9789152712443 by Smakprov Media AB

just trying to be real THE MAN IN THE YELLOW BATHROBE diversions, reveries & picture stories by

Zigge Holmgren

everyday aesthetics of unrecognized or unestablished value, to be found in a dusty attic after many years of oblivion

I believe delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities. It’s all out there but the beauty of everyday life is often passed by unnoticed. Much like when reading a book or watching a film, the essentials are between the lines, thoughts turning up on the side in a parallel story, like a code to something or a snapshot of a distant memory that wants to be found... and making pictures is somewhat related to this. I rely a lot on chance. After I have tortured, torn and worn my pictures, something occasionally arises, often - as easy to ignore as it’s interesting. Maybe a comparison with an old well-worn table comes close - a table which has cavities, scratches and paint stains - it has become beautifully aged just by itself. But mainly - the pictures came into being as they did that day, without claiming to be fantastic masterpieces, more of a children’s picture book... but for grown-ups.

nature - rejecting nothing, selecting nothing

Definitions of nature: noun: the complex of emotional and intellectual attributes that determine a person’s characteristic actions and reactions Example: “It is his nature to help others” noun: the essential qualities or characteristics by which something is recognized Example: “It is the nature of fire to burn” noun: a particular type of thing Example: “He’s interested in trains and things of that nature” noun: the natural physical world including plants and animals and landscapes etc. Example: “They tried to preserve nature as they found it” noun: a causal agent creating and controlling things in the universe Example: “The laws of nature”

Definitions of nothing: noun: a nonexistent thing noun: a quantity of no importance Example: “It looked like nothing I had ever seen before” adverb: in no way; to no degree Example: “He looks nothing like his father”

I wouldn’t describe myself as a religious person. I don’t believe in an interventionist God, but we could still call me a “believer”. There’s obviously something plausibly big out there, as within us. We are all this. And there’s something very peculiar which comes with this kind of trade. Working with pictures is a kind of investigation of an obscure and unknown source, as if you were getting close to solve something, but it won’t. It shouldn’t. It will of course stay that way. That’s what keeps me going.

A very old, huckle-backed woman appeared in my studio here in Visby one day. She told me that as a child she had been here in our house, which by then was the home of the priest from the Mission Church, who used to invite the local children at Christmas and Easter, and entertain them in the nicest room, the room that now was my studio. On one occasion the children were sitting on the floor in front of the juggling priest when they heard something outside. They ran out to find a little girl sitting in the gravel, who seemed to have miraculously survived a fall from the high cliff beside the garden, completely

radiant with her arms stretched out, calmly claiming “An angel took me in his arms”. Our house has been a residence for priests for a hundred years and over time we’ve become pretty convinced that they’re still here in spirit. Sometimes we hear strange guttural sounds at night, like priests drunk on communion wine. One day a psychic woman visited us. Out of nowhere, in the middle of our small talk, she says “There is a priest standing next to you... but he’s not... vicious...”. I wasn’t the least surprised.

I have passed this magnificent rock a thousand times walking the dog along the seashore, until one day when I didn’t recognize the view. A feeling of being out of place. It took me some time to come to my senses and realized that the rock was... gone... the rock had fallen down and now the top of it stuck up down on the sandy beach! I was instantly filled with great sorrow, over a rock. I loved that rock.

One summer many years ago Annika and I took the ferry from Stockholm to Visby. Rented a car in the harbor, “renta-wreck”, an old Lada. We brought a small camping stove and a one-man tent, surely the world’s smallest tent and they were the only things we planned really. We stocked up on sausages, cheese and some noodle soups in the ICA store and a few bottles of wine of course. And then we set off on our little voyage of discovery... Minimalist travelers. I don’t remember if we had a map but we decided to choose roads that simply looked interesting, and put up the small

tent down on a different beach every evening. Two days later we ended up on the small island of Fårö. We were easy going people and here we felt at home and painted with red wine in the notebook at dinners, some kind of logbook. I peed on Bergman’s wall on several occasions, at the time not knowing that his hidden fort was behind it. Some years later we had one of Bergman’s old co-workers Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss in our house in Visby at my birthday dinner, and when I told her this she quickly replied - “Excellent! You did the right thing!”.

So nature, yes, it’s always perfect in its chaos. Chaos lives as a neighbor to God, and to get the required chaos I normally take photos and then torment them, at least destabilize them… it’s some sort of a daily joyful murder of beauty, almost casual, to something more informal. A slightly backward method to find a way back, in order to see.You don’t hang a beautiful sunset on the wall, right? It’s a snap too far, as it’s taken out of... context. It will be a disappointment, you have lost something along the way. I like the idea that the viewer has to get into the picture, that it might take several years until it finds its way into you.

I often use bad photos that I’ve shot - heading for the trash can - and I then try to get something out of them by tearing and smudging things up a bit... I know there’s something there. I layer on other surfaces from pictures I’ve shot on old walls and such. The whole process is kind of obscure and tricky to explain. There is no fixed routine. A bad memory is preferable. I work on the picture, now no longer a photo, until I’m satisfied. I turn every stone until it has some soul.

As a kid, I did my best stuff. It will never get better. I assume I’m not the only one having this feeling. My teacher was very religious and she forced us to learn psalms and draw biblical subjects. Though eccentric, she really got me interested in this world of wonders. I still love those drawings with wax crayons. I think artists strive their whole lives to get back to that direct expression, that was second nature to the child they were.

revelation – “this is what I want to do!”. However, I struggled with chemistry for a long time as a career and had my own lab. That is until I ended up in the art classroom and quit chemistry for good! When you stop doing what’s expected of you, it’s time for adventure! So eventually, you end up being an artist as a kind of compensation for something. I believe that for most of us, our egos and what we believe to be our identity are often built on this “compensation” — not necessarily what we had a talent for or what we believed to be our future! In fact, ironically, talent can also be an obstacle.

When I was in middle school, one teacher took us to an exhibition with Toulouse Lautrec and I had a kind of

Our teacher usually sat at her pedal organ while the entire class sang the hymns she had drummed into us, we memorized them all by heart. We sang “Morning between the mountains” and “God is good” while illustrating the whole bible. Those drawings are the only ones I have left from my childhood, the ones my good father didn’t throw away. In particular, I have always admired myself for this ingenious illustration of “The Darkness over Egypt”. Undeniably brilliant. Biblical proportions. The young genius. I was probably a little skeptical of our teacher’s religious fanaticism and went all in for an artistic and powerful expression.

On the surface, everything seems calm, but you really don’t want to know about some of the things going on in the garden.Violent fights are fought in secret to maintain EQUILIBRIUM, especially at night when you go out there with a flashlight. The same kind of battles are constantly going on in our bodies, but we rarely notice anything. Maybe it’s the same with the world at large. We don’t have to worry about EVERYTHING. It’s in order, perhaps thanks to what seems chaotic.

A human being is nothing but a lost outpost in the unknown. The hand she holds up in front of her seems strange to her. This dazed condition is the absolute zero point of consciousness. (interpreted from Paul Valéry)