images from http://www.lostateminor.com/2008/11/19/nathalie-djurberg/#more-10715 Nathalie Djurberg's 'Claymations'.
Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg's intricately constructed claymation films are both terrifyingly
disturbing and artlessly sweet.
disturbing and artlessly sweet.
The new works created for the Venice Biennale explore a surrealistic Garden of Eden in which all that is natural goes awry.
She exposes the innate fear of what is not understood and confronts viewers with the complexity of emotions.
Nathalie Djurberg was awarded the silver lion for a promising young artist at the Venice
Art Biennale 09.
(http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/6886/nathalie-djurberg)
Research Djurberg's work in order to answer the following questions;
1. What do you understand by the word 'claymation'?
Claymation is a type of stop- motion animation that uses clay as the main medium. The figures or settings are manipulated little by little after a shot and the shots are collected to make an animation. The successful example is “Pingu” by Otmar Gutmann and Herald Muecke.
2. What is meant by the term 'surrealistic Garden of Eden'? and 'all that is natural goes awry'?
‘Garden of Eden’ triggers image of perfect nature that is too beautiful for words. Djurberg’s work portrays similar concept of it but there is some kind of grotesque or eerie images (those similar to Tim Burton’s) added by the weird appearance of plants, gruesome claymations and the fantastical music. The statement 'surrealistic Garden of Eden' refers to the duality of the work that creates dreamy quality.
'all that is natural goes awry' means how her portrait of the garden has changed the nature image and its feelings to something eerie and disturbing.
3. What are the 'complexity of emotions' that Djurberg confronts us with?
she exposes the innate
fear of what is not understood and confronts viewers with the complexity of emotions.
fear of what is not understood and confronts viewers with the complexity of emotions.
The complexity of emotions overwhelms the spectator as he sees the work.
The feelings such as disturbing, fear, disgust or surprise. I think the most common would be unexpectedness. The spectator has to puzzle up the situation in front of by looking for clues from weird looking plants and terrifying images from the claymation projection. This really challenges audience to step out from their pattern of thinking and emotions.
4. How does Djurberg play with the ideas of children's stories, and innocence in some of her work?
Her claymation comes friendly to audience at first but as you go just little longer in knowing it, there is no such thing as innocence to it. Reason for her claymation look innocent at first is because the fact it is a ‘claymation’ which makes wonderful parallels with the image of children and their innocence. If the story was carried out by film with human actors cast, there is no way that the film looked innocent even in the first sight.
One other that made innocent first impression of the work is that the clayed female character’s appearance. They look like a little girl’s doll however there is no dolly kind of character really in Djurberg’s work they are just poor victims. Maybe because of the first impression of the work is innocent and how it despise audience makes the work more disturbing and shocking.
5. There is a current fascination by some designers with turning the innocent and sweet into something disturbing. Why do you think this has come about?
I think the twisting innocent and sweet into something disturbing has come about because the artists or designer want to draw attentions by shattering people’s paradigm that tells the good is always good and the bad is always bad. By mixing and twisting the good with the bad people get often surprised or shocked so the work does this kind of thing get more impressions by audience. The classic example of the paradigm that I was talking about is the fairytales, where the good always triumphs over evil. However there is other side of fairytale for example the original Cinderella story is manipulated by Disney where the terrifying descriptions or happening about glass -slippers are edited out, presenting only the pretty and moral part of story. The designers or the artists who turns something good to bad maybe want to show us the true or the unknown side of things such as innocence, sweet or the good.
6. In your opinion, why do you think Djurberg's work is so interesting that it was chosen for the Venice Biennale?
As I mentioned before, her work kind of breaks our frame of thinking or expecting. The garden and the claymation look innocent at first but as I watched them longer I felt disgusted, surprising and unexpected.
Also I found some beauty within the work despite it tells terrifying stories or creates eerie feelings. The colour, shape and size of flowers and plant installation overwhelm the audience and gives unique experience. I think her work is aesthetically beautiful and her theme is very strong and unique that deserves the award.
7. Add some of your own personal comments on her work.
I really like her work in the Vienna Binnale 2009 because I love artistic style of Tim Burton’s that this work very resembles of. I like the installation more than the claymation movie just because it is too immoral that disturbs me and without the claymation from the installation, the work should not give so much of terrifying or disgust or both. The installation solely is very interesting and makes its own sense without the claymation, the installation work really gives feeling of otherworldly just like in the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ story. I find it aesthetically beautiful about the image of eerie and grotesque with big colourful flowers and plants.
However if I am just talking about her past works of claymation then I do not like it. There is no understandable story or reason behind those endless gruesome scenes shown and I just do not get the point of what she is really trying to say.
Yeah I do agree it does remind you of the old school claymation of 'Pingu' and these claymations really do give you the "beauty and the beast effect" feel to it with its eerie feeling with beauty in its own way while being very disturbing. It also feels very surreal with her depiction of the Garden of Eden. And yeah it is something not all people would like due to its morphing of sweet and innocent to sour and sinful characters in there
ReplyDeleteI agree your point. In her films human's shapes are basic of characters. Even though her work's topics are war, violence, sexuality and sadism which are made by human, her clay figures are traditional tales and her ideas which are hidden topics, are same with typical children works. Once, Djurberg’s stories relate to traditional themes of folktales and purpose which was made by human for children such as “the best is good and the worst is bad.”
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about the media itself, you're absolutely right when you draw the parallels between claymation and the idea of innocence. That's why I think her work was so successful, the media was a form of the innocence, yet while the innocence of the characters and settings changed, the media didn't. I think that's probably partially why the work is so unnerving, there's something not quite right about the disturbing scenes being done using claymation.
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