who is regina?
Interview between Iwona Blazwick and Regina (Maria) Möller
Iwona Blazwick
I was walking through the Venice Biennale „Aperto“ section in the old Rope Factory in the summer 1993 and saw something lying on the floor, in between the large scale sculptures and installations. It was a paper dart, like the ones we used to throw at each other behind the teacher’s back. I unfolded it and discovered a comic strip inside. Then I spotted others and opened them up to find film scripts, diagrams, an assortment of messages. This was the first time I came across your work. Its ephemerality, the use of the graphic and narrative spaces of different media, the fact it was made in collaboration with another artist, and the sheer pleasure it gave me as I was able to literally unfold different fragments of meaning – these all seem like strategies you’ve continued to use.
I want to ask first, why you choose certain kinds of space, which are virtual rather than architectural – for example the comic strip?
Regina (Maria) Möller:
This work, which was titled „Film“, came out of my experience of living in New York, between 1989 and 1993. At that time there was a particular attitude in the indie comic scene, which was very exciting. As a woman artist coming from Germany – I felt real ambivalent about the limits of what art could be – this scene was refreshing. There was a different kind of characterisation, humour, plot, plus the inclusion of women characters, even if not always women producers. A nice balance between documentation and fiction. It coincided with the new discussions around what female artists could be. My ambivalence provided the material for the Venice work. In a way it matched the apparent ambivalence of the Aperto selection committee’s criteria: they wanted to „remove the walls“ around art, but actually kept all the same conventions – for example, the artists received shipping labels specifying „sculpture“ or „painting“. When I received the invitation, I was employed full time. By accident or necessity, what developed as the work was my own situation, which became the work itself. I worked on a „demo“ to communicate to a producer, who created a form. It was a very D.I.Y. philosophy as well – cheap to do, easy to transport, which I liked. The paper airplanes had on each one of five scenes, which constituted my own frame of mind, the situation at Aperto and my presence – the young artist making a scene in which the public could participate.
I think „Film“ is a good example for my interest in involving interesting and interested professionals in developing the character of the thing to its full potential.
IB:
Why did you decide to leave Germany for New York at the end of the 80‘s?
RM:
I wanted to get out. It was necessary for lots of reasons. I wanted to see the production side of the art world over there and develop my own thoughts through this cultural exchange. I knew I would have to get the experience of working, not just visiting. I had to get immersed in the every day life – with all the mess. When I left Germany, I had just finished studying at the University in Munich where I was taught to concentrate on facts. On the one hand you get a pretty good training in empirical knowledge, but on the other hand there was no experimentation, no thinking on your feet. I learned a lot from New York and it played a big part in my development. From that experience I could start to structure a kind of grey-zone between the German and the US sensibilities, as my work-place.
IB:
This is the third issue of „regina", a magazine you first produced in 1994. What interests you about the magazine format?
RM:
Looking back at it, I would say „regina“ really reflected my NYC experience, my own background and my ambivalence about the term „artist“. It’s a way of working out a format, searching for a way to provide contemporary parameters for the issues around being a woman artist. It fits between the comic’s individual psychological narrative space, and the supposedly shared „normalised“ consumer characters offered by women’s magazines. I adopted the format of those German mainstream magazines like „Petra“ or „Brigitte“ and re-introduced what might be a real personality – me. It’s a logical jump from „Film“ to producing the pilot issue of „regina“, which was through an invitation in 1994 from Ute Meta Bauer, who was at that time artistic director of the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart.
I think like a lot of artists working in the late 80‘s, I also wanted a format that emphasized the richness of cross-connected readings. So you might enjoy just one article or image, but you can also find a structure that guides the whole magazine – a „plot“, more like a comic than a magazine. „regina“ is not a fixed character - like any format, it develops its own life. It is not Regina Möller, but „regina“.
The prototype was well received, despite a small audience and the limited distribution. So, I decided to continue and produced the second one in March 1997 for another public art institution in Germany – the Kunstverein Munich - when the director, Dirk Snauwaert offered me a solo show. Now this is my third issue, published for artranspennine98. It’s been produced outside Germany and I focused its contents on the working culture of the Transpennine Region in the UK.
IB:
The women’s magazines that you mimic here are usually prescribed by the dynamics of desire, consumption and exoticism. Your method seems to posit you as a viral presence, working within the magazine formula, but turning it around.
RM:
I wouldn’t use the word „mimic“ – it’s more about splicing the comic and the women’s magazine and the two psychological reflections they offer on what woman is, though a variety of possible plots, thoughts, ideas. For women working as artists, there is still the issue of what language to use. So I work in the relation to what is supposedly our „nature“. Also within the current context of the mass media, „regina“ magazine takes its place on the magazine shelves; it’s identifiable but not easily categorized. The focus I offer seems more accurate, more real, than the world view offered by stereotypical women’s magazines.
The production side of the magazine makes a strong bond with reality. I work with different professions and use the production site to examine and shift work frames, Also, since I worked in many different jobs I do know about the psychologies of the work place. Through experience you can quickly pick up on them and know what difficulties confront you. And the art world has its own psychic drama – it’s a business as well – people pretend to forget. So that brings me back again to the magazine format as demonstrating an interaction between art, comics and every day life. I don’t so much search for a space, but for a way to understand and reflect, to produce discourse as a space.
IB:
You’ve also worked in television. How does your experience of media space translate to the exhibition space of the gallery or museum?
RM:
The offices are certainly different. It would be something if you could get a sense of how works of art link with other forms of media, not just sticking to the basic models of selling objects. There would be a new focus and discussion when a mediation really develops different links between media, the art world, whatever. I would like to access what people imagine and not just see the „realities“ presented by very old models, which seem inadequate for many people’s notions of artistic practice. The character of my work already implies „management“ or „producers“ – just as music or acting does – but unlike traditional art practice. „My job hasn’t been invented yet“. That was the title of my solo exhibition at Kunstverein Munich and a video co-production with „roomade“ in Brussels. It’s like I started off with the Aperto piece and gave a signal with it – here’s what I‘ going for. Through my various job experiences and through the way I approach making art, I wanted to propose some kind of seam between the media world and the art world. But it isn’t just a clean proposition, I would say the seam opens up or comes apart, You find ways to patch it or sew it together, over and over, till you’ve got mostly patches – and these in general don’t fall apart. The strength of these experiences, of rethinking and making different attempts will develop over generations and we will see how others work out a variety of approaches, I think a few artists and curators are also working on how to deal with this question; it’s only a matter of time before the institutions pick up on it.
IB:
Why do fictional persona like „regina“ herself interest you?
RM:
They are not just fictional. I think my work reflects on era where boundaries between fiction and reality are challenged. I’m part of an era where women approach art practice as an ambivalent option. I am both concerned with definitions and their limits, and with challenging the boundaries of „what we should be“.
IB:
You seem to have redefined the role of the artist as researcher, reporter, cover-model, designer, set builder and editor – how are these roles creative?
RM:
They are not always – the person who occupies those roles has to be able to reveal that. We’ve all seen uninspired technicians in the role of artist/writer/designer – but then you suddenly come across someone who shows what „creative“ can mean in their profession. I believe that my creative input is in how regina sets out a new narrative within which the professionals can operate. For me, the editor becomes analogous with the auteur director – in a good sense. It isn’t as if those filmmakers held the camera, did the sound recording, spliced the edit – they had a different investment in the work and the narrative being developed. That is creative. Besides, I think that in all of those professional fields, there are very creative personalities, I want to reconnect art by laying down communication lines with various other professions. Sometimes I work behind the screen and other times I am more upfront, but I’ve come from having had work experience, in depth knowledge about what these jobs entail and that informs the way I direct it all. I work in an identifiable mode, but creating a new, as yet undefined category of work.
IB:
Yes, projects like „Film“ or the so-called „question mark“ section of the exhibition NowHere, shown at the Louisiana Museum in 1996, have all involved you in collaboration, not just through drawing on the skills of other professionals, but with other artists and curators, brought together as „cultural producers“. Can you say something about why collaboration has been important for you and a bit about the people you’ve worked with?
RM:
Collaboration is a pretty open term. Artists groups are sometimes a too romantic concept – which then doesn’t work for me. For me it’s more about a system that evolves as a result of the participation of different individuals. I prefer it when everyone recognises that there are different types of labour and that projects need specific kinds of formats. For this production of „regina“ I have had the chance to work with Via Communications (Design Production) and their history and viewpoint made me arrive at a different working method. They contributed a graphic language that I needed for the communication of my ideas. This kind of participation is standard, but it is just often lost underneath one individual name. In all the various roles I work in, what is important for me is that, from the outset, each participant of the team knows exactly what their role is and as it develops into something else, from what point to discuss it.
In „?“ Section, NowHere, there were different junctures where my participation fit into the process. The German curator and editor, Ute Meta Bauer, had been invited by the Louisiana Museum to make a contemporary art survey, and she used the project to interrogate the category „curator“. She invited the American artist, Fareed Armaly to join her. His work ties the open definition of art to issues of representation and cultural identity, and he situates his practice by weaving those discourses with those of production. In large projects the work aggregates a kind of psychological space between artist, curator, organiser, labour and a real, produced space.
In „?“ Section Ute Meta Bauer placed this dialogue in the methodology up front. I saw how it was evident in the formation of sections and the contribution by artists, architects, designers, DJs. She invited me early in the project, and my contributions ranged from helping to set up the project office in Stuttgart, to directing a video trailer. That video consists of one „?“-figure a theme park character like those larger than life size cartoon characters walking around Disneyland. This „?“ moved through the Louisiana Museusm’s sculpture garden and interacted with the visitors – funny, but with traces of a dark humour.
IB:
I really like the way you propose parallels between curators and DJs, stylists and architects, farmers and cartoonists, by a place where work, entertainment, domesticity, creativity, sexuality and politics can come together.
RM:
That is what the magazine format allows me to do. I would like to see this kind of space developing within the production and reception of art. A range of professionals come together who are defined by categories; and I want to reveal new perspectives that exist within these boundaries, or cause them to cross over, to interface with each other.
IB:
Do you think women are creating new possibilities in synthesizing these domains?
RM:
I believe it is certainly the language of women, since we were born into a set of behavioural projections that are cultural yet have become naturalised. Over the course of several generations of women’s liberation movements, I would say that a cage has been opened and we need to step out of it. We have been forced to live through these issues about our identities and therefore have the knowledge and energy to create new possibilities.
IB:
How was the experience of working in the north of England been for you?
RM:
Great – it was actually the first time that I produced „regina“-magazine outside of Germany. I would like to continue that idea. Coming from outside I decided to create an anchor, to explore the differences with Germany, by basing the magazine primarily on interviews. My focus was on women and production and class and distribution. I’ve been interested in the various generations, jobs and cultural fields that give Britain its character.
In that sense I tried to find people, like Joanne McGonigal, who could assist me with the research and development of the project. She would filter my exploration through her experience, her histories, in various fields. For the perspective of the character, it was important for me to work with local photographers, designers, etc.
Of course as long as you work in another country, you have to get to know it; and I have to say I am still finding more and more links, that I can’t cover in one magazine. The glimpses that I’ve had of peoples lives make one thing clear – there is a much harsher economic climate in Britain and the north of England, than in Germany. As a consequence there is the banal fact that certain standard equipment that you find in most German households, is not common here. And from my experiences, I get the impression that people have decided to set up their own support systems.