FRA KUNSTVIDEOEN 2nd LP
To Flip The Process Around
- or How Larry Poons Gave Me A Kick
On the Path to
Deeper Artistic Freedom
Part 6
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I Steal When It's Worth It
and Larry Poons is worth stealing from,
but I always flip the process around.
The immersive canvas studio
No, I haven’t met Larry Poons, but that would of course be on the top of my list. An artist who has forged his own path without looking back—and now, in his later years, one of the greatest, after living much of his life out of the spotlight. I have deep, deep respect for Larry Poons!I discovered Poons when I watched the documentary The Price of Everything, one highly important film about the art industry.
In the documentary, he’s shown painting in his studio, with canvas stretched around all the walls (except, I believe, the entrance door).
This is an immersive room
- not digitally via projectors, but with physical canvas, paint and light.When he was finished, he would cut out the paintings that crystallized.
I immediately thought, I’m stealing that idea!
But then, I’ll flip the process around. And so I did - by putting together my paintings.
1st LP the LooP
Eight digital graphic paintings
The result was eight digital graphic paintings. I moved a column cut out from the far right side of the first image to the left side of the next image.I continued in this manner, and the result was that, after creating eight paintings in this way, I could combine them all into an LP (= Long Painting).
By doing this in reverse—moving the left side of the first image to the right side of the last one—I created a “loop,” tying all the paintings together.
Thus, I named the series 1st LP – the LooP.
These eight paintings, each with their own printing plates, could also be converted into a video format, looping continuously.
The iconic musician, composer, and producer HP Gundersen created a Mellotron composition for this video.
PAINTING #4
#5 - IN THE LEGENDS HEAVEN ...
In the Legends Heaven the signatures are floating freely around
This digital painting contains visual signatures of four deceased individuals I have a strong connection to.These are:
• George Herriman (1880–1944), who created the fantastic comic strip Krazy Kat. Picasso was very fond of Krazy Kat, and both Charles M. Schulz (Peanuts) and Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) were inspired by Herriman and Krazy Kat. Here, the "signature" is a brick, which the mouse Ignatz always throws at Krazy Kat, who is deeply in love with Ignatz.
• The white hat belongs to Tom Wolfe (1930–2018), who pioneered what is called "the New Journalism," discarding the ideal of journalistic "objectivity" and putting the journalist's perspective at the forefront instead. Wolfe’s most famous book is probably The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters (immortalized by The Beatles in Magical Mystery Tour). For me, however, his most important book is The Painted Word—an early critique of star curators and the investment frenzy in the art industry.
• Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) was another legendary journalist. He called his version of New Journalism "Gonzo Journalism." When he took his life in 2005, he had previously requested that his ashes be shot from a cannon and spread across the area. Johnny Depp, a close friend of Thompson, spent around 3 million dollars to make this happen. Thus, Hunter S. Thompson’s signature is the cannon launch. The only journalist in Norway I know of who refers to himself as a Gonzo journalist is Eskil Engdal from Dagens Næringsliv.
• The last is Phil May (1944–2020), the vocalist of The Pretty Things. I spent over a week with Phil and his then-wife, Electra, in Luxor, where we only discovered on the last day that we were both artists. He founded The Pretty Things while at Sidcup Art School in 1963, together with guitarist Dick Taylor, who had left The Rolling Stones.
The Pretty Things also created the world’s first rock opera, S.F. Sorrow, in which Sorrow’s wife eventually dies in the Hindenburg disaster. Phil also drew the cover for the album, which features a Zeppelin—hence, his visual signature here is a Zeppelin.
LOVE PILOT #9
A digital drawing is the base for the art video above, but not in the same way as the video 1st LP the LooP. Here, I kept the main subject and changed various layers for each frame—as digital artwork allows for different layers to be utilized.
It’s always the process or the starting point that determines whether I choose “simple” and “raw” effects for video editing, as here, or the more complex process used in the previous art video.
The improvisation Cecilie Leganger did on Theremin one night in Bøvågen immediately struck me as the perfect soundscape—or not just “perfect,” but a slundscape that gave the impact I knew would elevate the art video Lovepilot even further!
2nd LP the LooP
Superstein and Joachip added their abient piece "Havgus" which is perfect for this LP.
It's a LooP, so it can go endlessy around, and is a fusion between the abstract and figurative. It's based upon ocean and waves' as the concept is painted waves, but it's not waves but a painting - you don't get wet from the waves and you can't drown in this ocean as it's painted abstract. The first concept when starting these eight paintings was actually René Magritte's painting "This is not a pipe"
CONCERT WITH CECILIE AND NORA
Nora Yuyue Zheng on Ghuzheng and Cecilie Leganger on grand piano. Cecilie is also composer of this piece.
CONCERT IN USF, BERGEN
THE ART-JOURNEY - FROM 1983 UNTIL TODAY:
