Artist: Katarina Sylvan
Exhibition title: Somewhere Along Those Lines
Venue: Intersticio, London, UK
Date: April 22 – June 19, 2021
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Intersticio, Madrid/London
They started the interview with the full barrage of necessaries and a little of the informal. The candidate was positioned in the very centre of the room on a swivel chair. The directors sat A to D, clockwise, in each corner. Questions were asked by director A then director B then director C then director D sequentially and very much in that order. Directors A to B headed up health and services, and directors C to D comms and skills, and though none had previous experience they absolutely loved directing. A glass of water was provided but went unnoticed.
Tell us about a time you encountered unhealthy communication.
[B raises eyebrows to D, who glances momentarily at A]
The candidate recounted a narrative beginning with Once upon a time, and ending with They all lived happily ever after, and in the middle likened themselves to the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. It positioned them in an exceptionally good light. C noted they’d used a mixed metaphor at one stage but otherwise the candidate was uninterrupted. The directors pressed the candidate about the nuts and bolts of the candidate’s candidacy. The candidate said they’d always wanted to join the directors on the other side and described an elaborate but metaphorical trebuchet-like mechanism to propel them there. The directors reminded them that the interview was for ‘Candidate-in-Chief’ and certainly not director, and given the four corners were occupied there obviously wasn’t currently a vacancy for director, but they appreciated the ambition and all simultaneously ticked a box for ambition and scrawled competency aspired to along the straight line beside it.
Tell us about a time when you were overprepared but underexposed.
[A nods to C, and then nods at D too because C isn’t looking in the right direction]
The candidate told a roundabout tale of preventing mischief and mayhem when they worked as a desk clerk in a role they described as deadly serious. They regularly referred to individuals nicknamed the attempteur and the attemptress in various positive and negative lights. Ultimately, no-one came across well except for the candidate, who excelled. Here’s the thing, said B, who pulled out a leather-bound dossier from the basement archives of the practice – a basement the candidate was totally unaware existed. It’s very cold down there – excellently preservative said C. Opened like a book, the dossiers held phalanxes of USBs encrusted by rust on ornamental keychains. But damp too, C went on. These are the cold hard facts of the matter at hand. The candidate made a face to say they recognised these as the dastardly contraptions of a wicked soothsayer. This was the evidence from a wizard who won’t forget. They stopped considering progression and would settle for survival. The candidate said they’d changed tack since then. They started to think of terrible ideas some of which bordered on the nihilistic – wiring in bathtubs and plug sockets dripping in the pouring rain. They started to make sounds which were no more than elaborate ummms, ahhhs and hmmms. They were talking a lot but not saying anything. They felt themselves tilting towards the inept. The directors began to apply pressure – they asked the candidate if they’d be willing to take a hit from the eyebrows up for the team. A started to share plans about warmongering with their fiercest competitors, and aggressive craft-based strategies for foyer remodelling. B said they must have missed a memo, but kept saying missed like it was a longing nostalgia. C recounted the fatal consequences of a noisy voice message which revolved around confusion between miscommunication and missed communication. D shared their ambition to devise a GPS-trackable lawnmower called the Clattermole. These outlined the necessary tangents for the knockout punch.
Tell us about a time when you were adept.
[A to D smirk in alphabetical order]
The candidate asked for the question to be repeated, and said well when you’ve got a hammer in your hand everything looks like a nail and that isn’t the half of it, and said another way to look at things is the nail repeatedly slapped the hammer flush in the face, but died trying and was summarily buried. The candidate started to repeat a-dept like it was a thing perched on their palm, which disintegrated into each letter being enunciated individually, and they riffed on this discovery for some time, replacing consonants for t and k sounds on loop and vowels with guttural umlaut-related noises. They started to cry but it wasn’t clear to anyone whether in the ecstasy of creation or the misery of failure. In the first clear thought for some time they thought of their father, who offered some advice on his deathbed from a career in surgical theatre – Don’t just do something, stand there. And so the candidate didn’t say anything at all, and the directors didn’t ask anything again. The candidate swivelled from director to director clockwise, to the point where it felt like the silence had constructed a podium to start bellowing:
I scream quality despite all the available evidence! I scream quality! I scream quality! I scream quality! and
I’m talking about problems here big problems I’m talking about the car crash of the century and the permanently unfinished second storey and what I call the patination chain I’m talking about a sort of travelator of accumulative flow and tin hats and iron masks dirty bracken and a hard rain falling I’m talking about the problem of relative growth the problem of straight lines the problem of trying really hard and the corresponding problem of absolute and unwavering public humiliation and most of all I’m talking about the influencing machines and their almighty gleeeam can’t you see what I’m talking about can’t you can’t you can’t you see
Push had come to shove. They accidentally kicked the glass of water over on their way out. It made a watermark the shape of a teardrop on the grid of carpet tiles.
-Adam Hines-Green
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, Detail of Untitled, Copper pipes, pewter, aluminum foil, spray paint, shellac, bolts., 2020
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, GET INTO YOUR GROOVE, Vinyl record, turntable, wood, pewter, pigment, shellac, headphones, amplifier
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, Table of Contents, Aluminum foil, playing cards, pigment, shellac, pins, rust, marker on mdf (122x85cm), 2020
Katarina Sylvan, Detail of Table of Contents, Aluminum foil, playing cards, pigment, shellac, pins, rust, marker on mdf (122x85cm), 2020
Katarina Sylvan, Untitled, Pewter, wood, 2020
Katarina Sylvan, Untitled, Pewter, wood, 2020
Katarina Sylvan, Untitled, Pewter, wood, 2020
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, Radiator, Copper pipes, pewter, aliminum foil, spray paint, shellac, burnt aluminum foil, 2020
Katarina Sylvan, Radiator, Copper pipes, pewter, aliminum foil, spray paint, shellac, burnt aluminum foil, 2020
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, Foiled, Burnt aluminum foil, pigment, shellac on wood, (31,5x34cm), 2020
Katarina Sylvan, Foiled, Burnt aluminum foil, pigment, shellac on wood, (31,5x34cm), 2020
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, Untitled, Aluminum foil, playing cards, newspaper, pigment, shellac, aluminum varnish, marker on wood, (Framed, 78×59,5cm), 2021
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
Katarina Sylvan, Somewhere Along Those Lines, 2021, exhibition view, Intersticio, London
