Anne Imhof’s Subversion: From Her Breakout Show ‘Sex’ To A New Emo Mood

For the last fifteen years the artist Anne Imhof has challenged the norms of dance, apparel and performance. As she launches her first ever US retrospective EMO, she speaks to Grace Banks about the absurdity of trying to label yourself in 2023’s art market.

“The concept of the muse is a pretty strange one” Anne Imhof tells me, “I guess it’s usually linked to painting and the arts, dancers and choreographers, where the artist has a powerful role and the muse is merely passive.’’ We’re speaking about Imhof’s 2021 film AI Winter, which is showing for the first time in America in the solo show EMO at Spruth Magers gallery Los Angeles. The film features her collaborator Eliza Douglas, a woman often cited as Imhof’s muse, as she moves through an urban landscape. Douglas, a model and artist, has appeared in many of Imhof’s works, including her breakthrough film Faust (2017) exhibited at the 57th Venice Biennale for which she won the Golden Lion award, to her live exhibition Sex (2019) at London’s Tate Modern. Their work together has come to represent a new kind of movement art, one that has challenged the boundaries between performance, portraiture and fashion.

Born and raised in Germany and now based in Berlin, I’m speaking with Imhof on Zoom from LA where she’s been for the last few weeks to install the retrospective. “It’s the first time I’ve had an exhibition of my work in America, so it does feel like a big deal” she says – “there’s a lot to prepare, I’m still working on some things and finishing off sketches”. Sketches play an important role in the show and mark a new direction for an artist known for her space-dominating performances that have riffed on BDSM, nightlife and fashion.

Putting the exhibition together has led to Imhof reflecting on her career. “It means emotional” she says of the show’s name, “it’s about interior experiences, feelings, emotions and all of that”. EMO has cracked her open in ways she didn’t expect – Imhof’s mascot for the show is a sketch of a dolphin, not the “kind of thing people might expect from me, I know,’’ she says, of her newfound mammal subject.

Grace Banks: Your latest film AI Winter features Eliza Douglas who you’ve worked with over the last ten years. Many fans call her your muse, how do you see the role of Eliza in your art?

Anne Imhof: I’ve worked with Eliza for a long time, but her role in my work is not passive at all – which is what people think of when they have a muse in their mind. When I work with dancers, and particularly when I collaborate with Eliza, it happens in a very natural way. It’s a fluid process and if offers me the opportunity to play with what the concept of the muse is. There are still the aspects about that dynamic, admiration and the idea of making something out of that moment of being together, that reflects the excitement and beauty of that deep connection.

I thought you might say that – collaboration is such an important part of your work together, but it feels just that… collaborative.

My collaborations with these people also come about because to put it simply, I love them so much. I have so much respect for them and it’s a privilege to work with people who are so talented, and who can bring out the best in me, as I hope I’ll do with them.

AI Winter was shot in Russia in 2021, how did you work together while shooting the film?

We shot AI in the Moscow snow in 2021. We started by carving paths in the snow and made a labyrinth for her to walk in. Working in film was new to me, and that led me to decide to only work with Eliza in this film, I knew she’d be able to translate the feeling that is simultaneously torn, trapped and full of life at the same time.

I wanted to achieve a virtual, computer generated feeling but through real life movements, and we managed to achieve that through the way the camera flips between Eliza’s point of view and the perspective behind her. The gaze is either following or leading, which gives that unnatural quality that I was looking for. It was very cold and we had to make sure we had everything in place to keep her safe, because she couldn’t just be out in those conditions without a top on and not get unwell – periodically we would stop, cover her, and make sure she was safe to continue.

The untitled pencil drawings in EMO feature everything from dolphins to mythical characters. They feel like a real departure from your performance work, and far more personal. I’m curious as to what parts of your subconscious they might convey.

I’ve really enjoyed drawing, and yes they are personal. There’s a picture of me as a young father, for example, and there’s a lot more that I can explore in drawing. It’s something that when I’m doing it, I kind of just see where it takes me. I’m still working on them now actually, a few days before the show, and my desk I’m speaking to you from now is covered in them, like this dolphin one.

I love the dolphin illustration.

The dolphin is the mascot of the show – I like the idea of animals being a real companion to humans, like in Greek mythology. And in terms of the subconscious, the feelings they convey for me are fantasy, this idea of caricature and creation. There’s a clown, a thief, a jester, it’s a mythical world.

Since your breakout performance Sex at Tate London in 2019, your audience has loved the way you explore subcultures, from clubbing to BDSM, the way you explore them feels like you’re reporting from the frontline.

I grew up very connected to club culture, and that’s always been a huge inspiration to me. Especially because even within the nightclub scene I felt like an outlier, like I didn’t fit in. I think I am taking inspiration from my immediate surroundings and sourcing it from my life. It’s something that I’ve always done, I guess if your life is part of a marginal culture then you will naturally embed it in your work.

Androgyny is something you’ve looked at for a long time in your work, in Sex but also before that in Faust, and in your recent short AI Winter too. How does it feel to see the conversation enter the mainstream, years after you started talking about in your work?

I mean, I have always felt myself to be very androgynous. I myself have an androgynous body, and at times wish that I could identify differently and I think that’s become part of my work. I’ve always walked around bare chested, and Eliza does as well!

A good example is my work Natures Mortes, the actor Levi Strasser is doing a monologue where she’s enraged and desperate telling a friend about experiencing the loss of his ability to think. He has his belly taped with gaffer tape and his navel looks like it’s been removed. It’s meant to be a sign of having no parents or origin, having no identity that is formed and fixed by society or family.

I also look at this idea in AI, Eliza is bare chested walking through the snow which honestly reflected my own desire to do so, and my admiration for the androgynous body and her habit of being shirtless out there in the world – it became iconic and a sign.

EMO runs 15 January – 6 May at Spruth Magers Los Angeles.