Sheyi Bankale (SB): How does the Copenhagen art-photography scene appear from your perspective?

Mikkel Bogh (MB): I would say we have a very lively scene in Denmark in the sense that there is a lot going on compared to ten or fifteen years ago – at least in the three major cities. A lot of Danish artists go abroad after studying here but a lot of artists settle here too. This creates an interesting situation, professionally, with its own dilemmas and challenges. Unlike in Britain, we are not very multi-cultural. The art scene is predominantly Danish, and in order to get state support, you need to hold Danish citizenship. So when, suddenly, ten percent of our most active artists are residents without Danish passports it creates problems because they can’t get support from the Danish state. But, also seen from a strictly professional point of view, this has created a much more dynamic situation. There is much more openness towards new approaches to art and what an artistic activity can be conceived as. However, in terms of education, we have professors from Sweden, Norway, Germany, and Britain, so the Academy has an international staff bringing in perspectives and approaches that create a pool of experiences that are much more diverse. And, we have foreign applicants for the three academies, but also, a lot of local talent going to academies abroad. As you know, Berlin attracts an enormous amount of Danish people from the creative industries. Many of our best artists are based in Berlin. It is much cheaper to live there than in Copenhagen, which means that it can be quite difficult for young artists to establish themselves here.

SB: The current economy has influenced the structure of the art scene?

MB: In the eighties and nineties we saw many more local initiatives. You have to be extremely creative today to find that kind of in-between-space where, as a young artist without an income, you can support yourself. In Berlin, you can find abandoned industrial buildings and turn them into gallery spaces without it costing a fortune. These opportunities are no longer available in Copenhagen. In fact, we call Berlin the biggest suburb of Copenhagen, because so many people in the arts are moving there.

SB: As head of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art, do you think photography has developed as a fine art practice?

MB: I should say, from the outset, that at the Academy we don’t train photographers as such. There are schools of photography elsewhere. We train artists – visual artists. It is not our aim or ambition to train artists solely working with photography. We consider photography to be a medium – a set of lens-based technical opportunities – that visual artists can use in parallel with other media. So, while we have a lot of students working with photography, they are normally also working in other media. The medium of photography isn’t central to the education programme. And the same applies, I would say, to sculpture and to painting. Actually, I would love to train photographers but we also want to focus on developing the artistic and visual consciousness of the students, and that also implies a conceptual consciousness. In this way, they are able to contextualise their work in relation to certain artistic genres or traditions, instead of adopting one medium without any critical approach to it.

SB: Many people have suggested that there is a shortage of students practising photography from the Academy?

MB: There is no certification other than that of being a visual artist. I don’t know if this will change. Helsinki offers an interesting comparison because it sits within the Scandinavian context and many of the same pedagogical traditions are applied there. In Helsinki, they have two art schools, The National Art Academy which is a little bit like ours, and a department within Aalto University. That is where the School of Photography is. The so-called ‘Helsinki School of Photography’, hyped in the nineties, was the consequence of one particular American professor.

SB: Would it be a positive move to create a certificate in photography-as-art, with an emphasis on theory and critique?

MB: In theory, yes, and I very much subscribe to that distinction. There is potential and, yes, I think that could be developed. In practice, however, it depends on a lot of things and a lot of factors. You could imagine a model where photography was a particular focus here at the Academy or a model where the Academy provided the institutional framework for such a platform that would eventually lead to a certificate – even though I am not sure that the certificate itself is the crucial part. Another idea would be to establish a new, independent institution specialising in photography. Personally, I prefer the first option – and I am not saying this because I have a dream of expanding or anything, but I think it would be healthier and provide more interesting dialogues and exchanges if we had a specialised programme within a larger programme.

SB: That is an interesting point. So, would you say that there is a Danish style?

MB: As I said at the beginning of this interview, there might be something called a Danish style, but that style is influenced by styles from other countries.

SB: Is the style to have no style?

MB: It is an interesting question that deserves a longer answer than I am able to give here. It is a frequently asked question and something that is being discussed today, at least in Denmark. Maybe we are not looking for a Danish-style because the whole question of national style and nationality is deeply problematic to many of those working in the creative fields, where the tendency is to go in the direction of globalisation. But we are also very aware that the globalisation or internationalisation of the art world can lead to a kind of standardisation of the product we call art. If we all read the same magazines and listen to the same twenty curators who travel around and sit on the same panels in the same conferences and so on, where do we look for the differences? Where do we look for the local particularities and the local experiences? It is my hope that, in the near future, even artists from abroad who choose to settle in Copenhagen for some time – or maybe for the rest of their lives – will take into consideration local and regional experiences and allow them to influence the way they produce art. This way, they can avoid making this globalised art product that we all know and are becoming fed up with. Art needs to cross borders, but should also retain its local differences.

SB: Do you envisage an either/or scenario?

MB: It is never an either/or scenario. It is never a case of ‘either you have a national style or you have a globalised style’. I mean many interesting products are born out of the merging of different contexts and experiences. But a Danish style, no, and I think even the so-called ‘Helsinki School of Photography’ is no longer what it was in the nineties. I’m not saying that it is less interesting, but these national – or local – styles have their moments and their momentums and they last for a number of years only. The thing is, you can’t really predict how these things develop, even though you inject a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of energy and creative thinking into it. Having said that, I think that establishing institutions, and I very much believe in this, is a very good place to start. Indeed, one of the reasons for the relative international success of Danish art, considering the size of the country, is due to the fact that we have quite strong institutions to train students and accommodate individual practices.

SB: Something I have witnessed is the magnitude of collaborations here, much more than in other Scandinavian countries.

MB: There are a lot of collaborations. And that is something we consciously encourage at the Academy and, also, at the other two schools. So, I think that is actually part of a national style even though you can’t necessarily see it.

As an art school, we look to Norway, Sweden and Finland a lot. We have a very strong network of art schools. There are sixteen art schools in the Scandinavian and the Baltic countries. We have a twenty-year-old network of staff and student exchange between these schools, and I am currently heading that network. We have a sound-art programme, called Nordic Sound Art, that travels between the academies, so they have workshops in Copenhagen, then in Malmø, then in Bergen, then in Helsinki and then back to Copenhagen – and it works really well. And then there is the European Union (EU) programme, Erasmus, that makes it possible for students to exchange with almost all accredited art schools in the whole of the EU. That works well, too. So, when it comes to collaboration we look in all directions.

SB: Obviously there has been a huge shift due to the economic situation. How, through the Academy’s two exhibition spaces, do you facilitate students in terms of professional relationships with institutions and commercial galleries?

MB: We facilitate the students in many different ways. In the first instance, by letting them practise their exhibition skills in our own galleries. The first space, called Q, is entirely student-run. This is mainly where the undergraduates exhibit their work. The other space is larger and connected to three commercial galleries. This space is run-on a daily basis by a professional curator who works in collaboration with the students. She helps implement and develop the students’ ideas, and in that way, they learn something about curating and organising themselves as artists. We also require students to exhibit in the other space, encouraging them to invite colleagues to show with them: another form of collaboration. Thus, most of our students will have had at least one exhibition in one of those two venues before they leave the programme.

We facilitate relationships between the students and the commercial galleries while also trying to keep them from falling into the trap of showing their work in commercial galleries too early in their careers. Of course, it is up to them and we can’t actually prevent them. A few years ago – just before the so-called crisis – lots of galleries were interested in promoting the youngest artists and they actually offered opportunities for some of our new students to show and sell work. It was, of course, a hugely attractive proposition for some of them. But we found that those who actually went down that route faced a hard time. Not only did they miss classes, but they also failed to develop. It was as if on the day they showed at the gallery they came to a standstill because they didn’t want to disappoint the buying audience and the galleries. Whether aware of it or not, they stopped developing as artists the day the gallery said ‘this is interesting, I can sell that’.

SB: This is a difficult balance to maintain – commercial success and personal development…

MB: Yes, of course. For some, a relationship with commercial galleries could begin after three years on this programme, for others after two years. But, for most of them, it would be far too early and we try to impress upon students that the years that they have here are valuable. I mean this is a state-funded institution and there are no study fees at all. They also get a study grant, as opposed to a loan. So, it is better to take advantage of these years – to experiment, to go down blind alleys, to try out loads of things without considering their commercial potential. We encourage our students to take advantage of that and, then, see what they can do with that experience once they’ve finished the programme. But if students get an opportunity they can’t refuse, so to speak, then we try to help them and advise them as well as we can in order that they stay free of the obvious pitfalls. There are opportunities and there are pitfalls, and it is a balance.