BY SANNE KABALT
© Robert Glas
Document of Identity
Dutch identity card, framed (26 x 24 cm)
2013
1. You were trained as a photographer. How did your educational path influence you? What is photography to you?
I wanted to study documentary photography because I thought of it as a way to combine making pictures with an interest and concern with all kind of societal topics. A combination, I soon found out, that is far from unproblematic. In documentary photography a vast amount of terminology, tools and theory is developed to deal with the problems inherent to this combination of image making and socio-political engagement. But over time I experienced this medium-centered thinking as more limiting than useful: as a maker you can address any problem concerning photography, as long as the solution is another way of dealing with… photography. Seen in this way photography is not only the centre of this discourse, but also its horizon, the thing it cannot see—not think—beyond. Almost like the wry humour Henry Ford used to sell his assembly line produced T-Ford: “You can have any colour, as long as it’s black.” I’m not arguing that there isn’t enough variety, but I do see an awful lot of photographic projects with that edgy aura of radicalness that makes me wonder: ‘Did you use photography because it was what the subject asked you, or just because you happen to be good at it?’ Following this kind of thinking, I try to see the medium of photography as one of the options, one of the tools available, in order to come to a practice which doesn’t place one medium at its centre, but an interest or a theme instead.
© Robert Glas
Transpose (I am also who I am)
Performance (12 min.)
2014
2. Do you remember a moment or conversation in your career that allowed you to better understand your work?
The idea that my work is somehow already there and that I just have to understand it better is quite strange to me. Most helpful were the moments in which I understood better the work of others. Mostly the work of socio-political engaged artists looking with one eye to sixties’ Conceptual Art, which in itself strikes me as a moment in time where makers got a clearer view of the artistic practice as a whole. By focusing less on the work itself, they developed a much deeper understanding of how a work of art functions in its contexts. This kind of institutional criticism is very much alive today in the artists whose work I’m drawn to.
© Robert Glas
“Herkomstland — de roman gaat enkele reis heten”
(Country of origin — The novel will be called One-Way)
Publication (A4, 84 pages)
Laserprint, stencilprint
2014
3. How would you describe your research in general?
My practice developed into an ongoing investigation on how citizens and human beings relate to nation-states. How bodies are locked in and out and what kind of technologies are deployed to do so. It’s about the kind of narratives generated to justify the attempt to hold on to this specific kind of nation-state, with very open borders when it comes to goods and capital and almost closed borders when it comes to people. A model, of course, mostly beneficial to its inventors.
When I was writing my master thesis, I spent quite some time thinking about the following question: to what extent, besides addressing and increasing awareness or evoking empathy, can art contribute to the improvement of a situation in a very direct way? In the end: to merely address or represent, comes down to leaving even an attempt to a solution to others. One can see this as modest, or having a very clear understanding about what the role of an artist or photographer in the whole is, but there is some nihilism to it as well. Whatever its justification may be, the motivation is very clear. The idea that the mere representation of a problem contributes to its solution is very beneficiary to us makers, for it seemingly solves quite a few mayor ethical problems. I’m afraid however, that the model is less and less effective in a world so saturated with representation. It’s on our Facebook feed day in day out. Such a conclusion creates a direct urge to think beyond the ‘to-represent-is-to-help’ paradigm. It automatically leads up to the question with which quite a bit of today’s artist, writers, etc. are occupied: does socio-political art which is not about representation—a concept rooted so deeply in art throughout the histories—have any chance to function and survive?
Yet, at the same time, the performative factor is already present in everyone’s practice. Let me put it crudely. Think of a single framed photograph for example: even if no one sees it, still a tree has been cut for the frame. Let’s assume that picture framed by it shows the horrible effects of deforestation. There you have it: this work increases on a performative level what it tries to diminish on a representational level. It’s key to create works in which the both levels strengthen instead of weaken each other.
© Robert Glas
“Herkomstland — Others have become your own and now your dreams will also be fulfilled”
Inkjetprint (109 x 91 cm), Laserprint (A4), DVD box
2014
4. Recently you have filed a lawsuit against the state. Can you tell me a little more about that?
The State of the Netherlands detains unwanted foreigners, mostly without a suspicion or conviction of any crime. I requested to photograph the cells and other means used for this policy, mostly because very little material of it is available. After the complete rejection of my request for permission, my lawyer Frans-Willem Verbaas and I decided to prosecute the State to fight this rejection. Now, a year later, after the rejection and going to court twice, the photo’s have been taken and I have published them in Vrij Nederland, a weekly magazine.
The whole experience exemplifies the above mentioned double bind in my work. Yes, one could argue this is just about representation. On the other hand, through the lawsuit, I’ve tried to create a legal precedent and break through a media policy of the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice close to the point of state-censorship.
© Robert Glas, Publication in Vrij Nederland, 2015
5. How do you decide whether a project needs to be presented as a performance or a book or an installation, etcetera?
I’ve to take a small detour to answer this one. Next to the project mentioned above, I’m currently working on a video-piece about a story written by Franz Kafka. The story was published in 1915 and later became part of the penultimate chapter of his posthumously published novel 'The Trial’. When Orson Welles prepared his film adaptation, he decided to use this short story, entitled 'Before the Law’, as the opening prologue. Welles asked his friend animator Alexandre Alexeïeff to make a short clip accompanying the text. Alexeïeff used a 'pinscreen'—which he invented—to make the animation for Welles.
For the past years, I have reread the story several times, a parable about a man waiting at the gate of the Law and trying to get in. However, it was only when I discovered that the pinscreen is made with a wall perforated by thousands of needles and that Alexeïeff was a refugee fleeing the 1917 Russian revolution, that I decided to do something with it. I was very interested in the specific medium in combination with the history of its inventor and the original story he told with it: ‘Before the Law’. So to answer your question: it very often happens like this. It’s not at all like there’s a story first and then I have to search for a suitable medium. It’s already there.
© Robert Glas
Slechte vingers
(Literally: Bad fingers. 'Bad’ in this case means: auto-mutilated to prevent the recognition of fingerprints)
19 inkjetprints (10 x 15 cm),
Floatglass, cardboard
2010