ARTIST JOHANNES HOLT IVERSEN
Johannes Holt Iversen works from a studio in an industrial area of Herfølge, outside Copenhagen. He grew up in a family of musicians, studied marketing and digital media, moved to Amsterdam for art academy, graduated during the pandemic, was invited for a residency in Italy, and then built his second studio in Denmark. His practice now investigates the duality between artificial and organic life: what is artificial, what is organic, what is real.
I come from a family of musicians. From a very early age, everyone was compelled to perform. To have an identity, you had to perform, or at least be able to sing in a choir. When I was younger, I also tried to impersonate what I thought was cool. In my early teens, this would mean someone like Justin Timberlake. After writing songs for a while, I was noticed and ended up in the music industry. As a musician, I always preferred being in the studio than being on stage. I loved being with all the audio geeks and sound engineers who would turn knobs and generate new, weird sounds. From that, I realised that music studios and art studios bear a resemblance to each other. I was already painting. In 2014, I very clearly decided to focus on visual art.
He graduated from art academy in Amsterdam during the crisis at its peak, had the most intense summer alongside an artist residency in Italy, and afterwards built up his second studio facilities in Denmark while every introductory exhibition he had planned got cancelled or postponed. He considers the COVID years to have been there to build artists stronger and more creative somehow.
Johannes Holt Iversen Greatest influence has to be Pablo Picasso, not as a man, but as an artist. His legacy speaks volumes and his artistic process had so many layers that you as an artist never seem to grow tired of. If I dig deeper into what influences my own creative process: the amazing upper Palaeolithic cave paintings such as the ones found in Lascaux, Maltravieso and the Chauvet Cave. What amazes me is the idea that there were no systemised cultural entity determining the cultural value of these paintings back then, like we tend to do now. Some say they used the cave paintings for navigating the stars in the sky; others suggest they were used for storytelling or determining the seasons of the year due to the absence or presence of specific wildlife.
Johannes Holt Iversen I tend to work from the material outwards, having in mind the lineage of artistic creation and representation. Currently I am investigating the representation of light, shadow and matter. This often results in object-based work where not the figure itself only is important, but also the space and the viewer surrounding the figure has an important role to perform when engaging with the works. I have been drawn towards illuminating natural and cultural occurrences such as paintings, banners, marketed products, and the use of shapes and symbols. Most of my works now examine the duality between artificial and organic life. The pandemic and recent developments in AI have also really influenced my practice. I am interested in imbuing people with an existential awareness, and asking: what is artificial? What is organic? What is real?
"I want to tap into these curious questions and confront them with the reality of today, the materials and hyper-commercial slickness that surrounds us."
Johannes Holt IversenJohannes Holt Iversen Definitely the art world needs to change, question is what type of change is necessary. Today there are forces within the art community who deliberately work towards cancelling the icon status of the creative individual without filling the gap with something else. I think icon status may shift its focus from what we see as the traditional icons towards technological icons. The art world is taking a wrong turn inviting cancel culture into the ring. We will see a downsizing of culture budgets and a lack of focus on art. It is important to think of human nature as a glass filled with water: whatever you put additionally into that cup makes the excessive water float elsewhere. Pressure breeds back pressure in all aspects of human nature. In order to change systems there needs to be a pragmatic gesture taking place first, otherwise you spawn fundamentalism within any given structure.
