Mmm, MOHR MOHR MOHR Excerpt from interview by Jenny Wilson about the exhibition Frenzy at Nieuwe Vide in Haarlem, curated by Nathalie Hartjes. Published in the publication Mmm, MOHR MOHR MOHR by Frank Mohr Institute - Minerva Art Academy, Groningen (2014)
JW: The works you exhibit in Frenzy seek a geometric simplicity both in form and material, yet at the same time you play with small interventions that can throw the viewer off guard. Could you expand on this interplay and on how you employ this in your thinking and practice?
SE: The works I show at Frenzy belong to a series of sculptural works entitled Compact Still Lifes, and ones that come forth from this series. They are loose compositions of geometrical shapes, partly naturally and partly artificially forced into this geometric appearance. The different elements are at the same time held together and divided by a kind of pedestal, which I intend to be integrated as part of the piece. These elements are not in a fixed position but subject to disturbances in balance, forces of gravity or irregularities of the floor, for example. This instability, for me, contributes to the awareness about the materiality and shape of the objects, its sensory aspects, the lightness or heaviness of the material. Somehow I feel attracted by the strictness and universality of geometry on the one hand and its playful and fragile aspects on the other.
JW: Could you say a little more about the specific materials you work with? And could you elaborate on the notions of 'natural' and 'artificial' in your work?
SE: For the sculptures I often work with basic construction materials, like MDF or plasterboard. You can still see the original material and feel the tactility, the wooden particles in the MDF but then pressed into a clean shape, or the plaster dust coming off the boards. I sometimes combine these basic materials with found furniture parts, mirrors, brass table legs… this goes intuitively according to the function or intended sphere. Recently I also integrate parts of common presentation systems, the cleanliness and super-artificiality of acrylic glass, for example, interests me. Then there are the smaller parts that I add, rough stones, crystals, geometrically shaped stones, or occasionally something like part of a lamp shade.. things that grab my attention with its shape or texture. I use them like a kind of accent... in the space, relating to a surface, or to one another creating a certain field of tension. In the series of prints Folding Marble I took photos of marble, printed them on lightweight paper, folded them and then photographed the folded paper again laying on the original marble surface. In this way I am looking for a state in between the materiality of stone and the materiality of paper, where the characteristics of both materials merge. It’s the weight of matter versus its annulment and vice versa that fascinates me. The fossilization of paper versus the solidity of rocks dissolved by fragile formability. Although for me it’s about the very specific objects and materials, about presenting, ordering, relating them to one another, and about the space in between... in general I think my choice of materials comes forth from my fascination for the tension between natural phenomena, the rough, tactile and at the same time ungraspable aspects on one hand, and on the other hand the human urge for controlling, shaping, artificial cleanliness, and pure aesthetics.
JW: What made you or the curator, Nathalie Hartjes, choose these works for the exhibition?
SE: In the sculptural pieces it’s this instability, fragility and the resulting tension mentioned above that links them to a frenzied state of mind. In the Folding Marble series of prints the instability lies in the in between state of two materials, paper and stone, relating to each other and taking over each other's characteristics.