt the need to distance themselves from Asger Jorn and CoBrA. Can you also relate to this urge?
When I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, you couldn’t help but see his posters with bright colors, in waiting rooms and hospitals, everywhere. Still, having slightly matured and ventured further into the territory of painting, I perceive Jorn’s various methods and practices as extremely contemporary. That’s what interests me, his daring switches between different media in a way that they mutually enhance each other. For example, he transferred some things from lithography into painting and what he had achieved in painting reappeared in his ceramics. Even today, this rotation between different forms of media and expression is very exciting.
You have worked with ceramics yourself. What do ceramics mean to you as a painter?
Strangely enough, ceramics exist in a shared realm with sculpture. Of course they are no sculptures but they do have a certain plasticity in comparison with oil painting or graphic work. You can scrape in the material, you can pour on color thickly or work with wafer-thin glazes. For me, ceramics opened up many possibilities to accelerate the surface textures and modulate the plane. Things I had never done before in my painting.
You have painted seven paintings specifically for this exhibition. What was your intention?
I wanted to have individual pieces, not a monothematic series. Still, you can see my reoccurring fascination with nature emerge in every painting. Different paces, textures, and shifts in materiality on and of the surface were a concern. So, I incorporated linocuts, printed directly onto the canvas, and drew with oilsticks in addition to the usual colors. Some parts are translucent, others are a dense impasto. In places, the color even gained landscape-like qualities. In terms of the content, which evolves, in my paintings I strive for a wide span of expression, both painterly breadth and painterly foundation.
Finally, did you choose to paint ”with” or ”against” Jorn?
I did not have any scheme, at all. When painting, I aimed for density, sternness, credibility. Such things are important to me. Jorn’s images have these condensations as well. And as I didn’t know which ceramics would be shown, I tried to be as clear as possible in my painterly language.
— Lars Morell