Fellow NOE artist and ArtSpace curator Mark Maher interviewed Hans Hemmert about his work.

Your yellow balloon works seem to be about everything from vulnerability, high pressure anxiety, and intrusion, to the human form, Germanic rubber fetishes…and pure schoolboy farce. But why yellow?

At the time I began this series I had to make a decision for myself concerning the color of latex I would buy. Given all possibilities, yellow seemed to me to be the right one. It is a little aggressive. It inspires you to work with your brain, to think, etc. And there is also a link to light, to the sun, etc.

There’s an American artist who does work which, on the surface, is similar to yours. He installs large RED balloons in high-rent cultural spaces. (Google: big red ball). The difference, to me, is that the installation of a large balloon in an art museum is just your starting point – but his end point. How much further do you think you will push this particular idea that you’ve already done such interesting things with?

I really do not know. I will see what kinds of occasions may arise. Everything is possible; maybe I will employ the balloon motif for temporary installation in public spaces as well.

In American comic books of a certain era, almost every one of them had a small advert in the back where you could send away for an inexpensive but huge weather balloon. What’s with boys and big balloons? Why do we find them so compelling?

Well, because they are big and impressive, they can fly - and they can explode, or simply vanish. Balloons are here, and at the same time they’re not really here. And you can play with them: It’s a football, it’s a punching ball. The skin is smooth and soft - like touching a girl. And they move in slow motion, like in a dream…

Tags: Add new tag, Hans Hemmert, Mark Maher

Related posts: Osa 3 / Part 3: Helsinki, Three questions for Panu Puolakka , Three questions for Tatu Tuominen, Three questions for Jesse Auersalo, Three questions for Jiri Geller