Daniel Richter Interview: A German Painter

I think for painters the studio is I think it's a medium specific thing I think there's people that look at their work more conceptual and more like they have a little fabric going on or like whatever you call a workshop they have assistants running around and that's a different approach I think while painting as is say say a social thing is kind of a it's not not even necessarily romantic it's a lonely obsession more or less you know so so you stay in the studio and the studio is little I would always think it's like it's a little like a teenage room you know like like you close the door from the inside and your mother's not allowed to come in and you actually do not necessarily do something special that is forbidden or taboo but it's something you don't want to want others to see I think so but it in general the studio is like how you say in it's like the brain somehow seem like it inherits the history there's different layers of or different areas where there's your own history the painting the future language music memories moods it's a place where you like can analyst analyze very precisely but you can also like drift into like whatever music when you look at the earliest paintings in the execution we're in the mid-90s and if you should I didn't know you at the time if you should give me a clue of what form the person done in the painter Daniel Easter at that time how did you become the early painter Daniel oh I don't want you to sit on the couch but are there some elements in your biography in your childhood that you reflect today we're more important than others for you becoming a painter there's there's different ways of establishing and let's say a narration about the artist or like a myth I have to decide now which way I want to go I could like let's sociological I didn't have so much opportunities I mean one thing is I had always had an interest in producing image say that like I don't mean painting I knew painting exists but I'd been doing before I've been I've been in this underground and I've been doing lots of sleeve designs for bands and flyers and posters for concerts and political whatever things and so there's always been and I've always been obsessed by images I have to I think I still am just now it's like now I know most images and it's not so much pleasure in because it's very hard to find something really really new like like in terms of like the production of images if it doesn't matter if it's film or animation or photography or art photography or painting that's the it's a side effect of getting older being there done that seen that but um the so so I was I was quite old you know I was like 29 and let's embed the figure now just like you remember that what is it Malcolm McLaren established the name Sex Pistols let's I think election lesson two or three in the rock and roll swindle so establish the name then your written part of it was I had no money I had no education I had no high school degree which limits your moves inside society quite strongly because and I had no driver's license so couldn't even become I couldn't become a cab driver for example so and I had this interest in let's call it art even though I didn't know what art was but I also and then at some point you know like I was 29 I was I don't know that there was the unification of Germany which I was not so fond of and you see I saw the wind of change blowing from the wrong direction and I had to adjust and I saw the projects that I was involved with like let's call it there oh the auto normally act like there and that I mean people boil it down to the squatter movement where it was not about that it was more let's see another radical approach towards pragmatical criticism of capitalism all that was easily understood would vanish and I saw I was quite old iron and I had enough I mean I had basically thing it's not a big drama I didn't experience it like that it's just like like when I analyze it now okay there were not so much opportunities I could draw I was okay doing this kind of stuff I knew the work of Albert Ellen Martin Kippenberger and Verner Buettner which is like I in my let's say in the scenery that I was in which was more underground pop music through cultural theory orientated what some of the few artists tweak or I could understand well I would say even see we could understand because there was a certain mix of using language images relating to society certain maybe even soon its isms that you know like you could relate to and that you could also not really point your finger on it because it was on a level radical that didn't relate to any social scene you know like at least not that I knew I mean you know you also in Hamburg where I was raised more or less that these people existed and there was always like if lucht between like people that were theoretic generalists artists musicians so at some point I thought okay I'm 29 now I need to do something in and I thought okay maybe and another reason was like when you get you get state support when you study I don't know if that's still if they still exists but you get state support so it meant you could like democracy pays you to learn something that may even be of no value for democracy because it's art but I thought you are well maybe if that's the opportunity I try that and then I I took it very serious it was not like maybe because I was already quite old so I started studying when I was thirty which is relatively old I would think I had to find out that what I wanted was to paint because I thought it was the most one thing is it is the easiest thing to do you know like you don't need you just need a brain and a hand you and some paper and brush or like canvas and so it's easy affordable it has a heavy weight it's a heavy weight on top of that on the shoulders of it because everybody knows painting it's been around it's been defined as the bourgeois art or the art form of our society since ages so that also is kind of a challenge there is necessities and decisions that have to be made inside the painting and they made mingle or like maybe influenced by my mood you know whatever phone call from the mother she's sick or when I'm reading the news boy made five goals in soccer game all these things are like I would say superficial informations but they don't work into my work into the work so the mood is actually it's not very interesting you know you get up and then you work and work means you paint you make decisions on the painting then you stare at the paintings too painting stares back and then you find a solution for the problems that you create it and it doesn't really matter how you feel about it I think it's just good go on working you establish certain habits because you feel safe not because you feel safe because you are safe and what you do you know certain let's call it just tricks you know certain tricks you know and at some point the tricks are like leading your hand it's like like say you a shoplifter and then you can't go to a shop anymore without chop lifting it's not me maybe not even in your interest you just do it because you used to do it you do it and then at some point you'll find yourself with all idiotic stuff that you stole and you can't actually even use it it's just like a habit you established in the habit is like starting to figure you like I say to shape you it's the same with painting you you like your I was used to certain ideas of narration and in these ideas of narration I changed went to different phases and at some point I was I would say I was bored or maybe I'd I couldn't use it anymore but I didn't know how to enter a new field and then I thought about it I thought the first thing is maybe to see if you what can change is just change the tools you say like ok I won't use brushes anymore or I'll add certain elements to the color that I have never added before just to see if that maybe forces my thinking think in a different way because you answer like this there's the way let's say there's a structure a method inherited in in the artist and can you transform these ideas into something in an in a different way than before and are they still valuable then all like do they turn into fake or just like let's call it a it's like between style and method you know they are like brothers and sister but style is a danger you know like because style at some point and I don't mean in terms of fashion choice just diet was once a method that turned into a bad habit and once you reach that you have to question it that's at least what I think I mean was a surprise with the new world with the last group of works to finally get to a point where I thought it was kind of new for me and maybe also for like in the small world of painting maybe something that you could offer to the painters and but that was good you know like because this it's like learning you could say it's like learning something you've not done before it's like learning juggling or something I can't juggle then you learn to juggle and then you have three balls for ball five balls and then you're surprised you can even do maybe six and then you like yeah you you do that and just follow that and then some point you stop doing that and you start not juggling balls but you juggle coke bottles whatever we started this interview talking about the studio the studio in the studio is a working place it a place where you can shut out the world and you're here on your own it's like you said the 10-year rule that you can lock but the world is right out here the window is open the world is outside there m-yeah how does this here and this out there connect it's a problem is the metaphors when you would tend to use metaphors like let's say the studio is a sponge and the outside world is the water and the studio gets squeezed by the big hand of experiences in the outside world and so the studio is a sponge dipped into reality and then squeezed out yeah that's a good matter I mean my work is obviously based on everybody's work on it's influenced by the real world well and if it's not influenced by the real world its influenced by ideas about the real world and then next question is what is actually the real world I mean what we know that that's the one of the first things we know is that we take everything that's out there for granted on for real and it is but once we once we how once we learn about ourselves and society we also learn that the reality of every of every relation between people is very different for the same for people you know why have you say a family some family functions or dysfunctions on a certain level that is from the outside just looking like well that's their reality but when you talk to one brother and then you talk to the sister they have a very different concept of their parents so and they was talking about reality I mean that's the lowest level you know that there is um there are facts and then there's reality yeah are you a German painter I would sing I am a German painter even though I always try to not look like a trophy that mean in terms of not looking like like the face but the work but I would have a hard time when I was younger I found it easier but I I'm sure there is a certain attitude towards painting or let's say to art in general which is in a post Second World War situation very special because it is like this conflict between on one hand narration and on the other hand abstraction and then there is this that I think the factor that art has to be relevant and that painting has to also criticize itself I think was always an aim to use painting as something that is not an esoteric debate but something that is extremely influenced by reality and in the 90s when I I mean I had two problems I had to cope up with the history of let's say abstract painting and I was interested in the radicalism of abstraction as a historical thing I mean that it got blame and established and kind of in esoteric wall decoration but there's a certain promise in non representation there's a certain freedom that I was interested in and I so I wanted to kind of try to revive that for myself to try to understand that and the other thing was that in the 90s it was worried it was very turbulent you know like because like the old like the Cold War ended and I think now that's history but like when I experienced it it was really that like all kind of like classical boundaries enemies the so called class conflict all that changed there was this you remember that was also like the theory of which I thought it was always like the end of history you know like it's thinking that the end of history is defined by capitalism that is now everywhere and as we see now capitalism is on different levels everywhere but it is in a conflict with different levels of capitalism or non capitalist but like oligarchic or traditional or religious structures that are also influenced by capitalism but transform it into something that is let's say anti-western and so I saw all these all these like conflicts and also it was something that was also new was the internet and digital information which like slowly slowly rose up and it was also the whole talk about the amount of information that you have to understand while it's generated like like how to read information so there was another thing that was very important for me in terms of that I just try to bring as much information into a painting as possible which was on a very simple level a way of coping with realities it's just like okay also was against the tradition that I knew because like in paint they always hear like you have to reduce and you have to like don't do too much and then ecological question what actually is too much so how much and then the next question is how much can I do on a painting so I try to do a lot of things where just like a lot of things are happening that are contradictory because that was how I saw the situation is very contradictory there's lots of information there's also lots of pleasure in that and there's lots of different let's say languages or fragments of languages at fragments of languages and schemes and things that I was interested in to depict and when I changed towards a narrate narration it was also like an urge of doing something that had to do on a very simple level with reality you know like I thought okay I'd like to I L desire to paint things that related to what I saw in the world and and I not in terms of like pointing a finger and giving lectures but also in terms of my own I don't know insecurity or fear or paranoia or whatever it is you know like like it's the thing is it's like one thing is to say I choose a certain topic but naturally you also are like the person and only when you did the work do the work you find out actually what person you were when you did that work if you don't keep try to keep a distance as long as you try to keep a distance and take painting as kind of a lecturing thing hello there is racism here or there's certain topics there regarding the NSA and then you do work about that that's like lecturing that's using painting as let's say education or whatever like preaching to the converted but the moment you take something that also has like a human effect on you and you don't know how to describe it you have to also like transform the whole thing transforms into something that is not also about the topic but also about you oh it's saying which is necessarily interesting not necessarily interesting it seems that in our times been I mean it has been historic times you've been living in I mean you grew up in a divided Germany you've experienced reunification and all the 90s and now kind of especially in those days you have kind of had the feeling that the world is things are falling apart things are falling apart yeah I mean what we have mainly experienced in the 20th century was with the decline of the Soviet Union that let's say the official discourse that held the world together was quite rational and that quality of that discourse which was let's say discourse of the ruled were the rulers or the rich was the pores or the owners words the non owners but it was like something that was rational because it was a debate about which society armed which society generates the better life for all and what is rational and reasonable and what does a democracy freedom and ATC mean is just mean consumerism or does it mean a life in peace and happiness and productivity whatever you know like all these but that all since these two blocks crumbled we are like in a situation where as we know like rationality and the comeback of religions and comeback of Nations and comeback of the great ideas and the great man was the great analysis and the great stupidity is like in full effect I don't know maybe it was supposedly it was necessary you know but I think what's happening now is highly unnecessary and it's for not for the good of mankind but everybody knows so I'm not really like we all sing everybody nots dancing discount or one this won't end well especially in Germany we have in expectations to our intellectuals what German intellectuals you mean like that worried that one old wise man Harbor mass I mean there this the I don't know like that's a different topic the intellectual debate in Germany I don't know there's a problem like most but I mean most people that know everything are idiots because you cannot be you cannot be not an idiot if you think that you have to say something about everything which puts me also in a weird place you know but I don't know I just trust authorities and I love these guys are just distrust maybe it's good that none of those exist here we don't have a ballad maybe we don't have a lance one we don't have an ear back which is extremely boring the debate is extremely Slyke like reft and right I like like left right and middle I like this clumpy much you know there's actually no it's and I can only hope for the better for the rest of the world and for the Germans that it stays as boring as that forever because if it doesn't stay boring you know you know the Germans you know German history you never know what's like luring lurking behind the wall you know and the dynamic that can be certain I mean look at it's a very different table but look at the power that the movement a ridiculous movement that was just defending the right to be full of Grisanti moles and anger and absolutely highly irrational like the pegida movement interests what kind of power this idiots generated in the public and in in the mainstream and now imagine these people as the like the voice of the silent masses in relation to something that was the real attack in Germany you have they have something where you just like know just like do you want do you don't want that I don't want that I don't need that I don't want that Germany must stay boring artists in Germany the role of the artist in Germany is like to be an eccentric because that's the only thing that the Germans can accept in the pop music we don't have that you don't have that in in accepted in the German society there is no it's the fewer people that are eccentric or radical a very few and they are like in still more or less underground figures all they are like high end figures you can be you can be that in the art world and you can be that in the Opera and composition in maybe free jazz but you cannot be that as the German you cannot imagine it's very simple saying but you cannot imagine a German David Bowie so painting is a highly egocentric thing we cannot as a society find comfort in your images or societies don't find comfort individuals find comfort I find comfort in music and in art and in literature and I think most people do when they do that but i don't know that i don't think that i don't know society societies find maybe comfort in when the soccer team wins that maybe but I that's not a miser I don't care about that I don't I don't want to be part of it I mean it's it's not my thing it's I think it's painting or like art in general has has to offer something it's like a promise of a live life unlived somehow you know just keep it wery romantic and and that may speak to some it may not speak to others but I don't but it's something that society has to defend because it's actually like it it's in a utopian goal and which is good or not good necessary and reasonable and good for mankind because lie a life cannot be just about reproduction and buying cars

Channel: Louisiana Channel

Views: 200,211

Keywords: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum, art, painting, Germany, Daniel Richter

Id: F2uOntfdr0o

Length: 28min 41sec (1721 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 16 2016