"First, we will die. Then we will be forgotten." | Photographer Balder Olrik —

"First, we will die. Then we will be forgotten." | Photographer Balder Olrik —

00:00 / 16:00

Shop

"First, we will die. Then we will be forgotten." | Photographer Balder Olrik —

"First, we will die. Then we will be forgotten." | Photographer Balder Olrik —

Shop

interviews

"First, we will die. Then we will be forgotten." | Photographer Balder Olrik

Youtube

What does a graveyard tell about life? Meet Danish artist Balder Olrik who has been walking around Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris for months, taking fascinating pictures of empty mausoleums. “I looked into one of the mausoleums, and it hit me really hard in the stomach. There was a huge bouquet of flowers made of silk with hundreds of spiderwebs on top of it. It was really painful. At this moment, I realized that we are going to be forgotten.” Olrik has recently been confronted with death in his personal life and took to Paris to recover from severe illness. By chance, he visited Père Lachaise and found – in the middle of vibrant Paris – a silent world of its own. “It’s obvious that somebody has loved somebody. The most touching mausoleums are the ones where you actually can see that there was love between some people – someone who is dead, somebody that’s alive. But at a certain point, it is left there. Maybe because the person who loved died. Or fell in love with somebody else.” “It made me realize that maybe I should just do the things I want to do in life. And maybe it is also an awkward worry – this worry of not being eternal. Why is it so hard for us to grasp the fact that we don’t live forever, that it has an end? Maybe it is causing us a lot of trouble while we live that we care so much about ourselves for when we are not alive.” Danish artist Balder Olrik (b. 1966) entered The Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen at age 16, one of the youngest artists ever to attend. Shortly after entering the academy, he was included in numerous exhibitions at museums and galleries worldwide, gaining international recognition for his works. In 1998, Olrik left the art world and became an early pioneer in new media technology, launching a successful viral media company. Sixteen years later, he returned to art, focusing on photography primarily inspired by behavioural and perceptual science. Olrik expresses a distinct silence and solitude within his art, a theme prevalent throughout his early works to the present. He lives and works in Paris and Copenhagen. Balder Olrik was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner at Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris in October 2022.

Creative Director

Louisiana Channel

Director

Simon Weyhe

Editor

Jarl Therkelsen Kaldan

Producer

Marc-Christoph Wagner

Categories

#photographer

Locations

Louisiana Channel

Role: creative director

01
interviews
14:46
Rachel Rossin on the Journey to Self-Creation
“All art is like timekeeping.” Meet the multi-talented Rachel Rossin from New York, whose practice spans from painting to programming. Rachel Rossin started working with computers at the age of four and taught herself programming at five. Today, she reflects upon AI and developments beyond, for example, new ways of connecting humans to machines. At the same time, she sees art as one of the oldest and noblest expressions of being human. “It’s making traces of our time here. It’s like timekeeping. It’s a record of the artist’s time. Especially paintings and paintings with their expressionistic marks where you stand in the same place the artist stood. You are looking at a core sample of evidence of the trace the artist’s body made through time and space. I think we will have that as long as we exist. It’s just so precious and perfect.” Rachel Rossin, formed by her readings of the Bible during childhood, sees life as an ongoing journey to self-creation, a type of distilling over and over again: “I think that people that love life the most are the ones that are the most aware of death. It’s so brief. I want to be engaged and as present as I can. It feels like there is a spiritual calling to making art.” Rachel Rossin (b. 1987, Florida, USA) is an internationally recognised artist whose multidisciplinary practice synthesises painting, computer programming, video, built electronics, sculpture, installation, and new media to create works that address the phenomenological effects of technology on daily life. She currently lives and works in New York City, New York, USA. The New York Times has stated, “Ms. Rossin has achieved something, forging a connection between abstract painting and augmented perception that opens up a fourth dimension that existed only in theory for earlier painters.” She is widely considered a pioneer in Virtual and Mixed Realities for her innovative research. Rachel Rossin was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner in June 2023. The interview took place in New York at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Rachel Rossin’s studio in Manhattan.
02
interviews
02:14
Barbara Kasten: Advice to the Young
“As long as an artist continues to express themselves, it’s a contribution to the world.” American artist Barbara Kasten shares her advice to aspiring young artists. To Barbara Kasten, one cannot expect success right after finishing art school: “I think that young artists should think about the future of their work, but they shouldn’t get stuck on it.” She also acknowledges how much it takes, not only in perseverance but also in capital, to make it as an artist: “You know, it takes money to continue to make art. So, many artists aren’t fortunate enough to have the resources.” Barbara Kasten had to teach for many years to make a living as an artist: “It took me until 80 to get the kind of recognition that I’m getting now.” Barbara Kasten (b. 1936) is an American artist born in Chicago, USA. She is known for making photographs of abstract interior environments where the juxtaposition of light, objects, and mirrors forms the subject of her images. Kasten was educated in sculpture and painting, which both informs her work. She began investigating photography through cyanotypes of fabrics and photograms of objects placed directly on paper. Barbara Kasten attended California College of Arts and Crafts (MFA, 1970) and the University of Arizona, Tucson (BFA, 1959). Barbara Kasten was interviewed by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærksen in her studio in Chicago in February 2023.
03
interviews
19:51
Emma Talbot: Telling the Stories of Our Times
“My work is really about a very personal experience of being alive at this period of time.” We visited Emma Talbot in her studio in London, to talk about how she transforms the intangible realms of thought and emotion into tangible expressions on silk canvases. As she introduces herself in the opening moments of our conversation, Talbot articulates her artistic project as an exploration of stories that echo the zeitgeist. Touching on big contemporary issues, such as societal structures, and our relationships with technology, ecology and nature, Talbot describes her art as an interrogation of the human condition: “the brevity and fragility of life itself; what is given value and worth, what is memorialised, and the inevitable experiences of love and grief.” Talbot's artistic repertoire spans from paintings on silk to animations and drawings. The latter always works as her starting point: “I developed a practice in which I start withdrawing, and I let myself draw whatever comes to mind without really trying to direct the subject of the drawings or what they're exploring so that I can see what it is I'm thinking.” Yet, it's only after a phase of deep research - online, through reading, or by seeking diverse forms of knowledge - that she refines and enriches these raw expressions into motives and narratives. In her winning proposal for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, Talbot took as a starting point her fascination with Gustav Klimt’s painting Three Ages of Woman (1905), which features a naked elderly woman standing in apparent shame. In her mind, the woman looked like a future version of Talbot herself, and so the figure became an avatar to tackle some of the contemporary issues that Talbot addresses in her practice. Talbot's pivot to using silk as a canvas reflects a profound quest for artistic freedom. Influenced by writers like Hélène Cixous, who explored finding one's own voice in writing, Talbot sought an equivalent liberation in her visual language. The ethereal qualities of silk offered the flexibility she craved - something drapable, cuttable, and wearable - a material that could carry the weight of ideas without becoming burdened by historical constraints. Her intricate process of painting on silk involves a delicate balance, where fluidity meets substance, allowing her to control the marks on the surface while embracing the material's inherent delicacy. The resulting large-scale paintings, described by Talbot as "collages of ideas," become immersive experiences, inviting viewers into a dialogue with the intricate narratives within. Emma Talbot (b.1969) studied at the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design and Royal College of Art. Her work was showcased at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia as part of the exhibition ’Milk of Dreams.’ In 2022, she was awarded the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, which cumulated in the exhibition The Age / L’Età shown in Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia and Whitechapel Gallery in London. Talbot's exhibition history includes solo shows such as “The Human Experience” (2023) at Kunshtall Stavanger ’In the End, the Beginning’ (2023) at Kesselhaus, KINDL, Berlin, "When Screens Break" at Eastside Projects in Birmingham (2020), ’Ghost Calls’ at DCA in Dundee (2020), and ’Sounders of The Depths’ at GEM Kunstmuseum in The Hague, Netherlands (2019-20). Noteworthy exhibitions also include ’Woman-Snake-Bird’ at Galerie Onrust in Amsterdam (2018) and ’The World Blown Apart’ at the same gallery in 2017. Her recent work ‘Seeds Grow in Fertile Ground (Every Thought is an Opening)’ (2023) was featured in the group exhibition ‘Irreplaceable Human? The Conditions of Creativity in the Age of AI’ at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Her work has found a home in collections worldwide, including Guerlain in Paris, British Council Collection, Arts Council Collection, City of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, David Roberts Collection, Saatchi Collection, University of the Arts London, Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, Fries Museum NL, and Arnhem Museum NL. Emma Talbot was interviewed by Nanna Rebekka in her studio in London in April 2023. Camera: Alex Newton Edited and produced by: Nanna Rebekka

Related

This website uses cookies.
By using this website and it's content, you accept these cookies.
Learn More