Something is always moving. Ronnie Yarisal and Katja Kublitz’s kinetic, video and installation work reflects situations that exist in a space of constant transition. Movement is explored through a gradual process of tension and release. What appears as sarcastic pessimism, functions as a thinly veiled reminder that though change is inevitable, it can also be interesting, funny and ultimately good. It is in our resistance and attachment to a presumed outcome that arrests us. The guided cyclical destruction inherent in these works, liberates ways of stimulating a transformation.
“Ketchup” 2006/2008
Mechanical sculpture
190x 60x 80cm
Ketchup bottle, ketchup, ball, wire, wood, electric devices, motors, Mp3 player, speakers.
Courtesy of the artists
Can you describe the ways in which you communicate your ideas to one another?
We live together so it is sort of an ongoing conversation. We also communicate through sketches. We try not to be too critical about each other’s initial ideas at first. We simply try to come up with the best way of making it and see how it evolves. In that way we try to keep the intuitive feeling and some spontaneity while we create it. The not so good ideas tend to fall apart in early conversation.
What are some of your similarities or differences?
Oh in so many ways we are the complete opposite, but we both enjoy the same small things and find immense pleasure in having small rituals in our daily life. At the same time we always move and like change and we both love throwing things out.
How do you reach a compromise in terms of creative difference?
Through discussions and sometimes, arguments. We try not to compromise too much and still have a lot of pieces we have not executed because of our inability to come up with a solution together.
“RELATIONSHIP : The Quick and The Dead”, 2003
Interactive Sculpture
290x 80x 100cm
Bicycle, rotating platform, wood, synthetic rope.
Courtesy of the artists
“Uninvited”, 2004
Performance piece
Dimentions – Variable
Table, chairs, table cloth, cutlery, wine glasses, bottle, nylon string.
Video, 11 sec. looped
Courtesy of the artists
Your work is very funny, what is your sense of humor like?
Dark, probably darker than it comes out in our work. We both appreciate the comic in the tragic and are fascinated by the mundane and the tragic comic in the everyday in both its repetition and idiosyncrasies. Our art draws on banal slapstick humor as an exploration of comedy’s effects through repetition and displacement. It is a central element in our work because the comic briefly annuls the order of things and allows us to experience a momentary liberating blow.
Some of your installations require two participants, do you feel that those works may mimic parts of your relationship?
Hmmm …we hope not, at least not in any conscious way.
What are you currently working on?
We just had a baby and haven’t been able to think of much else, but the next piece we have in mind is a sort of jelly earthquake machine
“Lemon Incest”, 2009
Sculpture
Dimensions - Variable
Paint can, yellow paint, balloon, conrete lemons, needle.
Courtesy Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva, Switzerland
Has watching your little one evolve inspired any new ideas, thoughts or feelings for potential works?
Isak, our son is the most delightful person we have ever met, but he doesn’t sleep at night so we are both sleep deprived and nothing creative has emerged from that yet. For sure, Isak will inspire us to do all kinds of amazing things. Already, he is changing our life… so no doubt it will influence our work.
Some of your work has an inevitable, sad outcome, but also within this outcome there remains a glimmer of hope. Do you consider yourselves to be optimists or pessimists?
We are delusional optimists. We have to be or else we would be living completely different lives.
“Anger Release Machine”, 2006/2008
Interactive Sculpture
Dimensions : 70 x 77 x 181 cm
Vending machine, porcelain plates, glasses, statuettes, various items.
Courtesy Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva, Switzerland
“Freedom fighter”, 2008/2009
Interactive sculpture
Dimensions- Variable
Concrete blocks, balloon, string, scissor.
Courtesy Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva, Switzerland
What advice would you give to other collaborative partners?
Love, love, love.
What happens in the “Jelly Earthquake Machine?”
We are still sketching so it’s a bit early to talk about it…
Ronnie Yarisal and Katja Kublitz
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