Tension Tamer w/ Nadjana Mohr

Tension Tamer is a tea with a tiger on it. Or is it a dragon? In any case, it’s meant to subdue, or at least soothe. If the tea really lived up to the dragon taming promised on the packaging, there would probably be far less art in the world. The other day, I was wondering when I’d call my life a good one—not as viewed from the outside, measured against legible and yet inscrutable standards, but rather from within, from the majority of the days that constitute my life — the everyday. I think I have a good life when I can relieve inner tension in one or more ways of my own choosing. When I can fall asleep at night. When I don’t have to make too many decisions, but am able to make the ones that are necessary. Not too much boredom, not too much external pressure. Sometimes more of this and less of that. The daily task of releasing inner pressure, transforming it, of steadying the needle to a certain degree. What emerges in this process is merely a by-product of this hidden purpose.

For Nadjana, this process begins with procrastination—the urge to get everything done, to finish it right away. Hence, there is usually no time to take one’s coat off. As soon as you enter the studio, you begin — with tidying up. What most people would call classic procrastination—never is my flat as spotless as it is just before a deadline — is in this case the desire to begin immediately, with something easy.

Prepping, organising, fetching some water, and whatever else comes to mind, as long as I’m moving right away.

Then comes the coffee, relaxing, »reading the papers«: the faffing about of the 80s.

Sometimes, whether you’re already ramped up or trying to fight it off, it’s best to ramp it up even more.

And then you can finally begin.

Pressure and tension are not the same, which is why they make an excellent duo: the feeling of being fraught with inner tension, whilst simultaneously being pressed from the outside, as if squeezed into a mould. Resistance and friction are not only themes in Nadjana’s work, but also tools and material, the common thread and undercurrent that pervades every medium and her use of them.

Perhaps I have a penchant for masochism, but I always found it easier to be exposed to unpleasant feelings of pressure or tension than numbness or an inner void. And maybe I’m being naive, but at least in retrospect I appreciate all the things that forced me to move, to react or to resist.

»Whatever I do — it calms me and eases the tension.«

Things that are permanently on the move don’t rest, but every form of work has its own rhythm. Of all the possible automatisms, it’s hard to say which ones will precede today’s work phase — melting zinc, mixing plaster, setting up the camera, etc. — but definitely not stretching a canvas:

»I don’t stare at a blank canvas.«

First, get an idea of what the different media have to offer, then one thing leads to another. With all that tension, taking a break would just be »forced artificial bullshit«, just like the self-imposed restriction to just one medium. When we first met 2014 in Karlsruhe, Nadjana was transitioning from painting to film. Tackling the attempt to treat both media equally, she ultimately saw no point in limiting herself, but also had no problem in switching between the two media and the roles that come with them.

For her current works in tin, shown 2024 at Mouches Volantes and for which she produced an edition of brass knuckles (mine is right in front of me, but we’ll get to that in a moment), all it took was a single impulse to arrive at this previously unfamiliar material: A dream of tin. I have no idea what exactly a dream of tin would entail, but I too have been on the hunt for mulberry powder ever since I dreamt of a mulberry tree, so who am I to judge. In any case, Nadjana awoke from this dream and got out of bed like any other day, the only difference being that she went and bought solder, a soldering iron, a small Bunsen burner (usually used for crème brûlée) and a little milk jug with a wooden handle. And that’s how the piece I now wear on my hand was created. I wear it as I please and, above all, when I need it: on a sunny but cool afternoon during a conversation navigating dead ends and detours, impulsivity, motherhood and the importance of a good relationship with the nearest corner shop owner, over a now cold black coffee.

»Every medium deserves — and also needs — its own treatment.«

The difference between the words »material« and »medium« already reveals just how ambivalent and inherently complex one's relationship to the substance required for a work can be. The two words are of course not synonyms, nor do they intend to describe the same thing, but they do revolve around the same concept. The medium is a broad term that implies the function of a portal, if not a hinge. It is a space of potential, a field in which something (anything) happens or can happen — and yet it remains (at least to me) strange and unspecific and disembodied, almost like a placeholder. Meanwhile, the material is concrete, it can be named and defined, it is often hazardous and requires at least one prior decision, namely to explicitly use it. And although it is being used, it still dictates so much (albeit we like to tell ourselves the opposite when we begin to work — »I’m going to do something with…«). Material may greet you nicely, but it's bossy. As you approach the end of a painting, this ever-narrowing corridor always awaits you, making it impossible to move neither forwards nor backwards. In the beginning of my seven year break from painting, I felt so liberated from this oppressive, draining activity, and this sense of relief lasted a long time. At the same time, I often missed the boundaries and restrictions, the resistance of a material that forces precisely the movement and action mentioned at the beginning of this text: No friction, no spark — cliché as it may sound.

Artistic practice often consists of striking a balance between self-deception in the sense of a theoretical infinite freedom (believing, against better judgment, that one has the time, capital and skills required) and limitation in the sense of a concrete framework—either through rules (tricky, as they are often self-imposed and thus artificial or even interchangeable), a strict concept or indeed the choice of medium/material. Without these externally determined, yet also internal and thus individual boundaries, there exists no defined space wherein the necessary theoretical freedom and thus the work can develop, and so all impulses and beginnings remain unanswered inside oneself and fade away in a vacuum.

Some artists found their everlasting tennis match in their lifelong engagement with one medium, constantly challenging and renegotiating previously established boundaries. Others, like Nadjana or myself, seek a reevaluation of previous perspectives and questions in new contexts and materials: the common thread woven in a different fabric. In any case, I got the feeling so far that being »too skilled« at something — in the technical sense — ultimately prevented me from experiencing the first small failure and thus from accessing a work that is still yet to become one. In order to find a solution you need a problem, or at least a pressing question, and whoever sees art as research (which I do) needs exactly that: a problem, resistance, ignorance, hurdles and obstacles.

The urge to explore and the urge to play are closely related and it is important in every area of life to sustain over time a reasonably balanced relationship between tension and security, insecurity and trust. As with any new encounter, stepping into a new role or venturing into unknown territory, there is that initial thrill, the perfect blend of (healthy) fear and curiosity. The same applies to every new material with which one forms a relationship — a deeply personal one.

Even if it may sound super spiritual or kitsch to ascribe such value and importance to a heap of powder, a metal scrap or a dyed liquid, it is nonetheless necessary to admit that art — particularly one’s own, but also any art we encounter — is so closely linked to intimacy and occurs in a highly intimate space, and the personification of what is essentially dead matter is actually the lesser evil and most probably a great coping mechanism. So, »The Medium« from a spiritual perspective? Translated from Latin, it means »middle«; it has a mediating function, and mediators, like the venues that host them, are often also projection surfaces, arenas for inner struggles that are (or must be) brought out from within us and made visible.

Nadjana looks at some molten tin and concludes:

»This material is just as much of a wimp as I am — sensitive, fragile, brittle.«

Nadjana’s comfort scent is the smell of rose — a flower whose meaning stems from its colour and can stand for love or the end of love, or all the different kinds of love in between.

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Nadjana Mohr (b. 1987) lives and works in Cologne and has been part of the Simultanhalle's curatorial board since 2023. In 2014, she completed her painting studies as a master student under Tatjana Doll at the Karlsruhe State Academy of Fine Arts and attended the Düsseldorf Art Academy as a guest student under Katharina Grosse. She has received numerous prizes and grants and is represented in private and public collections, including the Nirox Foundation in Johannesburg and the State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia. Nadjana Mohr conceives of her body as an existing, mobile sculpture that, in its extensions, aims toward two-dimensionality, formulates a painting, wears a suit, or chooses a (film) excerpt in order to dissolve within it. Her work is an endeavor to engage with an organized environment and addresses the questions that arise from it.

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Translation into English by Rebecca Grundmann

Works & Photos by Nadjana Mohr

Text & Concept by Thea Mantwill Artist Interview