I find it almost impossible to define my fundamental principles since they are so seldom clear in my mind. It has always been important to me to work out complex solutions that cover several different angles. Putting it somewhat simply one could perhaps say that there are two main problem areas that preoccupy me: firstly my feeling of guilt at being a westerner and secondly, the impossibility of seeing oneself. Being human means that one is limited to one perspective.

Perhaps we have to resign ourselves to the fact that we will always have to fall back on preconceived ideas and prejudices if we are even to begin to understand. There is always a basic principle to the test, but in so doing we still have to base our assumptions on other principles. Otherwise we are reduced to ways of thinking that have no future — a makeshift resource that leads nowhere. Is it possible today to produce anything that can be called art? Or is it more a question of attitudes? The modernistic tradition, which was constantly trying to break down doors and find new forms and new ways of formulating problems (not necessarily new ones), eventually became a new harness, as well as generating a feeling that every stylistic or formal solution was already spoken for.

I think that among my generation many of us have felt as though we were born old. Maybe this is one of the causes of a tendency towards increasing dissociation in art. Many artists today, like myself, make use of other people's pictures. I am aware that much of the art that is produced today will appear totally incomprehensible to future generations. On the other hand, maybe we are now for the first time being offered a chance to begin to understand

Gävle, July 1993
Jens Salander