Natasha Garcia-Lomas: In Power and Affection, Ulrika Andersson probes pop music’s facile yet familiar modes of expression, invoking the vulnerability of intimacy and friendship. Realizing that pop music is singular in its ability to convey passion stirred the Swedish born artist to produce drawings and media works that music’s complicated illustrations of adoration. In this new body of work, a melodic collection of texts accompanies her pieces. Slogans she writes such as “can’t decide if you’re a good kid being bad or a bad kid being good” and “in the end I want to be your friend” mark Power and Affection as a young, punk, contemporary look at how music speaks clearly and loudly in situations where most people are at a loss for words.

Power and Affection is Andersson’s play with pop music’s iconography, producing a look at the way pop music is usually consumed or interpreted. Her marketing, the record covers, the t-shirts, the visuals of sexy-looking youth, lures us. Over the course of preparing for this exhibition, Ulrika Andersson and I decided to record a few of the chats we’ve had in her studio or in my home over dinner. Below are snippets from these conversations.

Natasha Garcia-Lomas: The mural-sized painted text of Power and Affection makes a grand impact in the gallery. It also serves at the title and unifying theme for your show. What triggered the collection of text for Power and Affection?

Ulrika Andersson: I really believe that conversations are an overlooked text so I started collecting things people said to each other. I closed in on statements that were requests for affection, intimacy and respect. ”Power and Affection” first relates to an instance where a friend was complaining about some guy not liking her as much as she wanted and about not getting the career opportunities she wanted. A response was needed so I said “basically what you are looking for is, er, more power and more um, affection, yeah”. I was trying to abstractly distill what she was saying. I made her a t-shirt with Power and Affection written on it as a slogan.

Initially with the t-shirts I was thinking that they would be about the person wearing them.For my friend I felt the Power and affection portrayed her ambitiousness. Later I found that slogan to be a headline of sorts for all the slogans: -they speak of power, respect, friendship.

UA: It’s hard to express your thoughts about love. When people do talk about it, it can get pretty awkward. I think pop music can be very helpful here. It can allow for sappy things to be said in a lucid and clear way, without having to go through the struggle and the power play. I paint and draw, and I make up my own lyrics to accompany the images I make. The words I write are true for me. Sometimes I also borrow what other people say to me; like someone said to me “It matters to me how you feel”. It wasn’t meant as a very profound statement at the time I’m sure but I thought it was a very beautiful thing to say to somebody. It expressed real empathy; just plainly stating that someone else’s emotions were important.

UA: People’s responses to them are often sincere, and these songs have very wide appeal. Talking through pop music, you can safely discuss your sappy and sentimental feelings, and sometimes transcend them. To make it easy, Look at Aretha Franklin singing R E S P E C T. Here you got a text demanding respect from her man, for, say, African Americans, from men towards women in general. It is a civic-minded thing and a political statement, public as well as private.

UA: Sweden has a long-standing internationalist tradition, this idea that communication between cultures and languages is an ideal to strive for. Young people are strongly encouraged to travel and learn other languages. In many ways this is a liberal idea of communication as a silver bullet solution to conflicts, but it’s also I think a holdover from an older socialist internationalism. I often think about the idea of citizenship and how those ideas could extend to your private life, your intimate life. -What if you were accorded certain rights, and those rights were written down? That’s why I write things like ”I don’t like you more than you like me”. It’s like a propaganda poster to remind you of your rights in a relationship. I feel civic-minded about my work and I’m hoping that the texts I write appeal to “the people”. They are for the people looking at it. I think that is a very Swedish ideal.

UA: All these texts are about my life or the lives of my friends. The most biographical detail of the show has to do with the practice of collecting records, recording my life via my collection and memories surrounding pop music. A lot of people do this, and I take it very seriously. It means something to me, and has the power to express what I feel. For Power and Affection I’ve used my own texts for the most part. The one line I’ve ripped off is from an LL Kool J song, I need love. LL Kool J seems to always be associated with a predatory, misogynist sexuality, but he has this one line; “Friendship, honour, trust and admiration, this whole experience has been such a revelation. I need love.”  I’m amazed LL Kool J said that. It is a universal request for intimacy and respect; anyone could have said it and it would ring true. Later on in that song he gets to the “you’re as soft as a pillow, I’m as hard as steel” part. It’s sort of ridiculous posturing, but that’s what made it so fun to take the other line out of context.

NGL: You’ve expressed a few times that this show isn’t just about romantic love, but about friendship and loyalty.

UA: Yeah, if you want to make it more general, you could say that the show is about love in general. In our culture we’re careful to make a difference between romantic love and friendship and I think it can be a problem. Friendship is always associated with two partners on equal footing, romantic love not necessarily so. Do you give up the partnership when involved in a romantic relationship and give in to a game of dominance and hidden agendas?  My motive for making a lot of these drawings is that I wanted them to function as propaganda posters for honesty in relationships. The message is “Say what you mean”. Insist on equal footing and use honesty to do it. You think it’ll work? I hope it does.

UA: It’s an experiment. What if all these things we want to say but don’t, the things we whisper, were put on a banner or painted in big letters on a wall. What if we wrote it on a t-shirt and wore it, like a band tee or an “I’m with stupid” t-shirt. If we could express ourselves truthfully, clearly and proudly, would it solve the conflicts we have with people? Much to my surprise I have found that is not always true, and the show therefore has a wishful thinking aspect to it. I’d like to be able to speak clearly, like a good tune, and have that help me find respect and agreement. It’s still the best way I know.