Dadara/Exchanghibition Bank Interview

Can you tell us a little about your background as an artist?

I started drawing cartoons from a very early age. Then beginning of the nineties I got involved in the upcoming electronic dance music movement, designing hundreds of record covers and flyers and doing live-paintings etc. I started making paintings and over time these paintings evolved into large scale sculptures and installations, which provide a surreal mirror for our society. Creating dystopian Utopias, such as for instance Checkpoint Dreamyourtopia - a border control checkpoint to enter your own dreams. For years I used to destroy my big projects. I feel that when a project, or art, a new youth movement or a new piece of music comes into the world it has a certain kind of power, or magic. Eventually that magic fades, and it turns into a business, and starts earning money. In order to preserve that magic, I blew up projects, set them on fire, or smashed them to pieces, preserving that energy, and turning it into a kind of Urban Myth. These installations are turning more and more into interactive performances, and this year I am working on my first theater play.

Carl King Interview

1. If you could give only one advice to someone who wants to launch an artistic career, which one would it be? A sort of “cast in stone” mantra that could be repeated over and over.

It's difficult to write it as a mantra. But artists need to learn about healthy compromise. That doesn't mean you should get taken advantage of, or never do the things you love, but unless you're already independently wealthy, you need to trade something of value to others in order to survive. It's how human society generally functions. If you don't bother to create something that other people want, you'll have a difficult life. I see artists of all ages who refuse to learn that simple lesson.