munich - Katya Tylevich

Tom Schmelzer
Responsibility-to-protect or to whom it may concern, 2008,
installation, white oildrum, Jesus figures (silver/metal),
petroleum, pump, gas bubbles, approx. 110 x Ø 58 cm
Tom Schmelzer’s studio is a 20-minute subway ride east of Central
Munich, in Haar – a residential stretch and ‘a completely normal
neighbourhood’, says Schmelzer, as he walks down the aisle between
two rows of his sculptures and installations. Haar is an unlikely space
for a studio like this: clean and minimal, located on the upper floor of
an otherwise nondescript building. Carpenters occupy the ground floor,
farmers live and work nearby, and, for Schmelzer, the less distraction
the better.
As in a police line­up, his works stand against
white walls: individual creatures pulled from
different exhibitions, but cohesive in their ability
to provoke. A blurred view of these works
leaves the eyes dotted with pop and religious
insignia, insects, worms, detached limbs, symbols
of folklore, wealth and decay. The studio
evokes the curiosity of an old apothecary,
crowded with mysterious objects that are rooted
as much in pathology as mysticism.
I’m drawn instantly to Schmelzer’s Scarab Hat
(also called The Pleasure Of Your Company Is
Requested). A woman’s hat swarmed by the
140 scarabs pinned to it, the wearable sculpture
is an ‘antidote’ to Alexander McQueen’s
Butterfly Hat, Schmelzer tells me. It’s a nod to
the early 2000s, ‘with its neo­cons and megalomaniacs,
butterfly paintings and art market
bubbles’; and a reflection of the debris that
fell once the various bubbles burst. As with
all of Schmelzer’s works, this one lends itself
to a clear caption. The artist is deliberate in
communication as much as craft, the meaning
of each work executed as meticulously as
its body.
— Why is Munich your base, especially as opposed
to Berlin? Munich is more of a business
city, with everything fast, up and running. That
makes it a completely different environment to
Berlin, which not only has a huge unemployment
rate and municipal debt, but a lot of young
and creative people, who don’t know whether
things are going to work out for them or not.
Berlin is still a large reconstruction area, and,
like in New York, it’s hard to be spotted there.
Those cities have so many artists that if you’re
not with the top 30 or so galleries – out of a
possible 600 – you have no chance of being
recognized. It’s not enough just to have a gallery
in Berlin, you have to have a good gallery.
And the good ones are largely international,
meaning they bring artists in from the States
and other countries, rather than displaying local
artists.
— Is there a reason your studio is on the outskirts
of Munich? I can have more space for less rent.
But it’s also because I try to stay out of artist
enclaves – there are still some in Munich,
though many were torn down to make room for
condos. I find that in specifically ‘artistic’ settings,
too many people are there just to hang
out, take it easy, drink coffee and paint watercolours.
That doesn’t interest me. In order to
realize my ideas, I rely on craftsmen, not other
artists. Besides, I don’t want to lose touch with
the real world, which is where my topics come
from, and that’s why it’s important for me to
work in a completely normal neighbourhood.
I’m kind of ‘exotic’ in this place, because everyone
else here gets their hands dirty and I’m
just an artist. [Laughs.]
— But you don’t come from an artistic background.
No. When I finished school, I knew I
was interested in Humanism and got into medicine
to learn about the human body and proportions.
I think the act of drawing someone
is somewhere between art and medicine. I
ended up working as a general doctor in the
Philippines for several months.
When I came back to Germany, I accidentally
crossed paths with an advertising agency,
where I started working as a creative. I thought
it would be more temporary than it was, but
I liked the work, and I could actually make a
living doing it. Together, those experiences
got me thinking about Kunstkammer or Wunderkammer
– museums of curiosities that aristocrats
displayed to the public at the end of
the Renaissance. All of my works basically exist
in a space between truth and story. During
the late Renaissance and early Baroque, people
were hoping to discover miracles in cabinets.
I think we’re still trying to do the same
thing today.
— Many of your works – like Homo Bulla [a
baboon dressed in papal regalia, carrying a
bubble machine] – seem to provoke confrontation
rather than marvel. I made that piece in
2009, when the Anglican Church apologized
for having failed to accept Darwin’s evolutionary
theory for the last 200 years. That was my
response to how ridiculous a situation that is;
and yes, I do think that I make work addressing
controversial topics in the hope that art can
change the world a bit. Isn’t it scary that fundamentalists
are studied people? That there are
engineers, teachers and lawyers tearing the
world apart?
— How likely is it that your art reaches fundamentalists?
The thing is, art only reaches
something like two per cent of people, anyway.
I mean art in general – including Richter and
Picasso. So of that, probably half a per cent
of the world’s population ever sees something
190 191
Munich
Scarab Hat or the pleasure of your company is requested, 2010, wearable sculpture,
140 scarabaeus sacer (holy roller, dung beetle), wood, brass, felt, steel, rubber, viscose, approx. 195x Ø 65 cm