Mathias Siebert: Two years ago we exhibited your work for the very first time at our gallery. We showed the video-installation “Unreleased (Shooting)”, an animated flow of hundreds of watercolours. The playful levity of the execution irritated as soon as you became aware of the brutality of the content: the reeling movement of a wounded person. The works in the current show “Sonia Versace”, predominantly large-scale paintings, differ in their appearance: the appellative character of the content and the vivid artwork give way to a dazzling and mysterious scenery. What is it all about?

Aline Bouvy: "Sonia Versace" is a name that we made up and found interesting to work with because, although it is not a real person or existing character, it brings up to mind several features. At first, it was merely a tool for our imagination, a funny way to start a new work. While we were painting, we were at the same time looking for that character or subject that could be "Sonia Versace", conferring to each painting a different kind of mood, highlighting a particular state of mind, condition, her being and/or not-being. But "Sonia Versace" is an idea relating pretty much to an attitude rather than a name. It alludes to fashion, bling, quite on the verge of so called bad taste and at the same time it is affirmative and sexually loaded. We developed for this show six large-scale paintings, each one conceived by merging various layers. It's quite a weird mix and almost the only element that links the paintings to each other is that they all feature the words "Sonia Versace" in them. But this investigation echoes as much the process of painting than the subject of painting which finally is (the) painting itself. Therefore at the end, the narration line doesn't lie that much in the search of who "Sonia Versace" is or could be than in what comes in to play when working on an image.

M. S.: That is, you accomplish the 'idea' of an exhibition and its realisation in artistic expression simultaneously?

A.B.: I guess so, yes.

M. S.: From my point of view it is obvious to ask for the terms of artistic production. Even a short glimpse at your works of the past years reveals the wide range of artistic expression with drawings, collages and sculpture. Having a close look at your paintings, some elements seem to be deliberate settings, while other ones seem to be the result of expressive brush strokes. Do you redefine your claims for artistic expression anew with every exhibition?

A.B. : If visually it could seem that the works, or different kinds of works we bring together under particular titles, often look quite different in their presentation, we do feel that there is a strong connection or continuity between them. One work leads to another one although not necessarily in a linear way. The fact that they take numerous forms is maybe because each question needs perhaps it's own formulation.

J.G.: Or we could even say that in the end, it's all about trying to exhaust all the possible formulations for the same question.

A.B. : I guess we get very easily bored as well: when we have done something once, we don't like to do it again.

M. S.: Your recently published book is entitled Perry-ism following (in its title) the changing popularity of the fashion label Fred Perry. As in most of your work you concentrate on socio-cultural phenomena, fashion and ephemeral attitudes and its appropriation by visual culture. It appears to me that you don't disregard fashionable tendencies in art - or how can I explain the outward semblance to the work of Jonathan Meese in some of your paintings? Is this an ironical comment?

A.B.: Firstly, we are not interested in irony at all as opposed to humor and we think that Jonathan Meese would really be the last artist to be ironic towards. If we were regarding art tendencies in order to be fashionable, we would rather be busy with squares and lines or be involved in the currently-hyped re-reading of modernism - which is totally ok by the way. And anyway, what comes into focus and is the most prevailing feature, disregarding any tendency, is personality and energy. At least, you just mentioned one artist who has it ...

J.G.: But may be you ask this question because we do represent ourselves quite often in our works and one of us has long hair?

M. S.: I was not asking for whether you are searching for fashionable tendencies in art. It´s more a debate on a higher level: it seems to me that in your intellectual interest in popular tendencies and socio-cultural phenomena you even focus on tendencies in art. What you do is no imitation of more or less successful art styles at all. On the contrary, it is merely a declarative statement, which maybe compromises the mechanisms of art and fashion. This was as well the reason why I asked for the irony... but it's true that your artworks contain many personal elements, which may appear to be peculiar for other people or cannot even be acknowledged in their importance. Inconsiderable details, for example like a clothing designs, re-emerge in your drawings and you both appear in your paintings and drawings frequently. In which way is it possible to understand your work without having any knowledge of you as private persons?

A.B.: We never deliberately refer to any autobiographical elements as such. When representing figures it's easier to paint or draw yourself because you or the other person you work with is the most available. Of course, you do project yourself in that figure but it's more like a 'mise-en-scène' that is contextualised within the frame of the work rather than referring to any autobiographical feature. At the same time, there isn't really any neutral figure ...

J.G.: In relation to the fashion elements, I just love to draw the Fred Perry logo, the laurel wreath, and I like it also for all the different connotations that this symbol encompasses. It is like a leitmotiv that appears on a lot of drawings and links them together, like the gold chains that we use a lot too. I do also love the Fred Perry diamond patterns, but at the same time, to me, they refer more to the figure of the Harlequin or Pierrot. The works in 'Perry-ism' are pretty melancholic in a way. If we like to integrate into our work different signs from other contexts, it's because the potential of those chosen signs always will inform something particular in the work.

Tobias Kuttner: Even though the title of this show evokes a certain connection to fashion, the paintings don't present any fashion symbols this time, or perhaps, the two sculptures, the gold rings, are an allusion to fashion and luxury? What is their link to the paintings?

J.G.: I'm not sure there is any ... It's just another work.

A.B.: I think that more than being a symbol of fashion or luxury, a ring stands first as a symbol of engagement, a promise of love or friendship or a prove of commitment, towards a person, or a community. It's got this circular shape, with no beginning and no end which suggests eternity.

J.G.: But at the same time these rings are called "Deadly Friendship"

Exhibition 2003