Current exhibition in Tegnerforbundet: Paul Brand.
In connection with the installation of his new exhibition, Tegnerforbundet invited Paul Brand for a cup of coffee to talk a little about art and life, sculptures and maybe crack some number codes.
Text and photo: Ingjerd Sandven Kleivan
We are sitting in the downstairs in the Tegnerforbundet's premises in Rådhusgaten. Freshly brewed coffee is poured into cups, and some nut and fruit snacks are placed in the bowl on the table between us. On the floor above, pictures and sculptures are ready for unpacking and assembly. Paul Brand is smiling and laughing as usual, but before we talk about the the exhibition, we almost have to start at the beginning.
Paul Brand says that he was born in Switzerland in 1941. Right after the Art School in Biel / Bienne Canton Bern, where he studied Visual Communication (1958-1963), he moved to Norway. Paul was here for a few weeks, found Norway a strange country, and traveled back to Basel where he started working in an advertising agency. Here he was placed with a copywriter who liked Brand to think in a different way. They created slightly different types of ads than what was common at the time, including an all-black page with two white circles for a 2CV ad. This was something completely new at the time, and the ads got attention. Paul had to work a lot and there were late evenings and nights at the the drawing board. He didn't like that. After six months, he realized that he couldn't he couldn't go on like that and resigned. - You know, I knew a guy who worked in an advertising agency and he drove into a rock face and killed himself. He couldn't take it anymore! It was horrible. That was not for me. "If you're an employee, you're kind of a slave," says Paul with a wry smile. To get anywhere in Switzerland, you had to be an employee. So I decided again to go to Norway. But when I got to Oslo, I actually started I actually started working in an advertising agency here as well.
TF: Life as an employee can be hard sometimes! But how did you actually get your first job in Norway? Why did you choose to come here?
- No, I mean, I traveled to Sweden first! I was interested in film, and during my studies I worked for a with an architectural photographer in Bern. I was inspired by Bergman's film art. When I came to Norway, I first lived in a tent at Nesodden. I had had nowhere to live and no money. There had been a hotel there, which burned down, and on that site I set up my tent. I stayed there for three months and got to know a very nice girl from Kristiansand who knew German German because she had studied cosmetics in Vienna. I didn't speak any Norwegian at that time. Norwegian at that time. The girl had a father who owned an advertising agency in Oslo and I got a job there because of her. She was so sweet! She made me a packed lunch, you know. We didn't didn't have a relationship, we were just friends. But then one day she said: "Hey, Paul, "Why don't we get married? I said: "Are you crazy? I have nothing! I can't marry anyone! She was the one who got me on my feet in Norway. But when I didn't wanted to marry, she disappeared.
Eventually I got new job in Holte Reklamebyrå as Art Director. My first assignment was to create a company gift for Höganes in Sweden. I made a porcelain cube with holes in three different different directions, and the wrapping also had holes. A Christmas gift they gave to their biggest customers. It became my first sculpture! I didn't think about it at the time, but it actually was," laughs Paul. "And it was a bit avant garde. I wonder if wonder if they still have a copy of it. After a while I worked freelance and did a lot of different things, including making posters for the Munch Museum, Henie Onstad, the National Museum and the Vigeland Park. The State Information Service was a very good customer for over ten years. I made all kinds of information material for them for them, and in many ways they financed my art career. I had not planned to be an artist!
TF: Yes, how did that actually happen? How did you go from advertising to art? It is an art in itself!
- I continued to work still working as a designer and getting commissions for different museums. One day a customer called wondered if I could do an exhibition design for the Federation of Norwegian Industries in Index House at Solli plass. I made a plan and a model with instructions. Other people were building the actual exhibition, I only made the instructions. But then no one came to see the exhibition, and I received a request to create an eye-catcher create an eye-catcher that could stand outside. Something that would attract people to come in! I then made a 12 meter high sculpture in aluminum. At that time, Norway had only only one TV channel. NRK came and filmed, and the sculpture got a lot of attention. It stands by the way, in Holmestrand now. The first time I saw it there, I thought they had made it shorter. Cut it off at the bottom! It was terrible, I thought it was broken. So I tipped off VG and they did a big story on it. There was a lot of fuss. But it turned out that they hadn't cut it off after all! It just went down the ground. They had put it in a pit because it was too high. Heh heh! The last time I saw the sculpture in Holmestrand they had attached a light link to it! You know, one of those Christmas decoration that they use to attach to the buildings in the main street. But in 2019 it is 50 years! So I thought to contact the people in Holmestrand and ask them to clean and wash it a little, buy a cake, remove the wire and we will come and celebrate the anniversary! That sculpture is a little special to me because it also marks the day when I became an artist. It was with that sculpture that it all started.
TF: Yes, how did this did this start your career as an artist? Did anything else happen? Did you get more commissions?
- Yes, Henie Onstad also opened around the same time in 1969. And the Norwegian artists who were here thought it was just crap, so to speak. Capitalists creating an art collection that they themselves are not represented in! Ole Henrik Moe, who was then director of Henie Onstad, asked me if I could make a sculpture for the the opening, because he had seen the aluminum sculpture at Solli plass. I said of course I said yes and cast ice blocks in buckets with steel tubes across them. Underneath was a plate with a microphone that picked up the sound of the water droplets dripping and making a sound, 'pling plong'. It was also a bit avant garde, but no one knew that at the time. knew at the time. The melting process was broadcast on NRK shortwave radio, and Pål Bang-Hansen made a movie of the meltdown. Three or four years after this, I opened my first exhibition - in 1973 at Henie Onstad with large paintings.
TF: With paintings? But how did you go from sculpture to painting so quickly?
- I have never been afraid to move in and out of different genres. At school in Bern I was photography, drawing and sculpture. We mixed everything! And I still do that still do.
TF: So it's been been almost fifty years. You've been a full-time artist ever since. You have exhibited at home and abroad, created some twenty large sculptures and have been by both the public and private sectors. And now you're opening an exhibition at Tegnerforbundet where you will show a number of drawings and sculptures inspired by mathematics. Has mathematics always been an important part of your artistic practice?
- Mathematics has been around for quite a long time, yes. I participated in an exhibition in Gallery F15 in the 80s. There I made a form based on Pythagoras in bricks from a house that had been that had been demolished, and a kind of collage in ash and chalk that was also a pythagoras. Furthermore I was a professor for many years at NTH in Trondheim in the architecture program, and commuted from Oslo. On the train I sat with my sketchbook and tried to find solutions to mathematical problems. Intellectually you realize that it is possible, but practically it's not as easy. So you just have to keep trying until you get it right. It can can sometimes take a lot of time! When I finally found the solution in the sketchbook, it became a picture. I had an experiment where I used the shapes from 1 to 49 where the smallest is one square and the largest is 7x7 squares which becomes 49. 7x7 squares in one format with all the shapes from 1-49. It took me a year to find the solution. Then I made a print and sculptures. When I transported the shapes to an exhibition in Trondheim, I was unable to put them back together during the assembly! Naturally, I was a bit stressed, but when I relaxed a bit I remembered. Fortunately, I did.
TF: Do you think that math is beautiful?
- Mathematics, it is a kind of concept. You don't really understand it, and there is no point in understanding it. It's too complex. Even if you know that your DNA is made up of so and so many genes and is made up of formulas and such, you can't understand it. When you die, you don't cease to exist, because your energy continues, but we are so used to being associated with our body and who we are, that we don't realize this. It doesn't matter either. For me, the math is is something that is controlled out of a drift almost. I'm not a mathematician, but I have to figure things out. I have to look for the solutions. There are 35 possibilities to put together 6 squares into a continuous shape, but only 11 of these shape, but only 11 of these have a shape that can be folded into a cube. I the exhibition includes 11 drawings, each of which is missing one of the 11 shapes that form a cube. These lie on the floor as cubes in copper on 11 square shapes in aluminum and form a relation to the missing shapes in the 11 drawings.
TF: On. Tegnerforbundet do you also show some magic squares as sculptures in steel? What exactly is a magic square really?
- A magic square is a square that is divided into a number of squares where the sum of the numbers in each row, each column and along each diagonal are the same," smiles Paul Brand.
And with this answer, we invite you to the Paul Brand's exhibition in Tegnerforbundet (September 14-October 15), where you can search for more mathematical questions, answers and solutions through drawings and sculptures. drawings and sculptures. Tegnerforbundet is also showing an exhibition with Tina Jonsbu in the outer part of the gallery. Welcome to drop by!
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