She may not be what she may seem: interview with Annee Olofsson - Interview

The title of this text is taken from Annee Olofsson's most recent self-portraits, in which she wears black contact lenses that make her look like an alien. The portraits are disturbingly amplified by descriptive text superimposed over her image. By frequently changing her eye color from eerie black to ice blue to translucent, she conveys a feeling that she is hiding or in a state of transformation.

Aneta Szylak: In 1998 at the Freiburg Kunstverein in Germany you gave a very specific performance. Please describe it.

Annee Olofson: In that performance, titled The Thrill Is Gone, I wore a pair of black contact lenses that entirely covered my eyes, while I set off fireworks. The fireworks explosions reflected in my black eyes. It was a week after the New Year's celebration, when you feel so fed up with fireworks. They are no fun anymore. So I hired a professional opera singer to perform the Pet Shop Boys song "Being Boring." The performance was basically about the boredom of things that seemed to be so attractive before, about the impermanence of pleasure and time that flies by with no satisfaction or mercy.

Szylak: Your family members have been involved for years in your artistic process. How did you convince them to participate?

Olofsson: I did it for the first time in 1996 with The Mourners--My Last Family Photo. I decided in a split second to do that work. The family was gathered for a summer dinner in my parents' garden and something felt strange and different. So I decided then and there to take that photograph. No one was even able to think twice. Suddenly it was just done. Two weeks later my parents decided to divorce. It was, indeed, the last photo of my family in this form--until recently. My mother and father didn't speak to each other for over eight years. They have begun talking again.

Szylak: The Mourners could be seen as a "classic" family portrait. The group of your parents and grandparents gazes directly at the camera. They all look serious. But then there you are, sitting in front of them, disguised as a polar bear! Sitting neatly on the chair, you keep the head of the costume on your lap. We can imagine the feeling of impropriety that overwhelms you. Do you know what it means to your family to be included in your work?

Olofsson: After that first time I guess they just thought it was O.K. to do it, like a bad habit. Maybe they don't always like it, but they still do it. Sometimes I wonder if I will go too far. Will I try to push our limits? I work very fast when I first start the actual camera work, so no one really gets the opportunity to think more about the situation. It might come later, as an afterthought. I presume that my parents think they are giving me something that I appreciate by doing this for me. But my father is very vain, so he looks more at himself than at the work.

Szylak: Has this process changed your mutual relationship?

Olofsson: Yes, I guess it has. In the video You need her and you want her golden hair, she sees you but she won't love you because she really doesn't care my mother reads aloud from old love letters that have been sent to me. When the video was shot it was the first time she had read them. So now she knows something about me that she thought she would never get to know.

Szylak: I am curious about the expression "bad habit." Bad habits seem to be one of the factors in your artistic attitude. Is the strategy of bad girl something you consciously use or is the mechanism of provocation unintentional?

Olofsson: I think it is unintentional. That is not the reason I make my work, but many people might look at it in that way.

Szylak: I remember your confusion the first time you saw your video work installed in the All You Need Is Love show, in 2000 at the Center for Contemporary Art Laznia (the Bathhouse) in Gdansk, Poland. We talked about going too far with exhibitionism. How do you feel about it now, a year later?

Olofsson: I do not think I went too far with that work. I did find it embarrassing to give so much of myself away. But I don't think that my work has anything to do with exhibitionism. I just use myself because it is easier. I know myself best. And from within me I can show others something that I think they also experience.

Szylak: For the series We are not the one we used to be you posed with your Dad. You once mentioned that you replicated scenes from film stills. What was important in those projects--the final result or the moment of performing and the tension between two individuals playing roles?

Olofsson: Both are important--the final work and the making of it. Most of the poses in this series are inspired by a book about the films of Charlotte Rampling in which she poses with men, such as The Avengers: Mission 5 (1968), Asylum (1972), and Farewell My Lovely (1975). Performing with my father was very intense and difficult. The work is really about the idea of our being two separate adults--not just daughter and father--but two people who can't have the same emotions toward each other anymore without feeling weird about things like my sitting on his lap or holding his hand. We have become something else.