Kristina Jansson, “Burnt Museum” Oil on Canvas 2006, 180x220 cm
Kristina Jansson
Professor for Painting at the Royal Institute of Art Stockholm, Schweden
Lecture: February 7, 2024 at 1 pm, Multifunktionsraum AdBK Nürnberg
Without understanding it from the beginning, the photographic image and the photography as a medium has played a really important role to me as a painter. Throughout my painterly practice I have used the concept of the “image” in and active dialogue with my work.
I am a big sceptic of the common concept of the image, and I have through painting, tried to point at its unreliable and slippery surface by pushing it through the painterly process hoping to transform it into something visceral.
To me the reason to paint is a kind of resistance to the vacancy of imagery that is flooding our everyday life. Vilèm Flusser formulated the act of looking at technical images as; “the grazing of images that represent a sign system of a stable, comprehensible, communicable world”, and from this pointing to their deceptiveness.
Being a painter means taking photography in consideration now more than ever, but being a painter today also means being fully aware of the sheer force in the act of making a painting instead of taking a picture.
In this lecture I will focus on the relation to photography that has followed my work as a tool, a partner in conversation and a host for me to parasite on.