Conversation with Esben Weile Kjær
Esben Weile Kjær, building a name for himself through his exploration of trends, culture politics and the fascination of post pop melancholia. With his feet grounded and mind pivoting, Esben succeeds in the recreations of millenium childhood toys and amateur firemen strippers taking over Art Institutions. The ride is wild and humorous.
Attendees
Divijah Rajendra, Nanna Svane, Esben Weile Kjær
Nanna and Esben speaking danish
Nanna Svane: I'm just going to switch to English and…
Esben Weile Kjær: Yeah.
Nanna Svane: I'm At my boyfriend's apartment in London and I have a quite steady connection. Divijah is a little bit more…
Divijah Rajendra: I'm on vacation right now in Greece. I'm on the island of Lemnos. So my connection might be a bit strange and there might be some sounds but I think we can make it work anyway,…
Esben Weile Kjær: Yeah, I'm just at home. A lot of noise from the street. Sorry.
Nanna Svane: No, no, all good.
Divijah Rajendra: Thank you so much for joining us.
Esben Weile Kjær: Of course. I'm excited. I just came back from Salzburg yesterday where I was doing this performance piece called Collider at the Museum der Moderne. But now I'm back in Denmark for the next week, and I'm quite excited about that.
Nanna Svane: Amazing. That performance looked absolutely amazing. I saw it on Instagram and it looks so good.
Esben Weile Kjær: Thank you so much. It was to have this performance within the big retrospective Rose English exhibition at the moment. There was this amazing performance artist from London…
Nanna Svane: Amazing.
Esben Weile Kjær: Who did all these works. I mean she was super in the 80s. And yeah, so the piece was kind of commissioned to that show.
Nanna Svane: Were you in the performance as well?
Esben Weile Kjær: No, I was not. Usually I am. This is like a part of a trilogy, so it's the first time I'm so much out of it myself and I worked with dancers,…
Divijah Rajendra: yeah.
Esben Weile Kjær: it's the second act and it's a solo by this British artist called Isaac Glinister. Who's from Manchester. Yeah, so he's performing it and it was a local ballet school from Salzburg part of it. Yeah.
Nanna Svane: Amazing
Divijah Rajendra: What was the first act?
Esben Weile Kjær: The First Act was called “I want to believe…”
Divijah Rajendra: right
Esben Weile Kjær: that was in London at 180 The Strand and I was part of that myself. It was like this mosh pit performance with these alien skulls hanging from the ceiling like these wrecking balls swinging around and…
Nanna Svane: Yeah.
Esben Weile Kjær: We had these glitter faces made by Thomas de Klyver, a makeup artist. Genius person, who made our faces look very very good.
Nanna Svane: I remember that.
Divijah Rajendra: Looked amazing.
Esben Weile Kjær: I kind of missed that makeup. I could wear it every day.
Nanna Svane: Yeah. Yeah the glitter. How do you actively position yourself within your work? You are present in almost all of your performances and visible throughout your career. Do you want to be an icon and wanting to be an icon, is that a part of your strategy for your practice?
Esben Weile Kjær: I think it changed a lot. I mean it's funny because this whole idea of both being and to be famous, and fame in general, it's just a performance right? It's a performative strategy that you also can put behind. I'm educated at the Music Conservatorium in Music Management before I started studying Visual Arts.
Nanna Svane: Okay.
Esben Weile Kjær: I got my Visual Arts education in mostly sculpture. Three years at the Music Conservatorium has really formed my approach to visual material because with management you learn…
Nanna Svane: Yeah.
Esben Weile Kjær: how to brand, right? How do you make a whole visual impact when you think about an artist? My whole graduation piece from that school was about analyzing strategies for some of the biggest pop artists in the world and with my queer perspective. So the idea was how the PR strategies are reproducing stereotypes and society too, and I looked at Rihanna and Beyoncé, the biggest artists at the time I guess.
Nanna Svane: Amazing.
Divijah Rajendra: Okay, okay.
Esben Weile Kjær: My approach and my material in relation to your question about how I position myself I believe that it's changing a lot from when I started. I'm also thinking a lot about this…
Nanna Svane: right
Esben Weile Kjær: because my most famous piece BURN which is firefighters, stripping inside of these fireworks in different art institutions. I did it when I was in the second year at the Art Academy and it was performed by me and my good friend, who also studied at the Art Academy and then, we performed it over and over again. Year by year. Two years ago we got to perform at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and last year in Vienna. And after last year. I was like we have to rethink this performance.
Nanna: I see.
Divijah Rajendra: Can you please give your verdict on Charlie XCX BRAT? And how that's been branded and the life cycle of that? Because what I'm reading everywhere now is that BRAT summer is dead because it's been exposed so much.
Esben Weile Kjær: Yeah, I was thinking a lot about that. I mean it's really interesting because it's really showing how fast these kinds of trends are going. It's not even one full summer..
Divijah Rajendra: It's insane. BRAT summer is already over before it truly had time to begin.
Nanna Svane: It's so crazy.
Esben Weile Kjær: Yeah, so I guess it's an echo chamber and I have this feeling that it's going fast. But also that is going quite slow. Because I think in reality one thing is all these media saying something about this being dead,…
Divijah Rajendra: Yeah.
Esben Weile Kjær: But I think in reality it just started!
Divijah Rajendra: I've just seen the headlines and it's just kept popping up that everyone is fully over it… because it's been exposed so much. And also I think some of it I've been reading is What’s the actual meaning of it? What I've mainly been seeing is the Apple Dance but performed by everyone and anyone. .
Nanna Svane: Yeah. Yeah.
Divijah Rajendra: TBH I enjoy watching this dance so much.
Esben Weile Kjær: Me too..!
Divijah Rajendra: I just found it so interesting that it appeared so fast and blew up so fast and then it died just as fast.
Esben Weile Kjær: Yeah, I mean, I think that this whole BRAT Summers is dead started after the Kamala Harris meme.
Nanna Svane: yeah.
Esben Weile Kjær: It’s a part of her campaign. So there is something about the attitude of the album, the idea of nihilism. Really the opposite of being a part of the American election. The chaotic potential of BRAT kind becomes political yeah kind of and I think that it kickstarted BRAT summer is dead. Not so much about the music but that's the attitude around it kind of died.
Divijah Rajendra: The human body and its relation to other human bodies, seems like a big deal in your performances. What does the act of eroticism mean to you?
Esben Weile Kjær: Yeah, I think in the beginning with some of my first performances and exhibitions I made, was Hardcore Freedom. This was about specific scenes and Coming of Age movies. So it was Hollywood produced Coming of Age movies that was repeated within the performance over and over again. And switched out in time. So they kind of became long and weird and repetitive. So there's something about taking these images that we know so well from these movies and repeating them so many times that the image kind of changed. And these images were of bodies, kissing, hugging, raving, dancing. So it’s this kind of image of youthfulness and freedom, which is such a construction and I think there was something about taking these typical situations, like trading these archetypes and then repeating them so many times that they will change and become weird and difficult to completely understand. So that's at least where I started.
Divijah Rajendra: What movies did you reproduce scenes from?
Esben Weile Kjær: I mean, I can't remember right now… but it was just all these very classical american produced coming of age. It's funny because I just went to New York for five months and…
Divijah Rajendra: Yeah.
Esben Weile Kjær: I went a lot to the cinema and I was watching all these new High School movies like Bottoms and The Sweet East.
Divijah Rajendra: I feel fashion and makeup is also a big part of your performances. Can you talk a bit about that?
Divijah Rajendra: Yeah!
Esben Weile Kjær: It's like pumping so much into these eight minutes. Right on!
Divijah Rajendra: It's such a short amount of time. But there's so much work and time, effort and money.
Nanna Svane: But it’s also absolutely amazing. I love doing shows!
Esben Weile Kjær: Completely, but it's really fascinating because the fashion show, I think, was so much ahead of it’s time. Everything turned into a fashion show. Almost every stadium concert usually has all these kinds of things were made for the camera. The fashion show was a performance for the camera, even before social media!
Nanna Svane: 100%
Esben Weile Kjær: So yeah, of course, it's these eight minutes, but it's much more about the images of these eight minutes.
Divijah Rajendra: How do you think about the documentation of your performances? It’s mainly photography. And iPhone video clips, but your performance are long. What are you trying to do with the performance itself? And then with the documentation of the work yourself?
Esben Weile Kjær: Yeah, I think in the beginning I really had a problem with this. Love of the idea of authenticity that is all super connected to the moments. If you like performance, you usually have this idea of the sixty/seventies like documentation of body, space and it was just annoying me a bit and…
Divijah Rajendra: Yeah.
Esben Weile Kjær: What was interesting, was doing the opposite and when I did the performance in the beginning then this idea of the documentation of it. Just photos that were super digital and there's something about it. I was like, what is this? It's not the work that you're looking at. It's like trying to become objective and I was like that doesn't work… So I try to see how I can make the documentation become part of the work. I tried that out by working with specific fashion photographers.
Divijah Rajendra: Right.
Nanna Svane: So you create your performances from a perspective that will be captured by a camera before you think about the performance and that creation itself. Yeah?
Esben Weile Kjær: Yeah Yeah! The whole idea of my piece HYPER! came directly from DJing at fashion shows in Paris. All this waiting time, where you were just sitting with these headphones on waiting for that one rehearsal bit. Fantasize about that whole scenario, the model's not walking but rolling down the runway, making out, the light falling down.. So the idea for that piece came from the fashion show.
Divijah Rajendra: yeah.
Nanna Svane: Interesting… Sorry for my voice. I'm sitting and listening and then when you have to speak first thing in the morning, it's like… Experiences, knowledge and creation of innovation seems like a path for your practice. By visiting ancient work and the past, combining it with graffiti, sparkles and elements of pop culture. How do you balance the line between re-creating and inventing a piece?
Nanna Svane: yeah. Yeah.
Esben Weile Kjær: I made a piece that looked a lot like Jeff Koons pink balloon dog, but this one was like a poodle and it was standing screaming and had really spiky teeth. It was trying to eat these two real paintings. And people were so provoked about this. I thought it was very funny.
Nanna Svane: lol.
Esben Weile Kjær: I looked at the facades at Louis Vuitton and saw how they were reproducing the aesthetics of Jeff Koons. Pop art becoming the architecture of the big luxury fashion store.
Nanna Svane: Yeah.
Esben Weile Kjær: Jeff Koons sculptures are always being extremely passive.
Divijah Rajendra: mmm
Nanna Svane: Yeah.
Esben Weile Kjær: I wanted to make it difficult. They were biting back or being conflicted in the image, within itself trying to also put something violent into the object and it feels like it's kind of like breaking out of that passive shape. I think that was quite obvious but people got so provoked. So, I don't know if it's an answer.
Nanna Svane: I think that it’s a perfect description and answer to the question of not inventing a piece. You said I'm not trying to be original, but recreating the pieces that you see. Curating from the culture that is around us and…
Esben Weile Kjær: but I think it's so referential and that's how my thinking is. It's so much about what's already there.
Nanna Svane: then blowing them up somehow in either sculptures or performances. Some of the pieces that you choose to blow up into either sculptures or using your performances can come across very, let's say in time tendency, like fashion. Everything. The Outfits! I'm obsessed with it every time I look at it. I love the outfits you are wearing for all your performances or if you're just visiting the exhibition. Everything is so curated. And I really adore that you still keep surprising, which I think is a very beautiful gift.
Esben Weile Kjær: I'm very very happy you said that. I think you're really right about the thing and about being observant.
Nanna Svane: Yeah.
Esben Weile Kjær: I am also really intuitively choosing objects that I like and if you for example look at the bronze sculpture from the BUTTERFLY exhibition and the BUTTERFLY sculpture. It started with this key ring I had on my Eastpak backpack when I was in school.
Divijah Rajendra: If you were to switch life with any Hollywood star dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Nanna Svane: Perfect.
Esben Weile Kjær: I could choose one Hollywood whoa. That's so difficult! I mean, it's so obvious to say Marilyn Monroe, But I think… Okay! I would say at the moment or earlier, two months ago I went to Primavera Festival in Barcelona only to see Lana Del Rey. I want to say someone who's actually alive and was for me always a Hollywood goddess…
Nanna Svane: That's such a good choice.
Divijah Rajendra: I love Lana Del Rey! But I have this… Very cringe moment in my life and it's out there on the internet. At Northside festival back when I was in high school, Lana Del Ray played and Soundvenue (Danish music magazine), had this interview of concert guests. They asked what's the best act at the festival and what’s the worst act at the festival? And I said the worst act was Lana Del Rey! Because she was too American. Lol.
Esben Weile Kjær: Haha! I remember when she became famous, people were criticizing her for being fake which is so fun that you criticize someone for being fake…
Divijah Rajendra: Yeah. I was one of them...
Esben Weile Kjær: because pop is fake, right? I remember all the media going crazy about her having fake lips,…
Nanna Svane: Yeah, Divijah. Who would you choose?
Divijah Rajendra: It's a really really hard question. Hollywood in itself is just all of America. The country is movie or a self sabotaging star itself. That's a very scary country to me.
Esben Weile Kjær: What fascinates me about it because American culture has been forming our whole north of Europe identity and image and music so in a way this whole new liberal ideology has been also transmitted to the rest of the World through culture that we have in America. It's also extremely fascinating but I went to New York for five months. I never wanted to live there!
Divijah Rajendra: Nanna, if I have to choose one Hollywood star, dead or alive, who would it be…
Nanna Svane: The mixture between Marilyn Monroe and… Meryl Streep. Yeah, I think those two are the mothers of Hollywood…
Esben Weile Kjær: Iconic!
Divijah Rajendra: One last one, Esben. What do you mean by saying That awkward time between life and death?
Esben Weile Kjær: That is a title for a series of sculptures of the character Diddle I made that were on view and now at the sculpture park of Arken Museum. I also made this t-shirt and I guess it's on a cap too.
Nanna Svane: Perfect cap. I stole it all the time from my friend.
Esben Weile Kjær: I was trying to frame life like epic scenarios.. but also have these super awkward moments of failures. Because who the fuck even looks at Diddle anymore. The figures have crazy scary faces and boobs. And they're sitting there out in the Scandinavian forest with new things growing on them and becoming a part of the landscape. They just reminded me of that awkward time between birth and death. Like your Lana Del Rey moment you are so cringed out by. That's just life!
Divijah Rajendra: Diddle was such a moment. Loved it and collected so much paper!
Esben Weile Kjær: I did as well and it's because we're all Millennials, but if you're say this to gen Z, that we collected paper. They would be like, what the fuck..
Divijah Rajendra: You have to reissue the merchandise! .
Esben Weile Kjær: Gonna do all new merchandis.! Yeah.
Nanna Svane: Love love.
Divijah Rajendra: Thank you for having this conversation. Thank you.
Nanna Svane: Thank you so much. It's been such an interesting conversation.
Esben Weile Kjær: Thank you both! It’s been really fun.
Divijah Rajendra: See you around. Bye.
Nanna Svane: See you!
Esben Weile Kjær: See you around!
Conversation ended after 01:012:12 👋
Some links Esben wanted to share:
MGMT - time to pretend
Headphones or earplugs?
Earplugs!
For breakfast I eat…
Coffee
Albums or playlists…
Playlists
I am good at…
Seeing beauty everywhere
I am not good at…
Math
The shoes I always wear are…
Prada loafers
Hollywood in 3 words?
I great idea
Most iconic album cover?
Sonic Youth - dirty
3 recent movie recommendations?
The sweet east, Bottoms, Eileen
Stardom is…?
A performance
Something no one knows about you?
I have 6 toes on my left foot
What are you most proud of in your life?
Having fun