Photo: Alessandra Di Pisa

Interview with...

by Alessandra Di Pisa, 2007

Artist Book
14,5x25,5 cm, 24 pages

"Interview with..." is an artist's book in the form of a long, cohesive interview based on appropriated interview questions from contemporary and historical interviews with Swedish and international artists. Its form is fictional, and the narrative that is built up, is a stylistic play with the idea of the neutral or objective questioner.

For a long time within sociology, it was believed that an interview reflects reality and that a conversation contains "authentic information" based on subjective experiences. This stance has been strongly questioned by various sociologists in recent years. One of them is David Silverman, who argues that the so-called "authentic information" is rather repetitions of known cultural stories. Radical sociological constructivists, including Ithiel de Sola Pool, even claim that no knowledge of reality can be brought forth through an interview, as an interview is always an interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee, where both parties create stories that they believe represent reality. In other words, the interviewer asks questions that they believe will bring out the truth, and the interviewee constructs answers that suit this specific occasion of "truth-making."

In "Interview with...", there are no answers, only questions, through which a narrative is created that undresses our view of the value foundations of art and the idea of artistic originality and autonomy. The work is carried out as a reaction to the general view of artistic value in relation to the artist and their thoughts about life, art, and society, and by extension, highlights the artist's self as a commodity.

"Interview with..." was created for the the exhibition "Between Reality and Fairyland," produced by Kalmar Art Museum in collaboration with Högsby Municipality, with support from the Swedish Arts Council and the Regional Association in Kalmar County.

Curators: Martin Schibli, Kalmar Art Museum & Anneli Berglund, art consultant in Kalmar County.

Milou Allerholm about the exhibitin in Dagens Nyheter
Rolf Ljung about the exhibitin in Östran Lokaltidningen

During the exhibition period, the work "Interview with..." was available at various locations around Högsby: the Tourist Office, Högsby Library, Designgallerian Café, Staby Gårdshotel, and Salon Emma.