Q&A with Saskia Olde Wolbers

The first time I saw a Saskia Olde Wolbers was at the Hammer in 2003, where Placebo (2002) was showing in a Hammer 'Projects' group show. I was hooked from the first moment: the lush, rich, oozing visuals were other-worldly. It took me a minute to hear the voiceover, and another minute to teach myself how to divide my attention equally between the video and the narrative -- and by then the six-minute video was up. I figured out how long it would be before Placebo (left) played again, went upstairs to see something else at the Hammer, and returned in time for Placebo to restart. I think I did that one more time that day, and several times over the course of that visit to Los Angeles.

Few video pieces have stuck in my mind like Placebo. It's catchy like Pipilotti Rist's Ever is Over All, it's visually sumptuous in the same way a Shirin Neshat is, and it's slow like a good Bill Viola. But while each of those artists shows us a narrative, Olde Wolbers writes us one. Her visuals are super, but it's her cleverness as a writer that keeps me going back a third or fourth or fifth time.

Placebo opens with a line that could have started a classic novel or the best vintage bit of Hollywood noir: "Here I am, lying next to my lover Jean, in intensive care, slipping in and out of consciousness in shifts. Life slowly dripping out of us..." So too Trailer (2005), which is on view now at the Hirshhorn as part of Kerry Brougher and Kelly Gordon's The Cinema Effect show: "Somewhere in the vast Amazonian forest, among plants whose indigenous, Spanish and Latin names compete with one another outside of their awareness, three species stood out self-consciously. There was the ancient red bark tree by the name of Ring Kittle. And in his shady undergrowth the Elmore Vella, a species of flytrap, used to go quietly about her deadly business."

For the next 10 minutes Trailer's narrative wanders away, folds over itself, slips along, and then doubles back in a too-real-to-be-true self-referential loop. Olde Wolbers' stories are like ice crystals: They're beautiful and complicated, and you have to examine them carefully to fully appreciate them. Then, just as you begin to figure them out, they melt and vanish. I'll have plenty of opportunities to 'solve' Trailer: The Hirshhorn has acquired the piece for its collection.

Olde Wolbers, who is Dutch, lives in London and has never had a solo show in the U.S. She visited the Hirshhorn for the opening of The Cinema Effect and I talked with her about Saskia Olde Wolbers, the writer. Come back for part two tomorrow.

MAN: Are you a writer?

Saskia Olde Wolbers: No. But I guess fiction is my main source of inspiration I'm constantly reading and writing things down, but you know I think writing is difficult. When I'm making actual work, I guess sort of it is ninety percent of it is making, making sets in the studio. In the studio I listen to a lot of novels on tape, so I am constantly engaged in ways of narrating. Even if I'm socializing, I'm looking for stories, so I'm definitely listening for stories. That's sort of an interest of mine, the way writers sort of filter experience in a distant way: They see the actual story as well as the emotional experience.

MAN: So when you're working on a piece, do you start with writing, with narrative, or do you start with visuals?

SOW: I usually start a piece with a very thin premise. For instance with Trailer (above right) I stumbled upon a documentary about Judy Lewis, who was the daughter of Clark Gable and Loretta Young, and by the time she found out Clark Gable was her dad she could only see him in his roles. So I started with that distance, how film creates something but it's not really personal per se.

I had just been in Los Angeles, so I started working on the idea of the cinema as a building, and the jungle as a sort of place for fiction. So I had different strands, but I never have one or the other finished first.

MAN: So you don't sit down and write out the whole story in one or two sittings?

SOW: No. I do the writing only in pieces. I have a notebook, so I make notes and then I put it into a PC and I end up with lots and lots of unrelated material. I add things I find along the way and then I edit it down.

MAN: Do you outline or go with flow?

SOW: Towards the end, when the visuals are almost done and the story has to come together, I do guide it a bit. But when editing I lay the narrative/voice over down first and then I can slot the visuals into it.

MAN: You've mentioned fiction a few times. Tell me what you read.

SOW: There are definitely some particular writers. There is a sort of particular feel I guess to what stories I like. I wouldn't read just anything... What did I just read? Oh, I just read Dave Eggers' What is the What and I really liked that. It was great company. [Olde Wolbers also emailed me her reading-plus list. Click below to see it.]