uNseR maNN IN euRopa

pale Mirror, 1999; oil on linen; 98.4 x 86.6" (250 x 220 cm); private Collection
malen kann oder ob eher positive Erlebnisse
die Anlässe für seine Arbeiten sind.
Seine Antwort darauf macht nachdenklich:
” Ich bin sehr berührt von allem
Traurigen.“ Er kann auch erklären warum.
Solche Traurigkeit ” klingt sehr wahr und
echt in mir“, erläutert er. Welche Gründe
das auch immer haben mag, unumstritten
ist, dass aus seinen Bildern eine große me-
lancholie spricht. manchmal auch Pathos.
Aber immer große emotionale Kraft.
Nun findet man solche eindringliche
Ausdruckskraft nur bei den Arbeiten
wirklich großer Künstler, weshalb mich
interessiert wie er seine Bilder malt. Denn
selbst das größte Kunstwerk entsteht in
einem sehr irdischen, letztlich materiellen
Vorgang. und deshalb ist es immer
influences the picture“. That’s not it. The music
is allowed to influence the picture by me who
chooses the music. (laughed)
? Is the music taking the concentration
from the right part of the brain so
that you can work emotionally with the
left one ?
! It stops me from....debate. It stops
me from being too verbal. Because I am very
capable verbally. When you play the tape back,
you’ll find that, the sentences I construct, are
prose. You can actually, take them verbatim. I
know there was one sentence early on where
I repeated the same word and then rephrased
it, so I did not repeat the same word. I’m very
attached also to words. To language.
And...I like to have my mind quieted.
Pacified. Calmed. So that I can enter an area of
the emotional, spiritual. Because really that’s
what elevates the painting. That’s what makes
my paintings different from other people’s paintings.
And...I know, that they are different. And
they are treated like that. And...it’s this sense of a
kind of ” lit-up“ quality. And a poetic quality also.
There is a spiritual charge in the painting that
makes them register differently in the world of
art. The world of art is rather cool and ironic a
lot of the time. And my work is not cool. And is
not ironic. It’s meant to be profound. It’s meant
to be deep.
? In an earlier interview you said,
that you want to build a bridge between
jackson pollock and piet mondrian. as I
read this, I thought you were very close
to piet mondrian in your early work. The
pictures were – for me – very ” brainy“.
and now the pictures are very emotional
and expressive.
! There are a lot of people that I include
in that regard. Such as ... Schmidt-Rotluff. And...
if you take part of Schmidt-Rotluff’s paintings...
just a little section...you really have Rothko. And
it’s this spirituality I am really looking for in
my work. This emotionality. But not...a...blunt
expressionism. There is a restraint in my work.
So there is something, that is pushing BACK.
And there is something that is pushing OuT.
So there is a stress between the intellect, the
philosophical, the governing, the controlling,
the structuring...mind, which is the sense, the
conceptual strength in my work. And then there
is a very strong desire to somehow destroy
this. So my work is in a sense trying to have
everything. It wants to have everything. It wants
to have a very powerful sense of profundity - in
terms of structure – so that the paintings are noble.
And then it also wants to create an emotion
that is devastating.
So it’s a huge appetite to get it all into a
painting. To get both of these human qualities
into a painting. And I don’t mean that in terms
of a conciliation either. I don’t mean that in
terms of a truce, where both of them are somewhat
diluted. I mean, I want both to register
powerfully. Because I think that is what creates
a kind of profundity. I believe that a sense of
structure creates a profound emotion. That’s
my position. So I prefer ultimately Cezanne to
Soutine. I think he’s more boring, he’s more
difficult, he’s more demanding, he’s less fun, but
ultimately he’s a far greater artist.
? can we find all this you mentioned
in small paintings as well as in big
ones – for you as the creator and for us to
look at ?
! Issue of size has a very big importance
– of course. When you make something small –
like I do and I love to make small paintings – I
am aware that I’m making a painting that’s the
same size as a Cezanne – so it’s a real European
model I follow. And those paintings that are
small register differently. Someone once said
about my work – a very perceptive art critic –
what was shocking about my paintings was the
intimacy – and the size of them. He said it hasn’t
existed before. So if I make a painting that’s one
meter or less that value is not present.
That can only be present on the big
paintings with a tremendous amount of love
and commitment. And then somehow they are
overwhelming because of the degree of intimacy
and this pathos that is included in this sense
of intimacy. Because I’m not making abstract
expressionist paintings, they are not heroic.
I’m not trying to make heroic art like Barnett
Newman or Clifford Still. like the Americans
you know. my work includes all that sense of
European layering and reconsidering and history
and doubt in the colours and the reference to
the landscape...etcetera.
So it’s a whole ball of experience that
comes from a European sensibility and that