I have been dealing artistically with the theme “figure in space” for a considerable period of time. In my various studies, the realization of the architectural principle, derived from the figure-space counterplay, proved to be the gravest at first. In the following, I would like to briefly describe the history of this realization, which eventually led to the theme “block-paintings”: The starting point was a confusion, which resulted from my trying to estimate the size of figures in urban space from various perspectives by eye. If I relied solely on my vision, they appeared small at rest but larger in movement or even melting away when moving in traffic. Yet if I involved my mind – i.e., if I already tried to think the figure – the scheme collapsed and the figure could already appear (in front of me) large from a distance or relatively small at close range and vice versa. This problem of estimating size only cleared up somewhat when I first traveled to the Mediterranean coast in 1993/94, and observed people on the beach. The optical sensation in the greatest possible contrast the “curving” of the horizon already brought two significant contributions: the becoming monumental of the figure at rest and its melting away in movement.
Although the drama of a figure’s appearing on the beach interested me primarily because of the spatial provocation of a single figure in elemental contrast, this observation of course also raised questions regarding the morbidity of the body and the vastness of the sea, etc. Still, this did not result in a – possibly surrealistic – claim, an expansion of reality itself or a destructive character due to the linking of sense layers.
In my work I only tried to internally preserve the physical facts and to accept the solutions which the optical sensation seemed to offer. So what followed from the seemingly biomorphic deformation of the body for me rather was an architectonic motif of constructing paintings and possibly a sharpening of the contour.
So I can only counter the “spatial lie” – i.e., that the near and the far and the horizon form a system in their contrast, which cannot be grasped descriptively, and that only the constitutive moment of their mutual relation within the overall context can be derived as truth from this system – with my own body, paradoxical as it may seem. It is through my seeing, through my eyes that I reach a certain expression. It is my body that effected that I sometimes got caught by a phenomenon in nature, felt the proportions with my hand and which then sent me back to the “wilderness of the world.” Indeed, it looks as if my physical ability to go into the world and my ability to withdraw to the world of my studio cannot work independently of each other. Even more so, it looks as if the going into the world were just the other side of a withdrawal from it, and as if this withdrawal into a world of fantasy were a dependency and just another form of my nature’s expression to approach the world.
These by all means enlightening considerations, which at least already included the most decisive – the constructing of paintings by contrasts – regrettably did not go passed the crux of the “reflexive style,” i.e., the mixture of reflexion and prejudgment, the danger of fabricating and pragmatism.
Ever since then I ask myself: Does this not run counter to the original inspiration of painting? Is there something “behind” the self-sufficient reflexion? What could be more concrete than “abstraction”?
Only my extended research stays in the Southwest of France, at the Atlantic coast, could loosen this “obstruction.” Strangely enough, it was through the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall, which are called “blockhouse” in French, that a sudden change came about. The new insights led me to my artistic project “block-paintings.” Apparently, the even stronger contrast of the block-forms to the vastness of the horizon, the tide, and the “feeling of the boundary of the earth” effected the consequence in painting. In short: the space of the painting is the surface with four boundaries. The figure is the counterpart naturally, in drawing, “standing for itself,” certain.
On the one hand, the project “block-paintings” is based on esthetic considerations, which revolve around the counterplay of figure space. Essentially though, this is not really important, because it is abstraction. On the other hand, the “block-painting” is based upon the much more important “inner’ consideration of the relation between “my emptiness” and this “phantom of reality.” And so the question is: Do I fully accept this “lie” and then have enough freedom for the “old” object of painting, the articulation of seeing? It would be, I believe, the content of painting, if you don’t call it abstract, but refer to it as an “intellectual perception,” as a living esthetics would put it, as something what in its original sense of the word was a term for seeing. In this paradox way, the human body, via the eye, could again become more involved in the moment of seeing – something that I find quite insufficiently accomplished in art forms overborne by reflexion.
Berlin, August 1998
(revised April 2005; translated by Hans-Georg Wolf)
Although the drama of a figure’s appearing on the beach interested me primarily because of the spatial provocation of a single figure in elemental contrast, this observation of course also raised questions regarding the morbidity of the body and the vastness of the sea, etc. Still, this did not result in a – possibly surrealistic – claim, an expansion of reality itself or a destructive character due to the linking of sense layers.
In my work I only tried to internally preserve the physical facts and to accept the solutions which the optical sensation seemed to offer. So what followed from the seemingly biomorphic deformation of the body for me rather was an architectonic motif of constructing paintings and possibly a sharpening of the contour.
So I can only counter the “spatial lie” – i.e., that the near and the far and the horizon form a system in their contrast, which cannot be grasped descriptively, and that only the constitutive moment of their mutual relation within the overall context can be derived as truth from this system – with my own body, paradoxical as it may seem. It is through my seeing, through my eyes that I reach a certain expression. It is my body that effected that I sometimes got caught by a phenomenon in nature, felt the proportions with my hand and which then sent me back to the “wilderness of the world.” Indeed, it looks as if my physical ability to go into the world and my ability to withdraw to the world of my studio cannot work independently of each other. Even more so, it looks as if the going into the world were just the other side of a withdrawal from it, and as if this withdrawal into a world of fantasy were a dependency and just another form of my nature’s expression to approach the world.
These by all means enlightening considerations, which at least already included the most decisive – the constructing of paintings by contrasts – regrettably did not go passed the crux of the “reflexive style,” i.e., the mixture of reflexion and prejudgment, the danger of fabricating and pragmatism.
Ever since then I ask myself: Does this not run counter to the original inspiration of painting? Is there something “behind” the self-sufficient reflexion? What could be more concrete than “abstraction”?
Only my extended research stays in the Southwest of France, at the Atlantic coast, could loosen this “obstruction.” Strangely enough, it was through the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall, which are called “blockhouse” in French, that a sudden change came about. The new insights led me to my artistic project “block-paintings.” Apparently, the even stronger contrast of the block-forms to the vastness of the horizon, the tide, and the “feeling of the boundary of the earth” effected the consequence in painting. In short: the space of the painting is the surface with four boundaries. The figure is the counterpart naturally, in drawing, “standing for itself,” certain.
On the one hand, the project “block-paintings” is based on esthetic considerations, which revolve around the counterplay of figure space. Essentially though, this is not really important, because it is abstraction. On the other hand, the “block-painting” is based upon the much more important “inner’ consideration of the relation between “my emptiness” and this “phantom of reality.” And so the question is: Do I fully accept this “lie” and then have enough freedom for the “old” object of painting, the articulation of seeing? It would be, I believe, the content of painting, if you don’t call it abstract, but refer to it as an “intellectual perception,” as a living esthetics would put it, as something what in its original sense of the word was a term for seeing. In this paradox way, the human body, via the eye, could again become more involved in the moment of seeing – something that I find quite insufficiently accomplished in art forms overborne by reflexion.
Berlin, August 1998
(revised April 2005; translated by Hans-Georg Wolf)
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