Archiving Affection – Randy Grskovic’s Dangerous Times

My conversation with artist Randy Grskovic took place in his Toronto studio in October 2018. I’ve known Randy for a few years now and, through following his art practice online, have become aware of a collection project he started under the moniker Dangerous Times. Every now and again I’d be arbitrarily scrolling through Instagram, and a found photograph of a kiss would appear on my feed: a passionate couple, two children awkwardly pecking each other on the cheek, elderly friends embracing, a man proudly kissing his rifle. It was easy to be taken in by the warm, vintage look of the images, with a diverse cast of characters across multiple eras, captured in candid moments of affection. Intrigued by seeing these images begin to accumulate into a visual archive, I spoke with Randy about his intentions for the project, and why Dangerous Times is relevant now.

Rebecca Travis: Could you start with a brief synopsis of how Dangerous Times started and its relationship to your wider photography practice?

Randy Grskovic: The project started with me as a collage artist, collecting print media for compositions. I was predominantly using found advertising images from different eras, and they tended to offer the same representations of white, heteronormative, middle-class life. Then I started to find negatives online and made collages with unpublished images. Once I began looking at the history of photography through these various kinds of found photos, I noticed patterns, and one of them was the action of kissing on camera. It’s something most of us have done at some stage — with lovers, friends, blowing a kiss to the lens. Across the images I’ve collected, there’s this kind of lifecycle represented. It starts with a newborn and mum or dad kissing the baby, then the family kissing the baby, then there are images where the parents put kids together and teach them how to kiss, or kids are looking at the parents kissing, and so on. In all these photographs the subjects appear to know that the camera is there; they’re posing. So, there’s this ‘on-camera’ behaviour that we have developed in Western photography, whether it’s a cue that we unwittingly take from cinematic scenes, paintings or advertising.

RT: So it began as a reaction to trends in advertising imagery, but do you know how it might culminate in an artwork? Is that important?

RG: I’m envisaging this as a newsprint publication. One of the real passions of the project is to have the ‘unrepresented’ represented in this way. Take, for example, an image of an interracial couple from the 1950s kissing. Their behaviour mirrors poses used in advertising, but they weren’t represented in the traditional imagery that sold lifestyles. I’m interested in the exploration of the archive to create a new publication where not everyone is a model trying to sell you something from this friendship, love or intimacy. Yes, the photographer wanted to capture a moment, but sometimes I also feel like these people kissed because there was a camera present. These photographs would likely have been personally important at one time. Now they’re at a yard sale or online auction, so they’ve lost that value, but I think this re-collection brings back their importance, because they’re part of a personalized history we haven’t traditionally seen. It’s not National Geographic or the New York Times or something like that — it’s Dangerous Times.

RT: Where did that title come from?

RG: I see this much like my collage practice, where I find images and make connections. The Dangerous Times title came from the Bruce Cockburn song, “Lovers in a Dangerous Time”, which was covered by the Barenaked Ladies in the 90s. The title came to me right after the 2016 US election. Like everybody, I was shocked at the result and by the echo-chamber effect that created a false sense of certainty. I’d started collecting these photos already, but it was around this time when I felt it was important to recognise through imagery that love and affection have endured. I don’t think the world is getting worse, and that’s good to recognise. The proof and metrics are in these photos.

RT: When did you start collecting?

RG: I started about five years ago. Just before I moved to Toronto, I was making a lot of collages and started buying magazines on eBay. I would find my materials at flea markets originally, but discovered online that I could narrow my search to find images that fit a narrative. Online, I can pull visual information from all around the world. It’s an interesting way to marry digital progression with analogue history.

RT: I’d noted this bridging between analogue and digital too, but was thinking about it more in terms of the physical items you’re collecting and the digital means through which you’re sharing them — namely Instagram. What drew you to want to share them online?

RG: I want to build an audience. Ideally, I’d like to crowdfund the newsprint publication, and this is the way the internet goes: you build an audience and try to create demand for the product.

RT: So this really does feed back into an advertising lexicon that you were drawing on visually. You seem to be describing this project in those terms too…

RG: Yes, because I think that’s all that Instagram is, it’s just advertising for your life. Maybe people want to think about it differently, but it’s not quite a diary. I only see Instagram as a marketing tool, a way to build a community. I think the art project would be this newsprint publication where you’d see a lifecycle through intimacy—whether they’re momentous moments like a grad photo, or small glimpses of affection. Right now on the Instagram feed the images are unorganised, because I post them as I get them. The newsprint would be physical and a bit fragile. I think of photography like memory, and the more times you access a memory, the less accurate that memory is. The more time you look at these photos, or open this newsprint, the more it’s going to deteriorate over time; I think those processes are beautiful and poetic.

RT: Speaking of the lifecycle that the photographs come to represent, there are some here that are taken at the end of life—in death. Do you ever feel an ethical or moral pull with finding, keeping and using these images?

RG: Absolutely. I have some rules that I go by. I have not published the deceased photographs yet because I’m not 100% sure about it. There is a respect that needs to be given to the imagery. I don’t collect photos that appear voyeuristic. I like that people are posing directly for the photos, or at the very least they appear to know a camera is present. I don’t want to expose people. These are just lost artefacts. I enjoy a lot of the photographs where you can’t see the faces that well. It’s not about them — it’s about the action or behaviour. I’m conscious of making sure that things are done in a proper way. I get a lot of feedback.

RT: Through the online posts?

RG: Yeah, because people totally think it’s weird! Like, why are you collecting photos of other people kissing? Some people have very strong feelings about it. The subjects knew there was a camera present, so they’re okay with being photographed. What tends to get lost in this project is that there’s also a photographer here in all of these images, but nobody ever thinks of them. It’s more about the ethical implications with regard to the subjects. Photography came out of capitalism and science, and we often talk about legality and copyright more than we do about the rights of the people in the photo.

RT: It’s something that often comes up with digital imagery — if something is posted online, does that make it open for anyone to share it, like it, keep it saved? The flea market is almost the analogue equivalent; if you find something personal in that setting, it’s kind of passed from one set of rules into another…

RG: But that’s so funny — it’s a meaning we’ve ascribed to it. It’s a great point, this idea of the ‘re-blog’. I started out with a Tumblr page about ten years ago, and at the time it didn’t have that option. They created the ‘re-blog’, which then became the ‘retweet’, the ‘re-gram’. This innovation basically said that you could take content from other people’s feeds and put it onto your own, and there were no rights to anything. Your stream was just a collection of images that you were curating from around the world, and that was fascinating to me. I think even someone like Richard Prince — that’s what inspired his Instagram.

RT: Richard Prince and Jordan Baseman both sprang to mind when I became aware of this project. Do you have any images that you’re particularly attached to?

RG: I have three photographs of this young male couple in New Orleans. They’re kissing, but they’re also both holding their glasses in their hands. Those are the little details that I’m drawn to. It’s an image that’s obviously posed, but also very tender. I wish advertising in the 90s was more like this — these are beautiful images of that time. Advertising creates a so-called ‘world view’ of a world that doesn’t really exist. I’m interested in creating connections and groupings — like I have a few images of kids learning how to kiss by kissing their toy dolls.

RT: So have you started that process of collating?

RG: Yes, though I haven’t physically put them together. I have so many negatives that I haven’t even printed yet, too.

RT: So you also print them yourself?

RG: Yeah, I prefer doing the production on them.

RT: Does that make it less about the found photo object for you and more about the subject?

RG: I think the two are intertwined.

RT: The reason I ask is that we have all these physical formats laid out: colour images, black and white, 35mm slides, Polaroids, photobooth strips…

RG: I’d like to have an exhibition of the physical photographs, so the different formats would be engaged with. These ready-published, discarded ones are all 1/1, and I doubt anyone has the negative to reproduce them, whereas the negatives have potential to be produced as a cyanotype, a silver gelatin, a giant wall mural…

RT: But does that then change the project, if it’s you printing the negative as opposed to working with something that exists as it is found?

RG: I mean, I think it’s just my perspective. It’s like confirmation bias: “I think this is important and I’m going to prove through an accumulation, why.” At the very core of it, we as humans mimic the behaviour of others. Are you representing yourself through truly authentic actions, or are you just doing what has always been done? The viewer will inevitably make it about them, too.

RT: Do you find yourself creating backstories for them?

RG: I think about it more in terms of “why are these kisses similar?” Take these images of side-cheeked kisses: it’s not about who the people are, because I can’t tell if they were doing something authentic. But as a grouping they gain an authenticity. This is totally a collage. A huge point of separation for me is that I’m not a historian, but I am an artist. A historian would likely do something very different with my practice. I think of it more like metadata. The consistent behaviour is indisputable. I don’t think that the time, place, etc. can be the integral part of it, because so much information is lost. If you try to focus on that, there’ll just be holes.

RT: In your notes on the project, you question why these kinds of images aren’t considered as portraiture. Can you talk a bit more about that?

RG: I guess collectively we control what we think of as a portrait, and artists are often trying to subvert that. I don’t have a straight answer for it. We can look for clues, but there’ll always be information missing. The only reliable information we have is a consistent behaviour in front of the camera. It’s happening throughout all stages of life. There has to be something there. That’s been the project — figuring out what that is, talking to people about it. To go back to the idea of releasing these images on Instagram, I couldn’t just launch the thing; I need for people to go through it with me. I need that community to see the photos and for them to think about the project. For me, the photos become so numerous that they become more than the sum of their parts. I just love how strong the visual connections are. As a giant collage it’s very interesting.

RT: And something that we’re in need of seeing?

RG: Oh yeah. We have to remember that things are getting better. It’s better now than ever in human history, but we’re constantly engaged by the media through fear. This project isn’t about fear, even though it’s called Dangerous Times. Once I researched the song, I understood that it had so many different meanings for people. “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” — maybe you’re young in love and not supposed to be together, maybe you’re having an affair, maybe you’re a homosexual couple in a situation where that’s not allowed. It’s always been a dangerous time to be vulnerable.

Randy Grskovic is an artist and collector working out of 401 Richmond in Toronto, Ontario. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of British Columbia. Grskovic has exhibited across North America and has been published internationally. Selected exhibitions include Burrard Arts Foundation, Equinox Gallery, Gallery 44 and Katzman Contemporary. He has been in featured exhibitions for Contact and Capture photography festivals. Publications include Blackflash Magazine and Filling Station (Canada), Flaunt Magazine, Secret Behaviour and Gather Journal (USA), Age of Collage and Hohe Luft (Germany), and Blink Magazine (Korea).

Rebecca Travis is a writer and curator based in Toronto.

Images courtesy of Grskovic Collection @dangeroustimes_

This article is published in issue 36.1 of BlackFlash magazine. Get this issue