ARTIST: Jan Herdlicka
Interview & Text: Luxi
DATE: 2024.02
Besides Human
Non-human, Apocalyptical, Fictional Photography, Fear
Introduction
Jan Herdlicka is a Germany-based contemporary artist. Based in the research on non-human agencies, his art practice combines photography with sculpture, installation and mixed-media the
interrelation between human and non-human in an experimental, playful and dreamlike way. In this interview, we talked with Jan the boundaries of creativity, the fictional potential of
photography, and more uncannily, the role of fear in art practices.
To gain a comprehensive understanding of Jan's artwork, we recommend visiting his AYA online exhibitions:
• Arcadian Cabinet I
• Arcadian Cabinet II: Eerie Stars
From series Die Botschaft. Image provided by Jan Herdlicka
Interview Text
AYA: Jan, thanks for taking the time to share with us your most recent series and the story behind it. In your archive we can see a wandering trace that sets foot on the domain of many
different media: photography, collage and the recent site-specific installation for Labyrinth Festival of New Art.
In addition to that, your way of engaging with photography diverges significantly with the genre’s tradition, and it resists a simplified grouping with any extant subgenre, e.g. architecture
photography, nature or landscape photography.
When you conceptualize your work, is there any genre affiliation? And if not, how do you use the previously existing genres as parameters for your newly-conceptualized genre?
JAN: First of all, thank you for the question that allows me a rare retrospect on my years of practice. I would say that the reason for my photography nowadays to look the way it looks lies in the time I have invested in this particular part of my work over the years. It is time-brewed. And in spite of the conscious endeavors I have willed to implement, there may also have been the unconscious influence from history, from my life, from the casual talks as we are having here.
From series Die Botschaft . Image provided by Jan Herdlicka
I have to say that it is within the field of canonical photography that I see the foundation of my artistic work, and that was where I started off. My first artistic practice was more or less
exclusively focusing on the black/white film photography, and for some many years I found inspiration and motivation from the legendary street photographers such as Joel Meyerowitz, Bruce
Gilden or Daido Moriyama. They all have their unique and sometimes peculiar approaches to photography that may seem bizarre at the time when they were born, but these methods would later also
find their way into the traditional photographic canon. And that is to say as we are discussing my oeuvre’s relationship with the tradition, "tradition" is also a comparative concept that’s
subject to limbo and frequent changes.
After years of working within the domain of traditional photography, at a sudden point it all spread out and I more and more found myself being creatively caged in the mode of capturing
"realities", realities in the sense as they could be seen and collected with classical photographic techniques. That’s when I started to feel the haunt of repetition, but it took me years,
years of working within the cage, to know where the liminal cage was actually placed. From then on, my work has shifted its weight to widen the boundaries within the medium, and I gradually
developed my way to chemically (mis)treat film rolls, to (mis)use cameras and so on.
From series Arkadia . Image provided by Jan Herdlicka
In the oldest body of work I still show on my website, and I still consider it to be part of my portfolio, there is a series called "Arkadia". In this body of work you may find a bridge between the old and the new way I tried to include artistic photography in my creative approaches. And this series also indicates another reason for me working the ways nowadays: the freedom of creating imagery motifs within photography allows me to link this part of my artistic work much better with the other genres I included over the years like sculpture, installation, mixed media, etc. Photography gives birth or develops on the prototypal motifs, and there’s an interaction and flexibility innate within the genre that kind of predicts the inter-genre method.
From series Arkadia . Image provided by Jan Herdlicka
AYA: There are several series in your oeuvre that have touched upon the topic of on human and non-human agency, for instance, the Omnivor 415, Kontrol and Echo. These series are backed up by an extensive amount of sociological, environmental and anthropological research on your side. Can you briefly map out the intellectual context in which we can better understand the genealogy of your work in regard to human and non-human agency?
JAN: A biographical detail that might relate to the question is that I am about to hand in my PH.D thesis on posthuman theories this year, and these studies conducted over the years have
heavily infused my artistic work. For this reason I guess it might also be a right time to explain the thematic part of my work in more details.
If a definitive tone there needs be, to put it in a very basic way, my work tries to reflect the interrelations between humans and nonhumans in a sometimes experimental and sometimes playful
or dreamlike way. This essentially entails the need to drastically review our own existence on earth and to view animals, plants and even the non-living matters as equal partners in order to
refocus on our collective planetary well-being. In theory, of course, there are many important discussions about the interrelations, and my works have been informed by scholars and writers in
the Posthuman field such like Timothy Morton and Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented-Ontology, Donna Haraway’s Chtulucene and String-Figures, New Materialism and the works of Karen Barad, Rosi
Braidotti, Anna Tsing, among many more.
From series Echo . Image provided by Jan Herdlicka
However, as complicated as the battlefield of theory can get, the relationship between artistic work and theory is also more sophisticated than it seems. As for my work, though being informed
by these theories, they more importantly differ from or in some cases oppose the theories I start with.
On the one hand, I do not want my work to be "streamlined" into a direct expression of the theoretical discussion. I see the posthuman field more like a "tool-box" from which I here and then
may take conceptual fragments/models and ideas for my artistic approaches. And on the other, as many artists, I also retain the power for my artwork to engage with the theoretical discussion.
A very often-seen misconception about research-based artwork is that art can be seen as a secondary expression, a by-product to infuse the theory with more vitality. Art’s power to modify, to
rewrite has been underestimated.
From series Die Botschaft . Image provided by Jan Herdlicka
This is why in the preparation of my work I also emphasize not focusing solely on academic works but also trying to open myself up more to various sources. I very much admire children’s books for their depth, darkness, and multiple meanings behind the seemingly simple text. I admire Romanticism for its twisted and fundamentally unrealistic view on the concept of nature. I admire Japanese pop culture for its inclusion of Shintoism and a fresh weirdness to a Western eye. I admire various forms of Science-Fiction for its sheer power of imagination. In general, I think the most valuable thing when it comes to arts is trying to be thematically, methodologically, and technically rich and variable while still being able to establish an aesthetic language which is unique and consistent throughout the resourcefulness.
From series Mondvogel . Image provided by Jan Herdlicka
AYA: Theories and artworks alike, posthuman is a topic that demands imagination and fiction to re-direct our vision to an anti-anthropocentric world. Your series "Omnivor 415" and "Echo" have definitely succeeded in this sense as it depicts uncannily a postapocalyptic science-fiction.
JAN: I think this very interestingly brings us back to the previous topic on photography’s genre tradition as well. Like I mentioned there, photography as a medium to capture a certain kind of reality only kept me motivated for a short period of time. What ensues after that, however, is not a total embrace of the full freedom of image-making. Up to now I still hardly ever use digital post- production and still shoot the absolute majority of my work using film. Film photography is dependent on the chemical reaction of the tiny particles, and from this perspective, I am still working within the "factual", physical aspect of the world. It seems that I am kept somewhere in between: not being interested in portraying realities while also not working in any way with the potentialities nowadays technology would offer to enhance or interfere with human perception.
From series Omnivor415 . Image provided by Jan Herdlicka
I am sure that there must be all kinds of artistic approaches exploring nonhuman perspectives on photography, but when it comes to myself I see a clear benefit of limiting my own artistic "tool-box" so that I can have an ongoing need for creative solutions within these self-imposed limitations. The self-limitation is probably my way of catalyzing my creativity. And after all, in order to cross the boundaries, there must be some boundaries in the first place.
From series Omnivor415 . Image provided by Jan Herdlicka
AYA: An interesting feedback we have had from viewers of your previous exhibitions is that the viewing of your work requires a different mode of attention from viewing other photography works.
They commented that the concept and narrative behind the photographs are so indispensable that they require the same attention as with the photographs per se.
This comment raises an interesting point about photograph’s self-sufficiency. Do you consider your images as self-sufficient on their own? And what is the power dynamics between the driving
concept, the explanatory narrative and the photographs?
From series Arkadia . Image provided by Jan Herdlicka
JAN: Though I haven’t received this feedback in person, interestingly it is a question I have posed to myself from time to time. Over the years I am certain that I do not want to be seen as a
conceptual artist. Viewing other’s work and my work alike, I am appealed by artworks that manage to be aesthetically interesting, be it aesthetically pleasing or thrilling, tranquil or
evocative, while the artworks can still incorporate a certain level of conceptual seriousness and freshness. This is a standard I apply equally to myself and to viewing others’ works.
To view it closely, the relationship between an artwork’s aesthetics and its thematic concept is a mesmerizing, manifold mechanism. It can be as entangled as an interpersonal relationship in a
Victorian novel, and it is the entanglement that attracts me. My latest photographic works, "Zentralgestirne" and "Laputas Horizontierungen" for example, might evoke some feelings of being
cheesy or cliché at the first sight, but to view the series in the context of its narrative there immediately arises a contrast, an irony with the theoretical content. Therefore, to go back to
where we started off, what do I see as the power dynamics between the concept, narrative and photographs? I think these factors in combine form the organism we call artwork, an organism that
is not a cohesive unity without fracture, but a cacophony full of dissonance.
From series Zentral Gestirne . Image provided by Jan Herdlicka
AYA: It would also be interesting if we hold your work in comparison with other works on the same posthuman topic. From the past few years, the art world as well as sociological theory have
witnessed a new wave of works that discuss the theme of human and non-human agency. But, most of the artists who work on the theme seem to be motivated by an emotional intimacy towards the
non-human agency, a love for the nature, a nostalgia, an ecological ideology…
But for you, this doesn’t feel to be the case. In the introduction to your series "Kontrol", you’ve introduced your childhood fear towards thunderstorm and how it naturally related to a fear
of losing control.
"Since I was a small child various weather phenomena had the tendency to invoke anxiousness inside me. While it was seen as normal and somehow expected of a boy at the age of five to ten to
fear loud thunderstorms sometimes even the wind itself left me crying and telling my parents not to take me outside until it was gone.
I literally seemed to be freightened by the possibility of being blown away and unable to keep my feet on the ground. So to say the most general fear of a loss of control an individual could
experience.
Kontrol does not show the skies as seen under natural circumstances but more as a result of the human will to control our habitat."
Does this fear, to these days, still mark where your work comes from emotionally?
From series Kontrol . Image provided by Jan Herdlicka
JAN: Most definitely! When I was composing the narrative behind "Kontrol", I did not mean to generate an impression that the series was completely fear-driven, but you have brought up a very
interesting point regarding the role of fear in my work.
Even though the emotional background in most of my works might not be as striking as the personal anecdote I share with "KONTROL", but fear is a persistent undertone, a significant artistic
drive in general. All my early photography works can be interpreted as an attempt to conserve something that is doomed to leave me – time. To press the shutter resembles a strategy of coping
with the fear of losing something with time, and a strategy to construct an alternative world that may be slightly immune to the washing of time.
The alternative world is also an outer world – an outer world dependent on film, chemicals, on the objective physical rules, an outer world ruled by nonhuman agencies. That’s how my fear
relates me to the topic of posthuman, very subtly, very unexpectedly, almost in a direction that’s opposite to others. Over the years, I have found it very strange that fear’s role has barely
been acknowledged, neither by critics, nor by artists themselves. Probably admitting I fear something thus I created my work is an act of renouncing the artistic agency, but from the
perspective of posthumanism, this renouncing of agency is exactly what we need to start off.
From series Omnivor415 . Image provided by Jan Herdlicka
Jan's Past Exhibitions
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2024 "Bingo", gr_und, Berlin
2023 "Betonfuchs 2023", Galerie M, Berlin
2023 "Skulpturverein #7 - Königskolonnaden", Berlin
2023 "DRAGONER.01 - Super Contemporary Arts Fest", Berlin
2022 "Labirynt - Festival of New Art", Frankfurt (Oder)/ Slubice
2022 "Alien(n)ation", Kunstraum Potsdamer Str., Berlin
2022 "Arcadian Cabinet", Art Yourself Atelier, NYC (online)
2021 "Das kleine Format", Kunstverein Aichach, Aichach
2021 "NFT (kitties) LAB", BARK Berlin Gallery, Berlin
2020 "5 rooms/5 artists", Hotel Die Fabrik, Berlin
2019 "Under the Underground", Galerie Franzkowiak, Berlin
2018 "INTERRELATIONS", Raum für Drastische Maßnahmen, Berlin
2018 "II-VI-XVII", Voodoo55 Artspace, Berlin
2017 "EAF 49 Contemporary Artists", Kantgaragen-Palast, Berlin
2017 "The Image of the Savage", Loosenart Gallery, Rome