Sheyi Bankale (SB): How would you define Danish photography in terms of contemporary art?

Jens Erdman Rasmussen (JER): I think one of the most interesting and distinguishing features of Danish photography, photographic art at least, is that photography was never really appreciated as an art form in its own right, as it was in many other places. I mean, everybody says this, but in Denmark, that recognition occurred even later than it did with all our neighbours. So photography, I mean photography with an artistic vision, was basically carried out by people who were very stubborn and very specific in their artistic direction. And when that recognition finally came, photography was already an accepted part of other art forms; the fruit of many good artists working with photography who didn’t really come from photography. So the photographic art scene has developed as an art scene and not as a photography scene, first and foremost. But, then, there were these ‘pockets’ of photographic activity: The Museum of Photographic Art in Odense, for example.

SB: This is true. Photography continues to be used by artists – painters, installation artists and so forth. However, what seems evident now is that photography-as-art has become accepted in Denmark.

JER: The discussion we have now is in relation to the classical photographic genres: documentary, landscape, portraiture and so on. How does that fit into the big picture? So, actually, we’re challenged when we display classical works. We have led to the contemporary in the past two years and last autumn, when we exhibited Edward Steichen, we had to explain photography in a completely different way, and we suddenly had to justify why we were showing ‘this classical works’, which is interesting because it is sort of reversed.

SB: Is there one moment that really defined photography as an art form? Was there a particular protagonist?

JER: Yes, I mean, there are probably two: one very important person and one very important institution. The very important person, Bjørn Ochsner, was the head of the Department of Maps, Prints and Photographs at The Royal Library, and he believed photography had some artistic potential or some potential beyond the pure documentary or cultural-historical document. And this institution already had a huge photo collection of around five to ten million photographs, mostly of a documentary nature: portraits, typographic images, but also early travel photography and work like that. Ochsner kind of laid the ground for what is now The Museum of Photography by sorting these things out – conserving and cataloguing them. And he did a lot – he acquired a lot of work. So, in many ways, he was the first Danish photo-historian, even though he was an amateur to begin with, you could say. And when I started here I was still studying, so I worked, not as a volunteer, but as a student worker. I would look at the catalogue and see Walker Evans’ name. I’d think, ‘Wow, I have to see that’. I’d go down and take the envelope saying ‘Walker Evans’. I’d open it and see these modern prints purchased from the Yves Versea archives, I mean just machine prints, postcards, stuff like that. So in a way his interest in photography, or in this collection of eighteen million photographs and fifty-two tons of negatives, was purely to document the different photographers, so there was a huge cleaning-up job to be done. The collection was less rich than we had thought it was, but, in terms of telling the history of photography, it was very rich. Ingrid Fischer Jonge was instrumental in this institution’s collecting policy; she now heads Denmark’s first specialised museum in photography, in Brandt. Ochsner and Fischer Jonge were key players. Of course, Lars Schwander has played an enormous role with the photographic centre (Fotografisk Center) that he started, and ran for a long time. As did a gallery called Tommy Lund, which exhibited some very important Danish artists, like Joakim Koester. When Tommy Lund passed away in the mid-2000s, the artists he represented migrated all over the place. Some went to Berlin, some decided to go it alone and some are now with Nikolaj Wallner or Nils Stærk. These are two of the really big name galleries.

SB: How do you view the photography scene now? How would you describe the relationship nationally – the engagement with its audience – as opposed to, perhaps, an international audience?

JER: Well, some people will probably disagree with me but, in a way, I think that at this institution – The National Museum of Photography – our most important mission is showing photography to the audience we have here. We really have something we want to tell. And to do that, we really need to have an international outlook. So, the exhibition on contemporary Spanish photography and video art that Timothy Persons and Estelle af Malmborg curated in Stockholm and that we showed here in a quite different version curated to specifically address our audience caused everyone to ask, ‘why’? Actually, now I can say this because we have a new government – the Danish cultural-political situation when we did the Spanish exhibition was very much like the Spanish political situation under Franco. So this openness is an important thing, but we also want to be inspired by international work. I think it is really important to show and collect – to keep in our collection – work by international photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank. Also, to show these original works to a Danish audience because something takes place – it has an aura, it has something special. That is an important thing. That said, we don’t interact enough with our audience, we don’t provide enough lectures, seminars and artist talks; it is mostly a question of resources. I make a habit of, at least once a week, taking a walk in the exhibition space without my ID card so I can listen to, and view, what is going on. I get to know how people respond to our ideas. I think that gives us an edge because we have a unique audience. It is The Royal Library, so we have a lot of very diverse groups of people coming here. Tourists, who just come to look at the building, suddenly discover that there is an exhibition, and they have no idea about what we are showing.

Timothy Persons (TP): You have two museums for photography but they don’t communicate with each other. They don’t raise issues. I’m talking about collaborating on joint shows, where you show one, they show the other and then a switch is undertaken. I’m asking, is there a programme for a real interchange of ideas? And, if you read the Danish critics, they critique foreigners in a very different way than they critique themselves. There’s no parity.

JER: It is actually not that black and white. We have had several collaborations on exhibitions and other events with the museum in Odense. But it proves that Denmark is maybe too small to house two photographic museums – or at least that Copenhagen and Odense are too close together. People will travel from Odense to Copenhagen to see an exhibition – even if it comes to Odense later – but they won’t travel the other way, and sadly that goes for the critics too. That said, we have had successful collaborations with different Danish institutions as well as institutions in Amsterdam, New York, Paris and Berlin. And of course, we try to coordinate events, exhibitions and acquisitions with Odense.

SB: Potentially then, the critics dictate the terms and direction of exhibitions?

TP: That is a good point. We should be judging exhibitions on an international scale, not on how they compare to Danish art.

JER: Yes, I think the critics should be as international in their outlook as are the artists and institutions. We can’t get anywhere near that level right now because, simply, we don’t have the muscle to do that. But, I think exhibitions should be audience-orientated, rather than audience-led.

TP: We are in the twenty-first century and Denmark is the gateway to Scandinavia. Museums should be expanding their vision, not narrowing it from a nationalistic point of view.

JER: We are called The National Museum of Photography but that doesn’t mean a ‘nationalistic’ museum of photography. That is one point, and the other point is that it is also a national duty, the way I see ‘national’, to show Denmark what is important; not to show anybody else, not to say that we are important. Look, we are having these conversations and we are active, too. Denmark is very small. I mean we really have three target groups that are very important. Some of them are easier to define than others. The first group, simply, is us. I mean if we don’t have the passion to do what we do, we won’t do a good job. It’s easy to work with that target group, but it can’t be the only one – not for every exhibition at least. Maybe, once in a while, we do something just because we want to. The second group is very important. That is our artistic peer group – you and the other curators. We want to show them – you – how clever we are and how good we are at collecting and exhibiting the ‘right’ material. We just had a Gregory Crewdson exhibition and there were some people, at other museums, who were a little envious. The third group is all the people who don’t come here – the disinterested crowd – the people who are not really interested in museums or the art world or in culture in general. If we can reach some of them every time, that is great.

SB: When you look at the local art scene, do you see the Museum’s acquisitions as a catalyst for supporting local artists?

JER: We don’t collect specifically to support artists, but of course we do support artists when we acquire their work for our collection. However, with i.e. Adam Jeppesen it was really clear from the beginning that he had an extraordinary talent. He was going somewhere. And that is something we should support, in one way or another while keeping the main goal in mind – enriching the National collection. When you discover new talent, of course, you buy something because, in ten years time, it might be impossible: too expensive. We bought Thomas Ruff and Andreas Gursky in the mid-nineties and people were saying, ‘are you crazy’ spending ten thousand euros on one photograph? Look at how much they cost now. We were the first to collect Olafur Eliasson’s work – while he was still at the Academy. That wouldn’t be possible today. So you have to do that, and if we can support somebody by that, that is great, but I don’t think that is the primary motive. And especially, then, where do you draw the line? Who do you support and who don’t you? I mean you have to judge on quality and potential significance.

SB: I viewed the support as a legacy of photography from Denmark?

JER: Of course this is, by law, the national collection of photography but one institution can’t assume that position, and shouldn’t, so we do see ourselves as part of a larger national collection for photography and photographic art. There is a distinction and it is sort of important because certain kinds of photography, other than art-photography, are also interesting in terms of the history of photography. Since we can’t acquire everything on our own, we shouldn’t try to compete with other institutions so, of course, we try to talk to each other. If one museum buys one part of an artist’s oeuvre and we purchase another we can complement each other. That is the point. That is important. If it is worth collecting, then we should do it. But, in line with the exhibition policy, we show the best of the international scene. We have to do that too.

SB: So, how would you describe the profile of Danish photography? Do you look towards Scandinavia, or towards Europe?

JER: I think most Danish photographers and artists are more European or international than they are Scandinavian. There are different reasons for that, I think. To varying degrees, Scandinavian countries have been quite self-contained, you might say. They are happy in their own world. I mean I have talked to Swedish artists who were happy selling to local collectors and museums; they were not really interested in breaking through internationally. That world was big enough for them and I am sure the same can be said of many Danish photographers and Norwegian photographers, and probably Germans too. But I would say that we orientate ourselves not towards Stockholm but more towards London, Berlin, New York. There was a time when every good Danish artist moved to Berlin. That was where things were happening and, if you wanted to visit artists’ studios, you had to go to Berlin. And it is still true, to a certain extent.

TP: Do you know what Erica Hoffman does in Berlin? It is really special. Once a month, she invites twenty-five to forty people over. She invites an artist who is represented in the collection, and someone to interview her and the artist. Sometimes it gets quite heated. And, if it is the right artist, it is a lot of fun. I have been involved both as the interviewer and as part of the invited audience. I was visiting the Copenhagen galleries yesterday and today, and I viewed fifteen good galleries, I mean, galleries that are participating at international fairs – who are active. What I think Copenhagen should do during its ‘month of photography’ is create a gallery listing and then invite curators – international curators, not Danish – to work with them. This is what Vienna does, and it works well. It creates a huge influx of people who come, for one night, because they are curious. The galleries stay open till two in the morning. Everybody circles around and, the best part is, all the curators come and they are actually interactive with what goes on at a local level. This opens things up.

JER: We have actually tried out different formats like that over the years, artist’s talks, meetings between collectors, artists and curators, critical salons in the exhibitions etc. But it always dies out because qualified participators want to get paid and the audience, on the other hand, stays away if they have to pay. And the directors of The Royal Library don’t see that kind of activity as part of our primary mission so they won’t provide the funding nor fundraising needed for neither covering costs nor for the staff needed to organise events. In a way, I don’t think it makes sense to look at photography as an isolated phenomenon. I don’t think the art education system in Denmark is necessarily perfect either. What is lacking is a photography school or a specialised photography education. I think what they do at the Academy is really good. But, we are beyond talking about ‘Danish’ photography. A guy like Adam Jeppesen is more international than he is Danish. Trine Søndergård relates very strongly to Danish art history but, for the most part, Danish photographers are much more universal and much more international in their scope and focus. Even their titles are often in English. Some artists are not even recognised in Denmark, I mean there are two Joakims: Joakim Eskildsen who lives in Berlin and Joakin Koester who lives in New York. Eskildsen doesn’t play a big part in the Danish photographic scene. He is a very quiet person and he gets exhibited everywhere, and he gets his books published by Steidl, but he doesn’t really need Denmark. Koester, who is internationally acclaimed, is really one of the major guys in the art world and has been so important to Danish art for years, but he simply is broadly appreciated on the photography scene. So, I think the international perspective is much more interesting, I mean, I probably have to admit that I spend more time on the international network than on the Danish network.