Anders Billing

Holmqvist and Billing in 2001, labeling copies of the compilation CD "All Songs Are Sad Songs," which Billing produced with her record label, Make It Happen. The disc included a contribution by Holmqvist.

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On your website today, there is only one sentence: “Dancing and singing, every day, dancing and singing and getting paid.” How do you keep up the free spirit to do your brilliant work?

Oh, thank you so much. The “singing and dancing” thing is actually about Patti Smith, from a reading I did a couple of years ago. It’s meant as a comparison between rock stars and artists and/or poets. Who does what and how, who has actual freedom, and who gets the money, etc. I think we still represent an important dream position for a lot of people.

Your work often has a graphic feel. Lots of your publications and videos are in black-and-white. You even painted the walls in your studio and apartment black at one point. Is that color scheme something you recommend?

I have stuck with black-and-white because it’s stylish and refers back to text, and to the idea that all of reality could be seen as a type of writing or an act of communication. As for the black room at my place in Stockholm, it’s actually two rooms, one of which is painted fluorescent orange, reminiscent of the sacred color of saffron-robed monks, and the other being the more occult and diabolic black walls. As you move between the two rooms, it’s meant to activate forces of good and evil in your person.

I’m about to move, and I’ve been going through texts from when I was working as a music journalist almost 10 years ago. I was amazed how sharply written they were. I could never write anything like that today! Have you recognized this feeling? Do you feel we did our best work in our youth?

It’s hard to generalize about this. We do need to stay respectful of the wisdom and experience of older people. My interest in writing is mostly from an experimental position, searching for new ways of expression. Maybe it’s just that we now have more inside our heads, and it’s not that easy to remain focused or sort through it anymore.

You use not only text but also your own voice in your work. What other voices do you enjoy listening to?

Speaking in public remains a great embarrassment to a lot of people, and I frequently go to talks and readings just to see how they do it—if they read from a paper or speak “from the heart.” It’s a great way to get to know someone, almost regardless of what they’re actually saying.

What are you up to at the moment?

Other than listening to the voices inside my head? I just came back from Trento in Italy, where I presented a new work [Radio Ethiopia] as part of Manifesta 7. Next week, I’m going to New York to do a reading at White Columns. It will be a homecoming and coming full circle, of sorts, since it was in New York that I started to do spoken-word readings some 20 years ago. It seems I’m still at it, giving it a try. 

An exhibition of Johanna Billing’s video works will be on view at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, from Nov. 21 through Feb. 8. "Johanna Billing Puts Five Questions to Karl Holmqvist" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' October 2008 Table of Contents.