INTERVIEW w/ EYAL PINKAS

One aspect of photography that I find particularly intriguing is it's connection with physical reality, and specifically, the photographic results that occur when the space has been changed, ordered, manipulated, or sculpted by the photographer. What was before a simple document of a three-dimensional moment is now a study in reality, environment, perception, and the dynamic role of photographer as documentarian, curator, sculptor, and architect. Dutch photographer Eyal Pinkas is particularly adept at pushing the boundaries of space and time within his photographs. His work merges the practices of sculpture and installation with photography, for instance by manipulating household objects, such as chairs and mattresses, into whimsical configurations. In another series, Eyal depicts, frame by frame, "the duplication of a chair" by adding extra parts from an identical chair. Eyal's work deals in elapsed time, motion, and the secret identities of his subjects, which are many times inanimate—at least, in theory.

The following conversation took place via email from February to October of this year.

1. Allowing the World to Look At, and In, At the Same Time

This is That: I love this quote from the brief statement on your site: "The adaptations I am making can be best described as studies on the question of how something would appear if it were able to assume the identity it secretly desires."

There is a fantastical quality to your photos that’s substantiated, for me, by the above statement. It recalls a kind of imagination and innocence about reality that I associate with childhood, or some similarly joyful, hyper‐aware state. Can you tell me a little about how this idea came to you? Where and how did the notion that objects secretly desire certain identities develop for you?

Eyal Pinkas: As you mentioned in your question, thinking of objects that come to life has indeed a childish and imaginative nature. Adopting this notion as a conceptual starting point for my work started a few years ago when I was looking at childhood photos of myself. I discovered that in many of them I was wearing self-made customs and dressing up as someone else.

For me the action of putting a costume on, generates a certain paradox: on the one hand, one can adopt a different identity and therefore protect himself from the world around him; on the other hand, this adopted identity will usually find its sources in one’s personal inner mental environment, thus leaving him exposed and allowing the world to look at him and in him at the same time.

Coming back to “living objects”, what I basically try to do is show spaces, objects and in earlier works people, dressed up as something else or wearing some kind of disguise, in other words, I present their transformed appearances. Since these costumes are, in my eyes, representatives of an inner psyche, this will imply that objects have thoughts and desires, and therefore come to life. In conclusion, I can say that this way of working is an attempt to present some sort of vulnerability, where the act of masquerading for people or the animation of objects as living things is a tool to present the interior through the exterior, and in a great part a consoling activity for these characters.

TisT: I find it very interesting what you touched on with the notion of different identities—the idea of an identity either protecting or exposing. This strikes me as something intrinsic about the nature of photography itself; it has the power to reveal and obscure something about the nature of the subject, the photographer, and the viewer. When you talk about ultimately presenting a kind of vulnerability, I wondered if this is inevitable with the act of taking a photo, no matter what the subject? Is there something about photography, for you, that makes the "inner visible existence" more visible than another medium?

EP: If photography has the ability to show “inner visible existence” visible, I will not know how to explain it, and I rather regard it as a beautiful enigmatic nature the medium has.

But actually I am not sure that photography has a nature of revealing some “hidden identity” about an object or a subject. For me, what photography does is showing things as they are. Which means, in a very dry way documenting things in a manner that is very similar to the nature of the way we see. What I find important is the intention of the photographer, or any other artist who uses any other medium. I believe that it is the artist who gives the medium a temporary nature by having an intention of what to do it. An artist can’t overcome the characteristics of a medium, as these are permanently presents, but what the artist does with these characteristics will depends on his or her intention.

TisT: I think it’s key the idea of that these characters are ultimately involved in a "great consoling activity." Your work demonstrates an interesting mix of presenting the hidden‐ness, that vulnerability, of objects, but at the same time, takes great care of them. I do see the consolation occurring in your images—can you discuss more about how you manage this?

EP: I think that a work or an image will usually start with an intention of what to do with them. This intention can be a mix of conceptual thoughts, visual ideas, materials and so on. In my case, I will start a work with the ideas I want to talk about, then when I meet the space I work in or the object I am working with, these ideas will be half put aside, and I will try to let myself interact with the small physical world I am in.

So I guess any object or image can express any idea, once you know what your idea is you can try to do it with the material you chose. The thing is that even if it works, I would not necessarily know why. And if I do know why, it might be good to try to do some other things.





2. Somehow I Cannot Escape a Dialogue with Sculpting

TisT: Tell me about the evolution of your work. I like a lot of the images in your earlier collections, ‘untitled’ and ‘the thin spun life,’ and want to know the process you went through with those, toward the work you're doing now. Is the concept mentioned above also applicable with the earlier work? In particular, I see an aesthetic connection in the image (directly) above with some of your recent work—but would like to know more of your conceptual approach with these earlier works.

EP: The images in the series ‘untitled’ are primary studies for the work I am doing now. I was mainly investigating the possibilities of image-making using my close environment, which is actually not very far from what I do now.

All the photographs were done in my apartment using my partner as a model and the household as my visual material. I basically just had ideas for images coming up in my head at that time, and without thinking too much about them I intuitionally made them. Looking back I think they were reflections of processes I went through at that time, so this work has some autobiographical value for me.

About the specific image you choose, it has indeed some things in common with more recent work. It is not too surprising since as I said before, making these images was also a way of trying to understand what I find interesting to do with photography. In addition this image is a picture of a sculpture or some kind of an installation, this is something that is more present in recent works. I don’t see myself as a sculptor, and would not like to present three‐dimensional work, but somehow I cannot escape a dialogue with sculpturing, as it is a big part of what I photograph.

‘The thin spun life’ was the first time I started to think about the idea of the disguise in an aware way. My starting point for the series was to capture people in the midst of an act that will have to do with escapism. For me, the characters in the series are busy through some kind of a play, with exploring their inner worlds, and in a sense they are escaping the reality around them. I like to think of these characters as some kind of Don Quixote, conducting in the world with a bizarre idea about themselves that leads them to be seen in an unclear, and sometimes absurd way. I see them as very fragile creatures, acting from a source that cannot be rationally explained, like emotions and feelings.

In that series I started to be aware of my attempt to work with ideas about how an inner invisible existence can be shown through the surface, as I come to think that photography is a medium that can only show surfaces. In which way does the exterior need to be changed so what is shown will be a reflection of an abstract thought or emotion, which is behind the surface and actually hidden by it.

As a continuation for that series I photographed people’s activities that portrayed an engagement with objects; these images were attempts to stage characters and their efforts to bring objects to life (see the images in the living room series). In a natural course, the human characters disappeared and I started to concentrate on the objects solely.





3. I Try to Believe in What I See

TisT: What kinds of things do you want your viewer to experience when looking at your work? We've talked a bit about what you and your subjects go through—is this any different from how you want your audience to feel—or change—when viewing the images?

EP: I will be very happy if the viewer that sees my work will be touched by it. I would not care why, or even whether he or she understands the work. As long as the work has moved some emotions and feeling with the viewer, for me it is a great success.

TisT: What intrigues me about your images, is that they produce (in me) both an emotional and intellectual response. You mentioned earlier, how you let yourself interact with the space, along with the physicality of the concept and the object. Can you talk a bit more about this visceral feeling you conjure up, both in yourself and ultimately in the viewer. When you are fabricating these configurations of furniture, how much of that process affects the final photograph?

EP: I can imagine that many artists would like their viewers to respond to their work emotionally, so I am not saying anything new here. But any reaction at all is usually nice, it is just when someone says that he is touched by a work you made, it is very special.

I can't talk about a feeling that is being built in the viewer since it is not possible to know how someone feels or what someone thinks. The thing is that even if I think about what I feel when I make a work it is not so easy to reconstruct. I guess that I try to believe in what I see, for example if I think of the bed as a spaceship then I really try to believe in it. It is a bit like make‐believe or a childish game, and this playing generates emotional situations and reactions. The problem is that if I try to write about this feelings it becomes an impossible mission to turn this feeling to some kind of rational explanation, therefore it is easier to turn this ideas and feelings into images.

As for “how much of that process affects the final photograph,” I see the act of making this interventions and photographing them as one process. The things that can affect the final images could be different technical issues such as black and white or color, landscape frame or portrait frame, and these decisions are usually done according to some kind of intuition. In general, since the intervention is done in order to be photographed, and the photograph in a way a realization of the intervention, they affect each other in the same way.





4. Perhaps Photography is a Constant Reality Check

TisT: I like what you talk about with the nature of the medium. It is very enigmatic and beautiful, as you say, but at the same time, honest, “showing things as they are.” Can you talk a bit about what initially drew you to the medium of photography, aesthetically, conceptually, emotionally, etc.? We talked a little about your earlier work; now I'd like to know a bit about what came even before that, the very beginnings of your finding and being pulled in by this medium.

EP: I can't say that there was a certain moment or incident that made me decide to use photography and to choose it as a medium I want to work with. I started photographing when I was 15 without a strong awareness of why I was doing it. I think that what drew me into the medium is the feeling that what I see is not necessarily the way things look. I don't think that photography gives answers to this notion, but it creates a visual dialogue between my surroundings and me. It might be that this dialogue helps in dealing with some fears in regards to the thought that things are not as they appear. Perhaps photography is a constant reality check, as in if something is photographed it must exist.

TisT: About your new series ‘Home,’ you say the photographs deal with the "heroic yet reticent gesture of spaces and objects" in a domestic space. I see a definite connection here to your previous work, but I'd like to know a bit more about how you came to this idea of heroic yet reticent gestures, particularly in somewhere as intimate and personal as a (your?) home.

EP: The idea of giving a space and an object a heroic yet reticent gesture is something I tried to elaborate in different series I worked on. For me, thinking of something as heroic means that it becomes allegoric. It is heroic not because it performs heroic deeds, but because it is transformed to an allegoric being which transcends itself to a new meaning. I guess that I tend to think of any form of life as heroic, especially if it is an exposing one. Reticence is in a way the contrary of exposure, but things are always full of contradictions and this is what often make them interesting.

The starting point for the series home was actually prehistoric art and especially cave-painting. In a book I read about prehistoric art I found that one of the assumptions for the origins of these painting is that the caveman has seen a certain pattern in the cave wall that resembled an animal or a different phenomenon he saw in his surroundings. In order to communicate with the rest of his community and to be able to show them what he discovered, he went over the lines he saw with his painting tools and brought these patterns into recognizable forms. While reading it I thought that although this might be the least good explanation for why these painting were made, it is, in my eyes, a very beautiful way to think about this kind of art. I went on to regard my own living space as a prehistoric cave and to turn it via small interventions and photography to my own personal cave-art.

TisT: Your new series "Oikiakospoilitan" plays with the idea of archiving the passage of time, and how layers accumulate from past to present. I know this might seem like a general and gigantic question, but I'd like to know your philosophy toward time, toward the future, the past. It seems to me that you deal with issues of time and change a lot in your work. Without feeling pressure to go too deep, how would you qualify the influence time and its effects have had on you, and your work?

EP: Time is a very tricky concept, it doesn’t really exist but then again it is very present. I think that in a direct or indirect way every photographer deals with time. First in a technical manner, the camera’s shutter is working with time measures, different exposures mean different photographic results, so time has a direct visual influence on the medium. Second, looking at a photograph is looking at the past, looking at something that was documented and often being aware of processes and changes. (Nicholas Nixon’s series Brown sisters is a good example for that.)

Personally, I can relate best with the idea of looking at the past. The series Oikiakospolitan (Oikiakospolitan is actually an invented word that means “citizen of the domestic,” Oikiakos—domestic, politan—citizen) was inspired from moving to different temporary apartments in Amsterdam. Somehow I could always find in those apartments the layer of wallpaper that the last tenant has left. It made me think about things like archeology and the search for a physical appearance of the past. In the work, I wanted to reverse the process and to add layers instead of revealing them.

I think that this is where these two series (‘home’ and ‘Oikiakospolitan’) relate. Except for being made in my personal domestic environment, they are also influenced, in an indirect way, by the idea of looking at the past, which is in my eyes a characteristic of the photographic medium. I guess that in this point I can see the influence of the concept of time on my work.

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I'd like to thank Eyal Pinkas for his gracious effort with our dialogue. For more information about his work, please visit eyalpinkas.com.