In Conversation With: Nico Krijno: b. 1981, South Africa

George King (GK): Tell me a bit about your background; I know your creative path also involved some theatre and video – was it music as well? Did those experiences shape your image-making in any way?

Nico Krijno (NK): Not really music, a bit when I was younger, but then I stopped. I played the piano, did some singing in church, you know? I was that kind of boy! I do play around with sound and create some music for my videos. I also have an obsession with percussion instruments, especially weird African instruments. When I was really young I was always on stage, and always alone for some reason; doing some sort of monologue or solo piece, or singing. I knew that it wasn’t something that I’d make a life out of! Especially growing up here in South Africa, where there was no cinema scene back then. I just knew I had to do it. It was something I had to get out of my system, to then get back into my system, if you know what I mean? It was part of my preparation for life. 

GK: What did it teach you?

NK: I think it’s quite a good experience to have in a psychological sense – I’m a very intuitive person, so it teaches you a lot about your machine, how to speak, how to interact, how to be in your body, especially as a creative type. Where I never thought I’d end up acting, I did think I’d make films, and in order to create these dramatic pieces, I felt I had to get under the skin of the actor, to be able to manipulate them in the correct way. So I went to theatre school – an arts-based secondary school where you had a few normal classes but mostly theatre subjects, like the history of costume, literature etc. We had a lot of freedom. We put up plays. We wrote the music for the plays. It was wild! Everyone was smoking pot and boys were kissing in the hallways, all sorts! It was crazy, and exactly what I needed, having come from a normal middle class school beforehand, which in South Africa is very militant – almost like a British private school type experience. I literally left home, went to this new school 1000 kilometres away, immersed myself in that world. And my life changed. 

GK: And the material you’re reworking – what kind of images make up this archive?

NK: It’s things that have piqued my interest over time. Things like South African plant books, images of flower arrangements, African art. Loads of old interiors and furniture photography, Things that I’m personally interested in, or things that are steeped in my background and the way I look at the world. The collecting itself is also part of it, because it gets me out of the studio to all sorts of interesting places to source these books and speak with people, mostly octogenarians. In this area where I live, there’s lots of retired, wealthy, well-travelled people. So there’s amazing books that people have brought here with them; I go to hospices and places like that where I find incredible things! I guess the things that draw my eye are somehow linked to memory and my past. But It’s also about a mythology that I’m trying to create, a little world. I’m trying to explain a kind of multi-sensuous world to myself through these images. They’re not necessarily images I’d go out and take; I’d rather collect them. There’s something nostalgic about finding old books or old objects that trigger something in you. I’m interested in the things that people throw away, the social value of these things. So I wouldn’t say my work is nostalgic, but there’s definitely an element within nostalgia that I want to mine.

GK: That makes sense! Now, let’s talk about your new book, Collages 2020-2022, published by Art Paper Editions. It’s very rare to come across something so dense, with such a volume of images! How did it take shape?

NK: It’s interesting how it happened. For someone like me, who works in a disciplined but very free way, the secret is a good editor. So I told Jurgen Maelfeyt, the designer and publisher at Art Paper Editions, to just edit me hard! He didn’t tell me much – there wasn’t a lot of communication – but he took the work, put it together, and I was wowed! It wasn’t at all how I would have done it, but I thought it was really interesting; the images are presented sequentially, so everything kind of blends together. My instinct would probably have been to juxtapose rather than to show similar images side by side. It reads a bit like an animation in the end. He also sequenced the works vaguely in the order they were made, which I also found interesting. Likewise, I had imagined a thin book, because I’ suggested a soft cover and for it to be a kind of flip-book. If you pick up a hardcover book, it’s immediately so serious and weighty. With a soft cover it’s a different experience. Jurgen used most of the images which, as an experiment, I think is very clever! I really respect him – Art Paper Editions is one of the publishers I’ve been in love with over the years, so it’s bit of a dream come true for me.

GK: I guess you have to cede control sometimes to make a great photobook? 

NK: Yeah, to step back and not fuck with the process too much! That’s certainly how I feel I have to work – to let someone else who really makes a lot of books take over. But when I’m making work, I really do photograph for the book, far more than I would work with a wall in mind, if that makes sense? As a framework, I feel like a book can always translate into an exhibition – which brings us to how the work is hung in the show at The Ravestijn Gallery. It really works with the book, because these images start propping each other up. Normally I quite like things to be sparse in their presentation, because my work is already so busy and layered and colourful. But I think these paper rolls make everything a bit less serious! It cuts through that sense of the chin-scratching visitor studying all these framed works behind museum glass, which I like!

GK: There’s a text running alongside your publication that describes the book as an unlikely form for your work, in that it’s a finite object – which is seemingly at odds with your sprawling, infinite approach to image-making. What would you say to that?

NK: Not a whole lot – but I like that text! Maybe the book delineates; it creates a bit of a line in the sand. I can sort of move forward once I’ve put it together, once I’ve made sense of two years of working, you know?