Erik Tidemann

Erik Tidemann lives in Norway and in England.  For him, Norway is better because that's where he gets all his animal heads.  And animal skins.  Which he then wears.



All right, to start why don’t you tell me where you grew up and what kind of things you into then?

I grew up in the city of Trondheim in Norway but lived between my mum and my grandparents who lived in the countryside in a place called Meraker by the mountains. My mum’s family consists of mostly butchers, hunters and taxidermists and they have this very bizarre vision on life and death and killing animals, which they love. My father was this dude who never lived anywhere and got all his money from weird projects he started.

From when I was seven untill 15 I drew, just war drawings, which worked out as some two-dimensional a4 (paper size) battlefields where most of the drawing ended up as a big blob of chaos. I never appreciated doing creative work until I started graffiti and with that the idea of showing what you could be capable of to the public. I started doing characters alone but mostly next to others' pieces, and often backgrounds for murals. I never stopped doing characters even when they ended up being more like paintings on their own in the end.

Can you go into the way your mother's family viewed death a little more?

When visiting them in the countryside they had all their houses propped with taxidermy, massive moose heads, brown bears, and loads of birds. For a small kid this was really spooky and fascinating. They told all these stories too. They talked about how fascinated they were by animals and their decadence and beauty. And then switched over to how they killed them.

One story my great uncle told me was that he just had shot this big moose, and he had nowhere else to put it besides of his roof on the car. It was bleeding shit loads and blood kept on pouring down his front window. And he ended up driving home with his window wipers on to see.

Another one was one I read in the newspapers, which also considered him.

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Tell me all about it.

He got the front page of the newspaper. So what happened was, two of the leading animal rights activists in Norway, this couple, moved to the countryside to get away from the city and make their animals have a better and relaxing life. So they ended up moving in the house next to my great uncle. They had just got this Chinese miniature pig, this little weird black pig, which they had gotten imported at great cost.

So the miniature pig went out for a stroll one day and managed to get into my great uncle’s garden trough a hole in the fence. He was having coffee and looking for badgers in his kitchen window. He said he had badger issues and problems at the time. His vision was not great either. He saw this little thing, and ran for his shotgun and opened the window half way. And he shot it to pieces. The couple went mental and called the police and wanted to prosecute this old dude. He felt really bad and especially when the tabloids picked up the case.

So he went over to the couple’s front door with a large amount of meat, as the piglet was heavy. They were, of course, vegetarians. But I think that was outside his vocabulary. The end.

Another thing that happened, this will be quick... My uncle was going to work one day and saw this fox outside his door. He ran in and got the rifle and shot it when he came out again there was an other one there. so he ran inside again and went out and shot the other one.  Then a third time, no kidding, there was a third fox there also. So he shot it and his friend. The fox’s friend. Four foxes before work.

It’s weird stuff. He loves them. But they all just shoot everything and freeze them until they take their skin.

Does that make it easier to take the skin off? Or just keeps them fresh until they get around to it?

They have so many projects and freezers so I think they mostly just freeze the skin strait after they have skinned them and save the skin that way till someone wants to buy it or someone wants to buy the skin mounted on a mannequin of the animal. The animal could be dead for 2-3 days in a not too hot temperature without the hair falling off

Gotcha. Aren’t you setting up a new show?

I am doing one in Stockholm in October. At the moment I have some paintings shown in this countryside gallery in Norway. It’s on this island, which has a big Jurassic park gate we have to drive through.

What’s the name of the new exhibit?
 
Hmmmm. Can’t remember, I am bad with names and numbers. (Laughing.)
 
Fair enough.

I just focus on my part of the show, and work on the unity of it when I get there. It’s just a name anyway. The show will be something different.

How do you come up with the names of your shows? One was "Woodchoppin´ chop chops" and another was "nunchuckin´nunchucks." What’s that about?

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Those were the two solo shows I had in Norway, The first one was woodchoppin´ chop chops 2005 and the second one was nunchuckin´nunchucks, which was this summer.

Woodchoppin chop chops was this cross between this apocalyptic sheep as lamb chops and this circle of trees or a forest bending down around it. Was quite redneck in an organized and over decadent way,

Nunchuckin nunchucks was based on the location I had the show. Which is this island were there are exclusively monks and nuns living, except for this gallery. Because of the monks and nuns many tourists want to go there. So this couple started up this small but very good spot to do stuff.

It has water coming all the way up to the gallery. So you could fish from its windows if you wanted too.

I heard you were sharing the gallery space with a nun as well?

Yeah, but not the same space. She had the side gallery, which is a different part of the building. She had those photos of the sky and sunsets etc. And a few seagulls. I am not really into Christians myself, but she was all right.

The show was, to be honest, a desperate attempt to sell out most of my stored stuff. I have a whole garage and a small workshop, which used to be my grandfather’s, full of work And I wanted to see how my work trough the last 5 years would work together as a solo show with a unity without pushing to much shit in. To get the perspective on how it has developed for myself.
 
How do you feel it all came together?

I was pleased how it was flowing and had this silent and calm feeling to it. I was worried it would be too chaotic. As a rule though, I don’t like showing old stuff.

What gives me the kicks is making project based projects for a space, transforming it into this totally different room. Bringing in a few finished pieces to be installed, but the making of the scenario will be on the spot. Not really knowing how it will turn out.

The ideas of death, resurrection, and character change have become a more and more important thing in my life. I always create those nerdy antiheroes. The Ian Curtis project came after seeing Ian Curtis on the telly on this top 100 something typical British shows.

He had this ritualistic spasmic way of performing so I got totally dragged in to it and knew I wanted to crate some project around him. I saw him as some figure, being a gateway between my dead father and myself for some reason, so I wanted to create this ritual were I wanted to resurrect him as a two headed spider.

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Oh wow.

We got hold of this rooftop 6 meter up which had a perfect location in old street where one road becomes two, when Brad Downey had his ICA bus tour around London. And I brought 3 mates up there. Two of us had real deer faces on. One was inside of a potato sack and one was tucked into a moose skin with foxes as arms keeping ropes to the potato sack that was in the front.

The two characters with the animal faces: one has a death flag and one throws out labeled twigs of the Ian Curtis spider logo labeled on it. Sharing the soul. (Laughing.)

I’m glad we could get into what you are trying to express with your work. I just don’t want people getting hung up on just the taxidermy side of it.

You are right though. I don’t want to be a taxidermy artist. It’s just something that happened. And I love the process of getting your own materials from something living. Something that has grown and become of a living organism and I become its resurrector or thief who takes his skin or identity which can’t be mass produced and taking this piece of flesh and making it into a piece of material for use later on. That’s how the road kill idea started anyway.

Is that how you get most of your materials? I was wondering where you got so many animals.

For my sculptures for 2 years time, I have been living in England for the last 5 years now. I got there in 2001. And I got into the road kill idea for 3 years ago. But have never had a car myself. Only got my damn moped's license. I had a mate who is a trike mechanic to drive me around in the beginning. And then I got together with my girlfriend who had a license and a car too! So she took me around the motorways in her area to collect animals. Was quite romantic. And I knew she was a keeper.

Sounds like a good girl.

She insisted taking it inside to her mum’s house. She had one of those big combo freezer and fridge thingies. So we pushed the fox with bin bags inside. I had not met her mum yet I think. Her mum asked her what the bag was when she came home. And she'd openly said,  “Oh... that’s just Eric’s fox”

That’s sweet. You hold on to her.

Yeah. Her mum is cool. She was a bit shocked but now she always saves it for me if she has got a wasp nest in her house or whatever. I think she promised me her cat when its time comes too.

Well that’s just a nice mom. Your girlfriend comes from good people.

(Laughing.) Yeah. Her dad is a transport police detective who only works with graffiti cases

Oh. That might have been trouble earlier in your career. So, what was the largest animal you ever found on the side of the road? I feel like that could be kind of limiting, but I could be wrong.

Biggest is a deer. That’s the reason I started buying stuff from my family. Needed more species and sized animals. To get the dead carcass, skinning it and having it tanned can be more expensive than buying a finished skin many times I have noticed. And since I was in college I could not do the tanning myself because of health and safety codes.

Why is that?

Because you need those skin melting acids and the right spaces etc…

I'm really curious about how long it took you, if it took long at all, to get used to skinning the animals.

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I think it was as simple as I wanted to make a piece out of road kill. I wanted to use something as filthy it could get and make a clean sterile piece out of it. Like recycling. I have done most of my skinnings in England, and because of that I mostly got deer, squirrels, foxes, badgers.

In Norway lately, I’ve been skinning and chopping off a lot of deer heads. (Long pause.)

What?

I know this farmer dude who breeds deer. And every November he kills most of them. And I get all the heads I want. And I make masks out of them. Beats every fancy costume store.

You're coming up on a huge payday.

(Laughing.) I Just met this other dude too. Where he’s from everyone calls him the hunter. He is a cat hunter. Cat killing super villain. He is hired too shoot every cat that is bugging people in his village. People call him when they have a wild cat hanging around too much. He said, “I like killing the wild ones instead of housecats, it is much more of a challenge.” I asked if he could come and open one of my shows in Norway by shooting in the air with a shotgun instead of regular music. But he said
“Sorry I’ve got to go to the hairdressers.” (Laughing.) What a villain. We have made a deal that he’ll give me every dead cat he shoots now.

Man, you are making the right kind of friends. What country is he in? Norway?

Yeah. Norway. My grandma would not let me use my freezer at her place for cats though. Which sucks. But I kind of understand

It’s funny to hear about people morally drawing the line.

That’s why I like cats. It has got something really nasty to them as humans. Since they are pets they become much more of a taboo subject.

Absolutely.

I have this idea I want to do with 200 cats. I am allergic too. So it is going to be this nasty installation and performance act.

Oh damn.

Yep. Not sure if I still will be allergic after they are tanned though. We will find out when the time comes.

Is there an installation or specific piece that you feel came out either exactly as you imagined it, or maybe differently, to the point that it's your favorite one?

I don’t really like knowing how the finished result is gonna look. I have a very detailed plan with drawings room layout and space measurements, Object and list over the pieces put into the space. Just to get going effectively and with confidence when I get started. But I always change the Idea of the layout, colour, and certain elements when I work. If I knew everything before, it would be a bit boring I think. I don’t really know a space until you have felt every surface with my hands. I always get caught up with details and I never get happy or done until half an hour before the opening even how much time I have. The most well working show and also the one in biggest scale which I like is the woodchoppin chop chops one. But I also like small closed spaces. I like my film sets more than my shows. That is probably something I need to think about. They are more messy, but maybe more honest. My shows have this ability to get to clean when I think off it.

You got me into a good thinking process now. Thanks.

(Laughing.) Sure.

Did that answer your question?

Yes but I also meant this… Well, besides they way you use a space, do you have any idea of what sculpture or piece you are working on will look like before you finish it, and in that I mean do you ever make work that isn’t especially "site specific"?

By the way, I agree with what you said about the use of space though, if you didn’t have a feeling of natural discovery inside, it would get pretty boring to install. Your way seems to allow it to happen much more organically.
 
I got a mental image in my head, which I roughly sketch out but really badly mostly. If the drawing becomes to detailed I lose interest for some reason.

In a technical aspect it ends up how I planned it. I do changes in detail during the process, which I learn and gain new ideas. 

I never stick to one technique. That’s why this lifestyle is perfect. I can try out all sorts of materials imagery and ways of living. I make many drawings and paintings plus smaller objects that could go most places, but my "installations" are site specific.

Out of all of your work, do you have a favorite piece of art?

Conceptually it must be the 3 dimensional oil painting I was trapped inside. It was filled with polystyrene balls.

I was naked inside because of the extreme heat. With my homemade diving kit (mask) 5-meter tube, I dove in with a maglite to make me less claustrophobic. A bag of polyethylene plastic spikes, and an insecticide sprayer filled with black paint.

I am inside and I stab trough the flesh colored painted surface with the nozzle shaped and painted as the spikes and when it penetrates it, it shoots out black paint from inside of the surface as it bleeds. Then it gets replaced with a spike. In the end my whole arm goes rough ripping off the nozzle and the paint goes everywhere. Was real mayhem. I got so excited I lost my mouthpiece and went to hospital. Was very claustrophobic and my most horrible but interesting experience

They asked me what was wrong at the hospital first and I said I swallowed polystyrene. They go angry saying, “Why the hell did you do that for?” (Laughing)

Holy Christ.

“Take your dirty hands out of my face etc...” London hospitals are friendly, just so you know. (Laughing.)

Was that for a film or was it live at a show?

I was all right though. Yeah it was for a film, but we only had one shot and one attempt. The first time I freaked out before I started properly so it was all right. I found out I had to take my clothes off to make it.

They said if I had got it on my lungs I would have suffocated. But luckily, I had only swallowed it to my stomach.

My best technical piece is my animal cocoon made out of 44 animals I think

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So who helps you do these films? Do you have a collective or is it just whatever friends are around who feel like lending a hand?

I just call up people when I need to do things. I started this Uberskychannel collective 3 years ago. But that’s going down now I think.

Anyway, back to the cocoon.

Right. I'm all ears.

I started collecting animals during the first year at Slade. I just wanted to make this over the top nest or cocoon as if you go in a forest and see a birds nest out of twigs or a wasp nest out of wood mash. But I wanted to see this gigantic object made from an unknown person or being to live in as a nest.

A whole one piece melted together of all the Nordic animals. Never got all of them, but I was quite happy with the result.

It ended up being an enhanced head that shoots out from the neck as a big wave.

Even it is big enough for 6 persons to be inside.

Jesus. What kind of animals did you use?

Here’s the information: 8x Deer’s, 1x Roe Deer, 1x Wolf, 1x Black Bear, 1x Coyote, 9x Red Foxes, 2x Squirrels, 1x mink, 4x Raccoons, 2x Wolverines, 2x Badgers, 1x Beaver.

Need: 1x Lynx, 2x Ferrets, 1x Badger, 2x Otters, 1x Brown Bear, 3x Skunks, 2x Pumas.

Animal-skins, chains, polystyrene bean bags.  Sculpture/ Video Prop/Costume. 
4.40m x 1.60m.  2006

Where the hell did you get wolverines and pumas?

I did not get pumas. Those are one of those I needed in the end. Those I wanted and did not get are listed after “need."

Gotcha, how about the wolverines?

Wolverines I got of this hunter dude I know who makes sculptures also for some well-known artist. Have you seen that installation art book by Phaidon, the publisher? The one with the unicorn in that space shuttle room. He did that one.

But he sells very nice quality skins too.

What was the most difficult animal to get you’ve ever gotten? Or are they pretty much all the same? If you can you can, if you can’t you can’t?

I liked the alpha male wolf with a winter coat I got from this small zoo in Norway. It was like 2 and a half-meter long. Big fucker.

Oh shit, that’s a serious fucking wolf. Was there a learning curve when you started skinning the animals? Was it hard at first or because you saw it as a kid was it pretty normal?

I did not find it gross. I got really excited and felt really alive. Almost as if I was absorbing the soul of the misfortunate being. I started cutting myself a lot. I am quite a clumsy character sometimes so I was a bit scared of infections.

I use a scalpel. The first time I did it, there was this dear I brought in to my BA studio, which had massive ticks going around and crawling out of its eyes mouth and nose.

I had never seen ticks before so I did not think of it. I dragged it into my shared BA space and they basically went everywhere. This old woman who was in my course in her 60’s got one on her face. And did not notice it until her husband said to her that he had never seen that mole before. (Laughing.)

I was in shit for a week’s time. And many people stopped talking to me, which I think was a bit of an overreaction. I was on my knees in the studio stabbing tics with a big knife in the evening when I was alone for the whole week. They still showed up now and again later too.

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Earlier you mentioned your lifestyle, what did you mean? What’s your lifestyle like now?

My lifestyle now is not fun at all. I’ve been in the academy/school institution all my life. And since June I have been out of the bubble.

How are you liking the freedom of the abyss?

I have never had a proper job. And London is expensive. My loan is running out. The abyss?

I always thought of the time right after school and the unlimited freedom that came with it really intimidating in scope and kind of empty at first.

Good description, I FEEL THAT.

I’ve been thinking of getting a farm in some redneck place next year. And live very cheap. Have space to do big stuff outside my own house without the cops being called.

That’s a good idea. What country?

I have all my contacts in Norway. And rednecks don’t like foreign people too much. So I think I could get away with a lot here. And then I could travel more too.

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That’s really true about rednecks. Is it expensive out there?

Not at all. Cheap as hell. In England only rich people live at the countryside. But in Norway many artist or musicians do it, If they can cope with loneliness and not having clubs or a nightlife around them.

Sounds easy enough. In the woods you can make your own fun, and you wont go completely insane as long as you create your own little creature comforts.

I want to get up and see a forest or the sea. And could run around doing whatever and build as big constructions as I like, and not just waiting for things to happen as in a city. I’ll probably get a husky or you could get half-breeds of wolves in Scandinavia illegally. That sounds quite cool in a macho way. (Laughing.)

So any projects you'd like to talk about that are coming up or that you are working on now?

My fantasy project I am trying to get crackin’ with is my cat piece. But I wanna keep it to that. The show in Stockholm is gonna be a show about modern painting. But it is a collaboration with an Danish artist which I have been put together with. Had a group show with him in Copenhagen last summer and I hope it's gonna be good. Haven’t talked to him yet so I don’t know what he is up to. I am terrible at keeping in touch when I am working, I need that farm and get organized and get my life going.

Ok last question then... tell me a quick story about a time that you pulled off some shit you'd love at least one more person to know about.

Got quite a few. Here’s one about my photographer friend, Anders Valde and me. We grew our mullets really long for over a year. And we both had a mustache. Mine was quite John Waters looking and his was red and quite going all over the place. We used to go in this supermarket almost on a daily basis, buying one porn mag, 4 beers and a toilet roll. (Laughing.)

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What?

There was a girl at our age working there. And the look on her face was all worth it. We used to laugh the crap out of us on our way home.

Screw it.  You want that to be your answer? It’s up to you. So far people have told stories of dangerous or stupid things they've done, but that’s just really funny.

Sure, why not. Do I look embarrassed?

Website

http://www.uberskychannel.com