Koen Taselaar (1986) is a welcome guest in Groningen. He was a participant in the Week van het KunstenaarsBoek (Week of the Artist Book), and Blok C recently presented his solo exhibit. But who exactly is Koen Taselaar? How does he work, where does his inspiration come from and how does this manifest itself? “I want to make things that I can love myself.”
Taselaar describes himself as a “natural creator”: “I have a wide range of interests; the motivation behind a work can sometimes be minor.” This could be anything from works of art history, a newspaper article about octopuses or a beauty mask. His curiosity is visible in his works.
FACES
In 2018, Taselaar completed a residency in Seoul, Korea. One of the outcomes was a sculpture series of ceramic faces. In one of the works, these are held together with a metal rod. An image that looks fine at first glance, but when I see the metal bar, it takes on a darker element. Where does the inspiration for such images come from? The face shapes are directly derived from the beauty masks that are hugely popular in South Korean stores: “I put the shapes of the masks on the clay and cut them out. Your hands always get very dry from working with the clay. It's almost an invention: I see it as rhyming with forms.”
MEDIA
Not only did Taselaar do a residency in South Korea, but he also spent some time working in Kolkata, India. How does he relate to the places where he creates work? “You make things there, so you work with products that come from there. For example, in India I worked with the pink paper that is commonly used in school notebooks. You're obviously stuck with that kind of information, of what occurs there.” When a Western artist creates works in other parts of the world, the work can quickly become a caricature or a souvenir. Taselaar works in a different way: “I do always try to look at a culture very openly and calmly and to take it in. The work doesn't become exotic; you take something with you.” Most of his works therefore do not contain active references to particular movements, although they do show a great deal of affinity.
INSPIRATION
Recently Taselaar was invited by the TextielMuseum in Tilburg, where he made an enormous tapestry about the history of the Bauhaus, inspired by works such as the Bayeux Tapestry: “I use textiles to tell a story and this can also be rather figurative.” He has not been able to stop making tapestries since. I notice that these contain much more active references than the other images. The newer tapestries are inspired by furniture and product design, including a work that is not only inspired by the Groninger Museum, but would certainly not be out of place in their collection. Taselaar: “Groningen is one of the few places where there is a lot of postmodernist architecture. A starting point like that can come about in a lot of different ways.” Another basis for the work, which presents the architecture and furniture of the postmodernists Mendini and Memphis, among others, is an article Taselaar read. It said that octopuses could outlast humans. The frame this work is in block letters: ʀᴀᴅɪᴄᴀʟ ꜰᴜʀɴɪᴛᴜʀᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ʀᴀᴅɪᴄᴀʟ ᴛɪᴍᴇs.
MATERIAL
When I look through Taselaar's output, I notice that a lot of materials are used in the various works. How does material recur in Taselaar's work and what can and cannot be done? “I don't think everything is suitable for every material. In ceramics, for example, I don't like the elaborate stuff, whereas I do find exhaustively detailed drawings interesting.” For example, Koen has different preferences in different media. “I like to look at history of the medium, like what has been done with the material. Then you discover what you find interesting yourself. I want to make things that I can love myself.”