Daniel Birnbaum has recently gained the position as the head of IASPIS (The International Artist´s Studio Programme in Sweden). A position which seems just cut out for the art critic, philosopher, teacher and curator, Anna Lindström thinks. Here she meets with Birnbaum, who is in his talkative mood. by ANNA LINDSTRÖM

The International Artists' Studio Programme in Sweden - IASPIS - is a studio programme whose chief task is to vitalise and enrich the exchange between the Swedish and international art scenes. It will work as a vehicle between the art scene in Sweden and the world around. In that context, diplomatic forces and a broad network of contacts are the important factors. Now a new manager is going to take over the responsibilities of IASPIS. The last and until now only head of IASPIS, Sune Nordgren, left for Newcastle after receiving an irresistible offer as head of the art centre there. The person definitely most suited to be his successor was Daniel Birnbaum. The position seems just cut out for the art critic, philosopher, teacher and curator who for many years has been interested in integrating Swedish art abroad and foreign art in Sweden. His strength is his contact net: working as an art critic for Swedish and international magazines he has become friends with large parts of the art world. And he seems to care more for the small and individual actors than for the large, prestigious institutions; this attitude is a link in the strategy to get a more enriched and vital art life. He also has a diplomatic vein, at least according to himself. Daniel Birnbaum is Mister IASPIS. The place is Fredsgatan 12 in Stockholm, Sweden. The rooms of IASPIS are the same ones that once belonged to the Royal Academy of Art in Stockholm. The studios have been standing empty since the Royal College of Art, its new name, moved out to Skeppsholmen, but now they've been given new meaning by hosting artists from all over the world. IASPIS is a rather new organisation. It has existed for 1 1/2 years so the activity has really only just begun. "What is new about IASPIS is that Stockholm has received its own studio programme. Previously, foreign artists that wanted to come to Sweden had to arrange it all on their own." The tasks of IASPIS used to be the concerns of a number of institutions in Sweden, but now they have been gathered under one roof. United efforts have been made to provide a good support to the artists that apply to IASPIS. That is what the studio programmes are all about. Artists can apply for a scholarship from IASPIS to work in a studio abroad, for example in New York, Berlin and soon also in St Petersburg. But it is not only about helping Swedish artists out into the world. It is also about bringing interesting impulses from other parts of the world to Stockholm. - Introducing Swedish art to the world has been done before. The decisive factor is that the artists themselves want to get out in the world. What they can get from IASPIS are subsidies and some kind of institutional support. What is new about IASPIS is that Stockholm has received its own studio programme. Previously, foreign artists that wanted to come to Sweden had to arrange it all on their own. Anna Lindström, portraying Daniel Birnbaum for Art Orbit, also made him make his self portrait out of a few coloured papers (the result above). Daniel Birnbaum is also anxious about establishing an exchange between Swedish and international artists in the studios at Fredsgatan. Foreign artists can, if they want to, be invited to hold lectures at art schools and so forth. But there should be some social, everyday contact in the building as well. That is why Daniel wants a few Swedish artists to work in the studios at the same time; these artists would then function as some kind of hosts. -It will be a meeting place, we hope, where approximately four foreign artists work full time, but also where a few Swedish artists can apply for a studio. On the one hand it's for artists that are in the middle of their careers, but around four to five persons can also apply directly from art school. It is not a prolongation of the educational institutions, but you want to catch the interest and energy that you always find in art students. "I see IASPIS as a place for the production of art, of thoughts and ideas for art. Not as much symbolic representation as the large institutions do. I'm afraid it has almost come to the point where we have too much of that in Sweden." Swedish artists who have mainly worked abroad and have lost their foothold in Sweden are also given a chance to get a studio through the agency of IASPIS. Sofie Tottie has had one. Cecilia Edefalk has one at present. Stockholm will function as a firm point and a place to produce in.    The basic idea behind IASPIS is the exchange of people across the borders. But Daniel also wants it to be a place for the exchange of thoughts and ideas, an intellectual centre. -It doesn't have to be super pretentious. It is about arranging lectures and seminars. I see IASPIS as a place for the production of art, of thoughts and ideas for art. Not as much symbolic representation as the large institutions do. I'm afraid it has almost come to the point where we have too much of that in Sweden. We get these enormous museums, fashionable cultural capitals that are so much about showing off. It is about prestige and symbolic cultural capital. I think IASPIS can have a softening and vitalising effect by being a place where people are in the middle of a process. It is not about showing completed work. It is about doing things and discussing what's going on, Daniel says. "IASPIS is really just a budget and a network where you can start things intellectually. It is a place for people that are already interested in art." -It is important that IASPIS doesn't become an institution that concerns itself too much with its own prestige. It is already rich because it has been given power and as much money and as much space as we need. IASPIS is really just a budget and a network where you can start things intellectually. It is a place for people that are already interested in art. There is no will to trick anyone into taking an interest in IASPIS because there is nothing to see if you aren't already a part of it in some way, i. e. if you aren't one of the artists there or if you are interested in the artists, in visiting them or attending smaller seminars and that kind of things. For some years Stockholm and Northern Europe have been a topic on many lips in the art world. Some people say it is a temporary trend, but Daniel doesn't agree. Good art is made here, he says. He thinks Stockholm is a nice place to be. -I believe Stockholm is an exotic place to many people because it's quite far away. But it isn't infinitely far away. It is really a charming as well as quite international city. I think IASPIS can function as a place where you can find some peace to work and still be in the middle of bigger things. It is also quite unique that IASPIS is located where it is. Usually these studio programmes are situated in some old school in a dull suburb. Not in a palace ten seconds from the government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is a nice place to visit for some time. Another city that interests Daniel is the metropolis Berlin. -It is a large centre that's been brought back into the limelight. Suddenly Cologne, that had been so dependent on the galleries and the money, has lost its power and Berlin is on the verge of becoming a new art centre. All the galleries are moving to Berlin. The city is one of the most important cities in Northern Europe. There is also an interesting exchange going on between Copenhagen and Berlin. I think Stockholm could join this also. You could imagine there being a Northern European art scene with Berlin and the whole of Scandinavia and Finland. I think Berlin is interesting for us as a city to work either with or against. "That was how we and I got into some kind of Swedish cultural activity. Otherwise we would probably just have been university graduates, but then suddenly we were editors of a magazine with a rather high profile." It all began at Stockholm University. Daniel Birnbaum attended classes within the Humanities. Literature history, history of religion, history of ideas and, not least, philosophy. Together with his friends, among them Sven-Olov Wallenstein and Hans Ruin, he also started to take an interest in magazines. They knew the publishers, a few years older than themselves, behind the magazine KRIS. After some time these publishers wanted to discontinue KRIS but decided instead to give the editorship over to Daniel and his friends. -That was how we and I got into some kind of Swedish cultural activity. Otherwise we would probably just have been university graduates, but then suddenly we were editors of a magazine with a rather high profile. Okay, it was narrow and not many people read it, but it had a reputation of being difficult and smart. "Then came postmodernism in its first enthusiastic phase sometime in the middle of the eighties, dealing a lot with image theory and simulation. One way or the other images were in the middle of the discussion. Somehow or other we slid into it. Apparently we did." They kept on writing in the footsteps of their precursors about philosophy and literature theory, with a continental touch which they all were attracted to. But after a while the contents started gravitating towards art. -I believe I and Sven-Olov Wallenstein more and more, I don't know why, began to occupy ourselves with art, both theoretically and practically. It was more of a symptom of something else than just us transforming cultural life. I have a feeling that during some periods, different forms of aesthetical production, if you may call it so, are in the middle of the theory debate. For a long time it was literature when the discussion was about deconstruction and Derrida. The metaphors themselves were of a written character. Then came postmodernism in its first enthusiastic phase sometime in the middle of the eighties, dealing a lot with image theory and simulation. One way or the other images were in the middle of the discussion. Somehow or other we slid into it. Apparently we did. The magazine Material, run by almost the same people, is one of the symptoms. It is still being published.    At the same time as Daniel worked with KRIS, he substituted at the news tabloid Expressen, and after a while he obtained a position as art critic there. Shortly thereafter he was persuaded to start writing for the quality daily Dagens Nyheter and has from 1992 mainly written art critique with irregular intensity for that paper. The philosophy has always been included. While working on his doctoral thesis, Daniel received a scholarship to study at New York's Columbia University. But it wasn't the philosophy lectures that tempted him the most. -That's true, it was almost more art than philosophy during that year because the art institution at Columbia might be the best in the world. The institution is focused on art history and doesn't deal much with the contemporary, but there are some very interesting persons there. For example Rosalind Krauss, who has dominated the whole theoretical discussion about what art is. So I ended up going more to those lectures actually. Daniel saw lots of art and got into contact with people from Artforum. And so the career as an art critic on an international level began. Daniel discovered that lots of great art was being made in the Nordic countries that wasn't getting any attention abroad. He started to scoop from his goldmine. While still contributing to Artforum, Daniel also writes for the large art and culture magazine Frieze. His articles, though, show up in many more. Daniel enjoys writing within the confines of an international art scene. "I don't know if it's temporary, but there is a huge interest in contemporary art. I think it can be related to the little interest people seem to take in literature. The art life has absorbed more of the young people's interest than literature has done during the past few years." Nevertheless, the doctoral thesis in philosophy came to conclusion, just recently. Daniel wanted to finish it before he officially began his role as an art administrator. It is a thesis on Husserl's philosophy of time - The Hospitality of Presence. Daniel himself thinks that it is quite good, because he managed to finish it. It might not have so much to do with art, more with theories around art and what it is to experience art. But that's straying from the topic. The art coverage in Sweden is huge when compared to for instance New York, Daniel says. He is a bit surprised by the enormous interest shown towards art these days. "I got into art through contemporary art rather than through art history, and as a writer rather than as a scientist. It also has to do with the journalistic and critical side." Daniel Birnbaum has been working as a journalist for 15 years, mainly as an art critic. The answer to why he chose to specialise in contemporary art can be traced to the journalistic vein in him, he says. -It is one thing to be a scientist and historian or philosopher in a broader sense, but another to be an interpreter of the contemporary and a pa rt of one's own time. It might sound a bit pretentious to want to be someone who formulates one's own time but on the other hand, I think that is the source to most journalists' interests. I would never have become an art historian. I took a lot of classes in art history in the United States and some more during a year in Berlin. But I have never attended any classes in art history in Stockholm. I got into art through contemporary art rather than through art history, and as a writer rather than as a scientist. It also has to do with the journalistic and critical side. Critique in a broader sense, that isn't just about criticising and telling what is good or bad, but criticising when writing further about something, trying to formulate things not yet completed and fitted into the history books. I have written about things that interest me, in order to understand why they are interesting to me. Those are the things I have enjoyed. Daniel Birnbaum accepted the leadership of IASPIS because it was well suited to what he already had been doing and was interested in. -In a way, albeit at a less symbolic level, I have been doing this kind of exchange business as an art critic in international magazines. On the whole it is about making it known that there is an art life in the Nordic countries. I think that I more than anybody else has done that in international magazines. I have a few such contacts and I already have some of that kind of thinking in me, being a sort of diplomat between the international and the Swedish art life.    Diplomacy is what Daniel will be doing for at least three years onwards. That is the time agreed for the management of IASPIS. It can be prolonged if everybody is happy. But when the undertakings at IASPIS are over Daniel might have had it with institutional experience. He is rather satisfied with the life as a free-lancer and would also like to increase his amount of teaching. -But if there is a fantastic offer from somewhere in the world, why there would be I don't know, but if there is, it would be nice to live somewhere else for some time, because I did that as a child and for a short while as an adult. I would rather work for an institution in some other country than for one of the well-known Swedish museums. But I'll think about that when the time comes. I think that what tempts me the most, more than traditional art institutions, is to work from a more flexible platform where there would be a lot of travelling and seeing things and perhaps also enough time for me to keep working as a critic. "I am determined to have a few parallel lines. I can't be transformed into a silent administrator. I think it will be the best for everybody, not just for me, if I to try to be a broad and democratic administrator of most things at the same time as I have my own writing a bit twined together with it or on the side." The reason why such a life attracts him more, Daniel thinks, is that as a free-lancer you live a free and glorious life, functioning as a kind of judge of tastes and writing about things that interest you. The life as the head of IASPIS, even if Daniel avoids representing himself in those words, is a profession that implies different work conditions. -You can't ignore the fact that you have some priorities and interests, but I have to transform myself a bit. Even if you don't write mean-spirited articles, it is always about leaving things out. You are enormously selective as a writer. Being the kind of bureaucrat or administrator that I now must try to be, I naturally have to deal with matters that aren't what interest me the most. I hope I will manage to do that. You have to take an interest in the form itself a bit, in benefit of the whole exchange situation and network activity. I am determined to have a few parallel lines. I can't be transformed into a silent administrator. I think it will be the best for everybody, not just for me, if I to try to be a broad and democratic administrator of most things at the same time as I have my own writing a bit twined together with it or on the side. There I'll be able to formulate myself about things that I consider interesting when it comes to art itself.~