[00:00:02] Monika Grzymala: I dumped all my work. So I was without any connection to my artistic self. And I started drawing a line in a sketchbook. And this line continued from one page to another. And at some point the book was full of lines, so I continued with drawing on the walls of my studio. And that was the initial beginning of how I'm still working as an artist.
And then the manager of the collection she said Monika, your work is breaking apart. Can I fix it? And then I said, yeah, well, there is nothing to fix first of all. But when you fix it, it's not my artwork anymore, then we are Collaborating, right?
I'm not making any corrections. There is no right lines or wrong lines. There's just the authentic line or not authentic gestures in space.
[00:01:02] Welcome to the Installation Art podcast, the world's number one and only podcast about installation, art, and the people who work with it. In this show, you will hear about the joys and challenges of the medium and get a behind the scenes look at the career and process of internationally renowned guests.
[00:01:23] I am your host, Anastasia Parson.
[00:01:26] My today's guest is someone who primarily works with monochromatic spatial drawings, which is a particular area of interest for me, and so I just had to have her on the show.
[00:01:41] Monika Grzymala is a Berlin based drawing and installation artist known for her site specific and architectural interventions, often made using kilometers of adhesive tape.
[00:01:55] She uses the term Raum zeichnung, German for room drawing or spatial drawing to describe her approach. Monika calls herself a sculptor who makes drawings, creating large scale abstract formations using a variety of materials.
[00:02:14] Her work has been exhibited internationally from MoMA and the Drawing Center in New York, the Biennale of Sydney, the Tokyo Art Museum, and more. And she has created several public art commissions across Europe and the US.
[00:02:29] Stick around to hear my favorite part, how she got started with spatial drawing on a skating rink. It is my absolute pleasure to introduce Monika Grzymala.
[00:02:45] Anastasia: Thanks Monika for agreeing to do this interview. How About we start with some easy, quick questions
[00:02:52] Monika Grzymala: Hmm.
[00:02:53] Anastasia: just to get warmed up. Do you have a favorite quote?
[00:02:58] Monika Grzymala: I'm looking here at the wall above my desk, there's quote by Louise Bourgeois. I have been to hell and back, and let me tell you, it's been wonderful. So that's what jumps right into my eye this morning.
[00:03:18] Anastasia: Yeah.
[00:03:19] Monika Grzymala: Yes.
[00:03:20] Anastasia: What's your favorite thing to drink while you're in the studio?
[00:03:24] Monika Grzymala: to drink tea. I am drinker. So I love,
[00:03:30] Anastasia: What kind of tea?
[00:03:31] Monika Grzymala: me Sorry.
[00:03:33] Anastasia: Oh, good
[00:03:34] Monika Grzymala: joining me when I'm speaking. come on.
[00:03:38] Anastasia: studio dog.
[00:03:39] Monika Grzymala: So he always thinks he supports me with his presence. So,
[00:03:45] Anastasia: That's nice.
[00:03:48] do you have a secret hobby or interest?
[00:03:51] Monika Grzymala: secret hobby, our interest is gardening and like being in nature, going for hikes. Being in the mountains, that is quite beautiful. But I'm also enjoying living in Berlin. I'm based in Berlin for about 20 years now. It's great to have a big city around you. So there's a lot of uh, cultural things happening. And my studio is located in a nice vivid area. So, I like the contrast between both a big city and nature. So yeah, that's my hobby.
[00:04:25] Anastasia: Yeah.
[00:04:26] Monika Grzymala: And um, also my studio here in Berlin isn't that big because I don't need that much space. All my works are site specific, so they are created onsite. I'm usually working without assistants, so it's always a performative process to install a new piece. I'm using adhesive tape, so it's also a material that is easy to travel with. beforehand, in preparation of an exhibition, I'm sending just smaller boxes with tape to a museum or to a gallery space, and then everything else is being created on site. So this also makes my work situation a bit easier and logistically easy to handle.
[00:05:14] Anastasia: Yeah. is there something you like to listen to while you are in the studio or while you are installing on site?
[00:05:22] Monika Grzymala: Usually it's just like really the natural sound of the space. I'm not listening to music. When I was younger, I used to listen to music while working. But meanwhile it's an intense process that I prefer to keep listening to what's happening inside, so to say.
[00:05:42] Anastasia: Okay. Well, how about we go back, to the very beginnings. Tell us about where did you grow up and how did you come to discover art for yourself?
[00:05:56] Monika Grzymala: I'm born in Poland, and then when I was a little child my family moved to Germany. So, um we landed in Germany when I was 10 years old. And I was always very interested in, in, in music and art. My original plan was to become a doctor, and then yeah, I applied for the University of medicine and a professional training as a stone sculptor because after high school I thought I'd like learn how it is to work as a sculptor with stones. And I was very interested in that. And, uh, yeah, the second application for the professional training as a stone sculptor, it worked. So, I was able to start the training and it took four years to learn it. And we, we learned stone carving from the base, like getting the rocks from the mine and carving stones in all shapes and material qualities.
[00:07:03] this was before I started studying arts. And then my, my studies continued at uh, three different art schools in Germany. The first was Karlsruhe, which in southern Germany. Then from there, my dog, I hope you, you can't hear my dog. and then I continued studying in Kassel where the Documenta, the big exhibition is always taking place. And the third art school where I studied and where I finished my diploma, was in Hamburg. And in my experience, all three art schools were very different 'cause a very different method of approaching art production was taught there. And it was very fruitful for me to be able to get such an insight into artistic productions from very different perspectives.
[00:08:01] Anastasia: So what made you decide to go from the trade, let's say, of stone carving to art school?
[00:08:09] Monika Grzymala: I really liked to have that traditional approach in storm carving school. We had like everything, we had figure drawing, we had modelling with clay and plaster. we we even did our tools ourselves. So it's been like a really profound training in how to work and how as well like to get over this Sometimes very tiring, very excessive processes, very physical processes of art production.
[00:08:47] And then my work used to be very figurative. I was placing figures in the room, so they were in relation to each other. And it took me sometimes up to two years to work on one piece because it's been all sculpted first in clay, then I took the plaster form from the clay model and then it's been casted in plaster and then they were in colour. And this is also that kind of art that I've been making when I started studying. So my professors and teachers, they were themselves like figurative sculptors. But somehow I felt stuck with that method of making art and making installations. And then I found Bogomir Ecker, he's a teacher from Dusseldorf, a sculptor, but an abstract sculptor. So I asked him for our first meeting to have a conversation with him on my work. And he was looking at my installation that I've placed there in the corridor of the art school because there was no room in the studios.
[00:10:00] And also the studio situation at every art school was very different. Sometimes you had only half a table. Sometimes it's been an entire very large studio with all sorts of materials you could use as a sculptor. So depending on the financial situation of the art school, of course. And then, anyway, when I met Bogomir Ecker the first time he was looking at my installation that I placed there in the corridor and at the stairwell in the building. And he said like, I think Monika, you are a great s sculptor, no question but I think what you mean is the relation between things and that you could find another, easier language for yourself to express your thoughts and maybe you could rethink that way of, uh, bringing sculptures or installations into the world. And I totally agreed with him because this question was somehow the first time that I've heard a question like that.
[00:11:01] So, I dumped all my work. And then I um, I moved to Hamburg to become a student of Bogomir Ecker 'cause he invited me to be part of his classes. It was my first winter in Hamburg, so I dumped my work. So I was without any connection so to say to my artistic self. And I started drawing a line in a sketchbook. And this line continued from one page to another. And at some point the book was full of lines, so I continued with it, uh, drawing on the walls of my studio in Hamburg. And this was my first site specific drawing in a way.
[00:11:47] And so the next meeting we had with my professor was at my home where my first drawing was. And that was quite much the initial beginning of how I'm still working as an artist. It's all based on the language of the line because I think that a straight line, a line intention expresses a very different emotional content than a tangled line, a meandering line, a curly line. It can be energetic, It can be very loose and, somehow exhausted, right? It can be sad. It can be funny. It can be very many different things. Because it's so simple and complex at the same time. So it still is my main, yeah, language of artistic expression.
[00:12:38] And then working with tapes was another continuation because then with my drawing, I was somehow stuck in the two dimensional world of a drawing on paper or continuing on the wall. And then there was still this desire to take the step into the third dimension. So I, I was like pulling strings between walls. I was pulling transparent tubes between walls. Um, then the step to take adhesive tape was quite logical for me because it's a line on a roll. Right? So I hope that answers your question.
[00:13:22] Anastasia: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So how did you first get into showing those tape installations? Tell me about your first bigger project or opportunity.
[00:13:37] Monika Grzymala: The first really large project, which was born out of a random idea or a random conversation with my professor Bogomir, because, I was layering my line drawings. I was working on transparent materials, like foil sheets and then I was making drawings on that, and then I was layering them. At some point I had 10 layers and then. I was stretching transparent tubes between the walls, filling in, uh, ink and water, like watching what's happening there. And Bogomir mentioned then ah, you know what? Because he was working on frozen sculptures at that time. And so he was very fascinated by ice in general as a medium. Olafur Eliasson, he was doing experiments with ice. It's been somehow a time for, in Europe, it's been somehow time to work with ice. And then I Bogomir in that way that it should be connected to that movement of skating on ice. you know, this smooth skating on ice. So then I thought, okay, so let's do a project with my enthusiasm you know, as a young student, I was like, let's do a drawing in the ice of a skating rink. that was why at much my first project. uh, Then I organised, financing and support.
[00:15:06] So here.
[00:15:10] Anastasia: So you, didn't draw with skates, you drew with... inks?
[00:15:16] Monika Grzymala: Paint that was frozen in the eyes of a skating rink. And then this is the skating rink. There was only, the exhibition was on view only for one day. So visitors of my exhibition of this drawing in the ice could skate on my drawing. So their trace is connected with my traces in the ice. And then we turned off the cooling devices and the ice was melting again, and the drawing was disappearing again. This was my first large scale site specific work, which was in the year 2000, right at the end of the skating season in Hamburg.
[00:15:58] So this was my first work. And then there was a small kit, a simulation of a snow cloud. So people could freeze their breath in a little plastic bottle in the ice cream freezer of the skating rink and, um, watch their own very personal ice crystals for a very short while. It's been also a very ephemeral work. And my first very ephemeral work. And I think from then on I started thinking more and longer about temporary pieces, not pieces that are preserved forever. Yeah.
[00:16:40] Anastasia: Well, that's an interesting topic because I've been wondering myself like what is the role of installation? Is it about the experience or is it about the sort of the final object or the product or the intervention in space? Like, you work uniquely with ephemeral installations, or do you also have things that you can transpose from one space to another or sell, or?
[00:17:12] Monika Grzymala: Yeah, there there are of course flat works or works that are permanent in collections or even there's one collector in New York who lives in my permanent installation.
[00:17:27] Anastasia: Oh really!?
[00:17:28] Monika Grzymala: Yes. Yeah. it's Ms. Diane Woodner, she collects my work since over 20 years, and so she lives in my work. All her living room is in fact my installation. And,
[00:17:43] Anastasia: Okay,
[00:17:44] Monika Grzymala: so she is surrounded by my work every day,
[00:17:49] Anastasia: sounds great.
[00:17:50] Monika Grzymala: It's a different situation. So it's also a different situation if you are showing your work in a different context. If it's a group exhibition, this is quite of importance for me and there there are other artworks around. Because I'm always working very spontaneously and like reacting not only to the architecture of the space but as well to the time or allover situation of a space. So it always varies a lot.
[00:18:22] Also the choice of materials. Is it like a black tape? Uh, I forgot to mention mainly my works, even if they were very colourful in the beginnings, in the meantime my works became more and more black and white because I figured out that colour does not play such an important role for me when I'm working. It's, it's a different form of information anyway. And, with the black and white monochromatic form of expression, I think it puts more focus on the on the shape of things and on the form itself.
[00:19:02] Anastasia: Yeah. How do you decide which material to use for a particular project?
[00:19:08] Monika Grzymala: By intuition, I would say. And also as well, with the experience I'm having with some certain materials, like I'm mostly known for my black paper tape installations, right?
[00:19:20] Here in that book, that is another work that is in a public collection, it's a quite large space. And this collection of art is based on ephemeral performative pieces. So what the collection purchased, in fact, is that paper tape installation for the time it was on view. And here you see it falling apart So because I've installed it in that way that it was falling apart in the exhibition.
[00:19:56] Anastasia: Right. So how long does, what's the longevity of the tape, if you're installing it in space like that?
[00:20:03] Monika Grzymala: depending on the adhesive, it's like two to three months.
[00:20:07] Anastasia: Yeah.
[00:20:07] Monika Grzymala: And then the manager of the collection of that certain piece she made to me and she said like, Monika, your, your work is breaking apart. Can I fix it? And then I said, yeah, well if you fix it. There is nothing to fix first of all. But when you fix it, it's not my artwork anymore, then we are Collaborating, right? So yeah, it's sometimes really funny moments because museums are of course focusing on preserving art and showing it. But this special collection Frac Lorraine in Metz in France, they are focusing more on ephemeral artworks, right? So it's fine. What they own is that principle of this artwork that I found when I was installing on site. Also, I'm not making any corrections. There is no right lines or wrong lines. There's just the authentic line or not authentic gestures in space,
[00:21:09] Anastasia: So on that basis, could that work be recreated or it's just that one off time you created it and that's it?
[00:21:20] Monika Grzymala: if a piece like that, which is completely defined in the contract I'm having with the collection and so on, as long I am able to instal it again in a new modified situation, in a new modified architecture parameter, then I can recreate it based on this principle. But maybe in a different shape if the space it is for is of a different shape. And then it can be redone. If I'm not there or not able for some reason to recreate it because I'm too old or my arms don't function, whatever. So then, uh the collection shows the ball of tape that is left from the first primary installation and then the photograph of it.
[00:22:10] So how it always survives, it's always the photograph of the work.
[00:22:15] Anastasia: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:15] Monika Grzymala: And that's also
[00:22:16] Anastasia: Okay.
[00:22:16] Monika Grzymala: why documentation of my work is so important.
[00:22:20] Anastasia: Do do you take videos of the process while you're installing?
[00:22:24] Monika Grzymala: there were videos taken of the process and then a time lapse. Which was a bit awkward for me to see because it is not appropriate with the process I'm going through when I'm installing. You know, and also it, it becomes more than a documentation of the quantity of tape or of the quantity of time it took. But in my experience, how a day feels like when I'm working sometimes time stretches, sometimes it shortens. It's depending on the dynamics of the work. And so I think that a video does not document it in a proper way. Yes.
[00:23:09] Anastasia: So what's the best way to document your work in your opinion?
[00:23:14] Monika Grzymala: Yeah, just like those blurred images of a body doing something, stretching a line from the right corner to the left. This is documenting the the process in a very good way. And also it does not put so much focus on me as the main figure of it, because the main figure of it, it's the tape piece then or it's the artwork itself. Right. Very often when I'm installing an artwork, there's always that moment where I realise finished now, it's completed now, so I don't need to add more lines to it.
[00:23:50] And then um, then it's fine. And then it owns itself or it arrives in a certain stage. Where I can just let it go. Right?
[00:24:02] Anastasia: yeah.
[00:24:03] Monika Grzymala: and I'm somehow connected to the pieces. so therefore it's also like, it's the entire process. It's about arriving there at that space, looking at it, the first initial thought I'm having, like, what kind of material am I choosing? It's all decisions made by intuition. and then maybe it's the beginning of a new piece and then I'm installing it. This process is completed after a few days because it's also physically quite tiring and exhausting to instal a piece. It's a sweaty job, right? But also moments of just sitting in the corner and looking at the space and being like two people in one person and standing next to me and questioning the situation, what is happening here? I think what makes us artists as well is still keeping this ability up to step aside of yourself and to watch what's happening there in that moment, on that piece of paper or that gallery space. it's also not a public process. I like this intimacy of those moments.
[00:25:15] Anastasia: You don't like other people watching your process?
[00:25:18] Monika Grzymala: Yeah.
[00:25:18] Otherwise it would be a performance. it's a different decision to make then, right?
[00:25:24] Anastasia: Yeah.
[00:25:24] Monika Grzymala: Yeah.
[00:25:25] Anastasia: what's the most weird or complicated material that you've had to work with?
[00:25:32] Monika Grzymala: Hmm, good question. Metal is like not really my material to work with. Matter in general. This is something I like to give to others who are experts in that material. And so, uh, last year, for example I did a public commission for the city of Stockholm in Sweden.
[00:25:55] This is a wind harp, so It's a sounding sculpture that's being placed in few years in a park that isn't there yet. It's the Catharina Park in the city's centre of Stockholm at Slussen. It's a very, very large construction area since 15 years, they are building their new bridges, new bus terminals, uh, new tunnels for the traffic. So my sculpture is 11 metres high and it's all 3D printed in a high grade steel. A completely new method of printing with metal that was never there before. Yeah, it's a quiet, complex project and I'm glad that I had experts to show me how to work with the material that is weatherproof, you know, 'cause it's there for ages, hopefully for ages in the park once it's up.
[00:26:52] Otherwise, I've been also making paper
[00:26:56] like quite the opposite of stone and, and steel. Right. It's a soft material. and it always shows how You feel. You see it in the paper. So it's as well based again on listening to the material while working with it. Right.
[00:27:18] Anastasia: let's talk more about the ephemeral nature of your work. what happens to the piece or the work once the exhibition is finished?
[00:27:29] Monika Grzymala: good question. As well like, depending on the situation. Like in the recent piece that I've been showing in Kunstler Haus Dortmund here in Western Germany, a few weeks ago, where I installed eight kilometres of tape. Some people imagine like, oh, it's a large amount of tape but I'm using the kilometres to describe the piece, just to describe that long thought it is based on.
[00:27:59] Right. so because I think everyone can imagine how it feels to walk a line of eight kilometres or how it is to stretch it between your fingers and between your hands and then stretch it between two walls. And then once I've taken down the piece, it's been a ball of tape that went to recycling you can completely recycle the material to make new tape of it or something else.
[00:28:29] And sometimes I'm giving pieces of the tape or bolts of piles of tape to people I met in the exhibition or I'm trading with other artists. I give you a piece of my installation. Do you give me a drawing for this? And so, then sometimes can arrange a small collection of really very nice drawings and works with...
[00:28:52] Anastasia: that's nice. I really love that. I also like that you do use kilometers to describe your work or like measure it 'cause it is very striking. So how long does it take you to install an eight kilometer spatial drawing?
[00:29:15] Monika Grzymala: that one in Dortmund was, how long did it take me? Five days. Five quite intense days, I must say. but then they were installing all the other artworks around me. Yeah. But it's great. Then when I'm installing, I'm so focused on the work that I'm quite happy to have that limited time to instal a piece. ' Cause then I know, okay, now I can focus on that, put all my energy in and then let it go at some point. And relax.
[00:29:48] Anastasia: what are some of the challenges when it comes to working with tape?
[00:29:55] Monika Grzymala: There many, like, it's very tactile right at the end, The tape. You can get tangled of course, but, uh well for me in my strategy in there is no wrong or right, there is no corrections you do, it is just changes, it's transformations. I think to adjust the first initial thought that I had when I'm entering the space in the motivation of doing an art piece for it, the first image that i'm having, like an internal image in a way and then to connect it with that, that is physically there in the analogue space, that is sometimes quite much a challenge for me. 'Cause I know that the first draft of a site specific piece that's my target where I want to go. So sometimes I need to slow myself down, not to be too, too dynamic or too fast. Because I want to see it, right? I want to see the outcome. It's a relief to
[00:31:02] Anastasia: Yeah.
[00:31:04] Monika Grzymala: to have it thrown up in the world, right?
[00:31:07] Yeah,
[00:31:12] Anastasia: you must have your secret personal tape suppliers, seen how you use like hundreds of rolls per project.
[00:31:22] Monika Grzymala: Yes. Yes, indeed. There's like one special shop here in Berlin where I can buy my tapes because usually, like, especially the black tape, when I started working with it I could not get it here. With German suppliers, it did not exist. So I had to order it from different parts of the world. And this idea of using black tape was born out of that thought.
[00:31:49] Or I was drawing with ink. I like working with liquid materials. Or you see, 'cause I'm sitting here at my drawing desk where I'm able to do drawings home at night or whenever I want to work. This is my own graphite thing I'm making for drawings. that's my special mixture.
[00:32:13] Anastasia: Okay. You have your own potion.
[00:32:16] Monika Grzymala: Yes. And this is a charcoal ink I've made for
[00:32:20] Anastasia: Oh, cool.
[00:32:20] Monika Grzymala: drawing.
[00:32:21] Yeah, so drawing with liquid materials seems somehow logical for me because I also think that on my thoughts, they are liquid as well, right when you move. And so it's like guiding them from my brain down my hand and then guiding it on paper. So that describes the process of drawing, how it's starting very quite much. So the black tape was a logical continuation of that thought to have a black line crossing space and, being three dimensional. So then, I asked suppliers for black tape. They were not able to to produce it. When I was a student I got tapes from Tesa Company, it's a German brand, very high quality tapes, super expensive. So when I was a student they gave me the tapes just like that, and they said like, come on, you are very dynamic, you are very motivated to make art with a very unusual material. It's been maybe like in the late nineties or uh, 2000 more or less at Millennium. So there were no artists working with tape. And um, that company, they me with all kinds of tapes, gaffa tapes, very strong tapes that when you pull them down after the exhibition, it, it took like half of the wall with it because the adhesive was so strong. So, and then I asked them, can we test a tape that is adhesive on paper so I can tear it by hand and it's easier for me to work with, or I can even sculpt it with my hands. That's what you still see in my pieces, like how I'm working with that black tape that is quite great.
[00:34:16] Then it has two sides. The adhesive side is like a lighter grey tone and the backside, the paper side, non-adhesive side is a deep black ink line. Yeah. So, that's quite much my favourite tape. Yes.
[00:34:34] Anastasia: Yeah. It's basically impossible to find black painter's tape or paper tape in a regular hardware shop. I've used washi tape in some projects but it's very expensive and like the, the rolls are teeny tiny. Yeah, interesting. So you, you must have had all sorts of experiments with various materials and adhesion levels and how long it stays stuck and so on.
[00:35:09] Monika Grzymala: Yes definitely. And so, it's been nice to have all that conversations with that company supported me. So meanwhile, when I'm going to my supplier to get fresh tape for an installation, sometimes I ask them for discounted tapes know that are of course, depending on the adhesive, it a different quality you get then. And sometimes I'm just buying their discounted tapes because I know it does not need to be such an expensive material for that installation. If I, If I use like 10 kilometres of it of course it makes a difference. And depending the budget the institution has for the exhibition as well. So Yeah. it would be waste to use a super expensive tape, Which costs like I know, 20 Euros a roll
[00:35:59]
[00:35:59] Monika Grzymala: or something. Then it's impossible of course
[00:36:02] Anastasia: they wouldn't want the adhesive to take off the plaster off the wall either.
[00:36:08] Monika Grzymala: Right and renovate all the space. Yes.
[00:36:13] Anastasia: Yeah. So how do you approach the commercial aspect of your work and how do these ephemeral projects get funded?
[00:36:23] Monika Grzymala: So ephemeral projects get funded by usually if it's a gallery or museum so they have public funding somewhere. And then And then we agree on a honorarium me to, Like for a performance artist to perform the piece, to create it in the space. And then the material costs of course and travel costs, accommodation, all of that plays a role, Right. And then there are other interventions of public art pieces and commissions. So that's how I can make some money. I'm selling works that are more permanent, like the casted paper pieces So. It's always more or less work that is based on the process of a drawing, a two dimensional process that takes the step into space and becomes three dimensional in ways. But there are also pieces that are impossible to be sold or to be experienced in a different way.
[00:37:31] Or I've done works in virtual reality that you can only experience when put on the VR goggles and and are being moved through that phenomenon in a way that is a virtual drawing. So this is an experience that nobody can share with another person because there's only one person that can wear the VR goggles and be in be in that cosmos of lines.
[00:37:58] Anastasia: Yeah.
[00:38:00] Yeah. It's a very different experience to seeing an artwork in a, an installation. What would you like audience to take away from seeing your installation works?
[00:38:13] Monika Grzymala: I think that everyone has like an individual, very individual image of it or how people remember works. It's sometimes really interesting because they seem to create a sort of energetic field, let me say, or a sort of time capsule it is in space, what people experience. And then when they see a photograph of the piece that isn't there anymore or which is in my eyes, like super old, it's like 10 years ago, oh, it's ages, it's been another life or whatever. They still think that it's still there. And then I see, ah, so because it's like an energetic field, it seems to be that energy itself, like this phenomenon of energy maybe, or movements, gestures that have been made, things that have been said or expressed in an artistic way, it's not site specific. It is beyond that frame of how we imagine a certain place or a certain time. I think that it's more a holographic something. That there's past, no future. It's only here now and I'm happy that people still see an image of a former work and still think it's still there. somehow it's, yeah, it puts there the question maybe what is reality? How do we create a sort of reality as artists?
[00:39:47] Anastasia: Yeah. Well that's the beauty of ephemeral work, isn't it? Because it could still be there in energetic form or in memory or in something,
[00:40:01] Monika Grzymala: Yes.
[00:40:02] Anastasia: some mystic way.
[00:40:03] Monika Grzymala: And then it becomes eternal, like...
[00:40:06] Anastasia: I love that.
[00:40:08] Monika Grzymala: When I see a 600 years old drawing in a collection of master drawings, for example, there is still that sparkle of energy and life that I feel. It feels sometimes like when I really dive very deep into an artwork, like a master drawing that I love a lot. And then I see the original and I'm able to yeah, almost smell the paper, you know, it's like I'm there next to the artist who is touching the paper and making that artwork in that moment. That Is so beautiful.
[00:40:46] Anastasia: Yeah. do you have any behind the scenes stories when something wasn't working during the installation process or when something went wrong during an exhibition process?
[00:41:03] Monika Grzymala: I think really, the funny story that I've been telling before with the manager of the collection who tried to fix my broken broken art piece, that was really quite funny. we were laughing both when we were talking about that and I said, yeah, of course you can fix it. You can fix my broken drawing. But maybe then it's a collaborative piece. Yeah.
[00:41:31] Anastasia: Yeah, I, I love that your work is quite logistically simple in a way. That you send some tape ahead of time, you put it in your suitcase and you rock up and then you make this huge, immersive piece. It sounds very liberating for an installation artist to be able to do that.
[00:41:52] Monika Grzymala: Yeah, it is. It's definitely I think easy logistic. Easy travelling. An easy structure to how to organise everything is always a very good sign of that everything works and it's somehow simple. so that it allows me to jump right into the work and do it and have a good time with it and provide that good time for others as well.
[00:42:21] Anastasia: Have you ever made a spatial drawing that can be either transported or replicated or shown in multiple venues, or is it always site specific?
[00:42:34] Monika Grzymala: most of the works are site specific, most of them. Like with my sculpture for Stockholm for example that I've done last year. It's so much effort, right? It's so much logistics. Like you have to transport a, a sculpture that is 11 meters high, it weighs 3 tons. You need, a truck. You need people moving the piece, you need forklifts, cranes, everything. You need packaging, you need... sometimes it's, it's just a big industry and not about the art, right? It's, it's about the things surrounding art and logistics of a museum or all the adiministration related to it. So that may be why I keep my processes so simple and easy to handle. Because I think that all this big machine in the background, like with logistics, people handling the artwork, it's sometimes just overwhelming. So yeah.
[00:43:41] But in fact, the art takes place now, when I'm doing it and I'm the producer of it and so sometimes it's just too overwhelming to be dealing with that. We have to find answers for questions as artists right now. Like how do we document the work, right? Do we document it in photographs? Is it analogue photography? Is it digital photography? Is it books printed on paper? Is it on a hard drive? What kind of file format do I look for?
[00:44:19] Anastasia: Yeah. And if you make video nowadays, is it horizontal video or vertical video for social media?
[00:44:27] Monika Grzymala: exactly. What file these do you choose? Are we able to read this file format in 100 years?
[00:44:34] Anastasia: Yeah. Oh yeah.
[00:44:36] Monika Grzymala: How do you conserve that? And so, these are questions that are quite much like keeping me busy with, and to find out like how do I show my work? Do I use social media to show my work or? Am I having a website? For example my website right now, we cannot update it because we don't know how to code it. So, yeah. So
[00:45:02] Anastasia: I hate website work.
[00:45:05] Monika Grzymala: Everyone does, I think. But yeah, as an artist travelling the world and, and showing your work everywhere you need to be like a company, right? With one department for communication, one department for logistics, one department for getting the supplies you need, whatever.
[00:45:27] Anastasia: Yeah.
[00:45:27] Monika Grzymala: Booking hotels,
[00:45:30] but at the end you end up organising everything yourself and yeah, working 24 7.
[00:45:38] Anastasia: Hmm. Yep, that's exactly right.
[00:45:42] Tell me about a hard truth you've had to learn as an artist.
[00:45:48] Monika Grzymala: Hard truth. I don't know if it's a hard truth. You see, there's only the truth, right? and then it comes easy in a way. You just realise like, I'm not expecting to be able to make money with my art. I think this is not what it is about. Actually we are artists and we are making art because it's coming from our inside, it's a heart related thing. And then if I'm doing it with all my heart and all my energy, it always somehow pays out. And so, yeah just keep the focus on yourself. And do just continue what you're doing. As long you are doing it with all your mind and all your heart. And do not expect to live from that and to get some admiration from the world, it does not matter, I think. It only matters what we are doing and if we are doing it With all our energy.
[00:46:50] Anastasia: Yeah. I think that's totally right but there is one part in it where you wanna be able to share your work, right? You wanna be able to show it. And in order to do that, you, well, you could do it alone I suppose, but it's more difficult to share the work that's coming out of you when there's no one else who's behind it. What do you think of that?
[00:47:18] Monika Grzymala: in my experience, it's been always like that, that people see my work, people approach me, maybe they ask something or to collaborate or to take part in an exhibition, If it's something that is going on in near future or right now.
[00:47:36] So it's, yeah, it's, it's again, like how do you publish the work, right? Do you use social media? And also like, does it really show how the work is when I show it on social media? You know, there are many people showing things or giving makeup tutorials is, you know with all the energy they put in. Do I want to put all the energy to put my work on social media or do I decide it consciously Like, do I show this or do I not show another work? I think it's a very personal decision then how artists step into public and how they present themselves.
[00:48:22] Even when you approached me, I asked you hmm how imagine that, a podcast on installation art, which is a very physical thing, How do we, talk about it? Does it fulfil all the expectations we have? Right?
[00:48:40] Anastasia: Well, it's I mean also about showing it or documenting installation art is like, if it's a quite a corporeal and immersive experience, a photograph, especially a photograph you see on your tiny little screen will never do it justice. It will never truly convey the experience. It's just like a hint at what you've missed by not seeing it in person.
[00:49:09] Monika Grzymala: Yes that's right. Absolutely. Or a photograph on social media that you see of something, it can make it more interesting, It can make it more immersive or less immersive even. And I'm still thinking about that. How do I overcome that gap between what I'm doing, what I've consciously chose to do, because is a decision that I've made at some point, to be creating my works without assistants, to be working all alone. To show that And I think that people visiting the exhibitions, they can literally feel it in a way when they look at my piece that someone that someone has installed it. Only one single person. And then they look at it as a one single person as well so it creates a sort of dialogue but based on physical gestures and materiality. The presence of the piece as you would talk to a person that is physically present at the same time as well. And we cannot transform it into a social media post. This is impossible to transform.
[00:50:26] And I totally agree with it, it's fine with me. So, I think it's different medias, different forms of expression, different forms of perception as well.
[00:50:37] And I think since social media has taken over so much of our lives, as well like the perception, how people look at art has changed a lot. So maybe it's great that there are podcasts like yours, talking about installation art because it takes the time to explain more the backgrounds of an artwork or processes for artists. How they work and why they work.
[00:51:06] Anastasia: Yeah. It, it's, a longer conversation.
[00:51:12] Monika Grzymala: of
[00:51:13] Yeah.
[00:51:13] Anastasia: Um,
[00:51:14] what has been the proudest moment of your career so far, would you say?
[00:51:19] Monika Grzymala: Proudest moment Yeah. That's a very good que I, I didn't think about that so far. There are many really good moments, right? Like meeting a person that is really able and, and wanting to live in my work, like Dian Woodner does in New York. This is a very special moment, and it still is.
[00:51:47] Anastasia: Yeah, that's definitely special,
[00:51:49] yeah.
[00:51:50] Monika Grzymala: After the first work that I've created for her where she lives in, I've done a garden on the rooftop of her company's building in Manhattan. And this is an alive sculpture, where I'm working with plants.
[00:52:05] Anastasia: Ah,
[00:52:06] Monika Grzymala: it's woven, braided willow trees.
[00:52:10] Anastasia: Wow.
[00:52:12] Monika Grzymala: That are transformed into a sculpture And so every spring we are planting new vines, flowering vines in different colours. So it changes with the seasons as well. So that's another proud moment so. Yeah but my feeling is I'm not proud about myself or so that I've created it. I'm more proud about that work, that it's still there or i'm enjoying it. And enjoying the fact that it's alive and it's still tere. Or it's pleasing another person who lives in it. So these are very nice, very personal, intimate moments where I can
[00:52:54] Anastasia: Yeah.
[00:52:55] Monika Grzymala: Yeah. please the world with what I'm expressing in the artwork, just with simple lines .
[00:53:01] Anastasia: Yeah. I love that.
[00:53:04] If you could do anything with no constraints, in terms of size, location, collaboration, geography, money... what would be your dream project to make?
[00:53:17] Monika Grzymala: Hmm. I think there is none. It's like, I'm a very realistic person. Like, okay, what is here now? What, is the question now? I think it's quite much the life I'm having is quite much my dream. Yeah.
[00:53:32] Anastasia: I love that. That's perfect.
[00:53:34] Monika Grzymala: Yeah it's just great. Like, I can do my work, I can do it whenever I want to and I'm having a wonderful home, a wonderful life where I can do my work and continue with it. This is the main thing, like how I can continue with it. Yeah. My dog is agreeing with me right now.
[00:53:55] Anastasia: Nice. And what are you working on right now?
[00:53:59] Monika Grzymala: Uh, on a new book. yeah, so I'm publishing a new catalogue hopefully soon, in a few months. There are no texts, there's nothing written in it. It's just based on pictures. pictures and images. Some are images and photographs of works that I've shown. Sometimes it's just snapshots of something that I've seen or that I've experienced in the process of working. On my phone, I'm having 60,000 images. And I took 360 out of that larger group of images and so I'm publishing a book with just images pretty soon.
[00:54:43] Anastasia: Okay.
[00:54:44] Monika Grzymala: I think it offers more than many words.
[00:54:48] Anastasia: Yeah, like a visual diary.
[00:54:50] Monika Grzymala: Yes, right.
[00:54:52] Anastasia: And where will that catalog be available?
[00:54:55] Monika Grzymala: It will be available in Europe. We don't have a number, the ISBN number yet. Cause it's not decided what publisher it's going to be. So let's wait. It's already there and it will be available where all my other books are available so you can buy them with a large company starting with an A. You can buy it in bookstores worldwide.
[00:55:21] Anastasia: That's great.
[00:55:23] Do you have anything coming up in the near future, anywhere where people can see your work or?
[00:55:29] Monika Grzymala: The last show was just taken down. And right now, yeah, it will be the book I'm working on. In one year then Kunstmuseum Basel. Yeah, so that's a good time to prepare all the big artwork I'm going to show there.
[00:55:48] Anastasia: Yeah. How long does it usually take you to prep A big exhibition?
[00:55:56] Monika Grzymala: It usually takes takes really a long time, like two years, one to two years.
[00:56:01] Anastasia: Wow.
[00:56:02] Monika Grzymala: very long preparation periods. So it's yeah very time consuming to clarify all technical details, dates, what you are going to show.
[00:56:15] Anastasia: Do you have any advice for a young artist who's just starting out in installation art? What would you tell somebody?
[00:56:25] Monika Grzymala: That they don't Need much money. They don't need large funding. You know, you can make art with everything that is around you. A stick, a piece of paper, whatever, a, a piece of dirt. The world is your studio, use it as it is and make funny things with it. You don't need large studios, large spaces and all of that overwhelming stuff. You just need to do it, I think, and everyone can do it as well. You don't need a special training like I did, I think.
[00:57:11] That was Monika Grzymala based in Berlin. You can find out more about her work on her website, transit.net. There's a dash between every letter in transit and on her Instagram @Monika.Grzymala.
[00:57:28] She is represented by Galerie CRONE in Berlin and Vienna, BERG Contemporary in Iceland and Secci Gallery in Italy.
[00:57:39] Links to those as well as everyone mentioned in this episode are in the show notes and on our website, installation art podcast.com.
[00:57:49] Did you enjoy this episode? Share it with a friend or a fellow art lover, or even better with all your friends by sharing it on social media. thank you for listening and until next time.