Maxine Kopsa - What is Natural? The simultaneous effect of Frank van der Salm’s photographs (2001)

The 49th Biennale di Venezia in 2001 saw a strong presentation of nine Dutch artists at the Palazzo Ca-Zenobio in Venice, curated by Jaap Guldemond of the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Participating artists were Rob Johannesma, Job Koelewijn, Mark Manders, Aernout Mik, Michael Raedecker, Frank van der Salm, Mike Tyler, Marijke van Warmerdam and Edwin Zwakman.

Different authors were asked to write essays on the work of each artist. Maxine Kopsa (NL, 1972) wrote What is natural? The simultaneous effect of Frank van der Salm’s photographs.

“Next to an advertisement on compulsive disorder in the L.A. Weekly of August 13-19, 1999 there’s an article on Frank van der Salm’s photographic images. The ad assures: ‘There is an answer … obsessive-compulsive behavior can be treated.’ While at the same time the piece on Van der Salm defends: ‘…an apartment structure in which people knowingly or unknowingly act out consecutive realizations of little art-life dramas. And I had to think: this apartment building he photographs, this landscape of urban emptiness he so often chooses, this is the location which breeds compulsive behavior, this is the place we have created and this is the place where we suffer from our own compulsions.”

Date: summer 2001
Interview by Maxine Kopsa (English)
Download the complete interview in PDF HERE