A conversation between Jürgen Partenheimer and Ivo Mesquita
at the Pinacoteca do Estado in São Paulo, 29.11. 2004
IM
I was wondering if this conversation could by a kind of introduction to your art, to your way of working and to yourself, since this is your first exhibition in Brazil. It would be nice if you could tell us something about your background and how you became an artist.
JP
I seem to have been taken by images and stories since early childhood, and I remember a beautiful statement: "Becoming an artist is like breathing, like inhaling and exhaling." I am a lucid dreamer, a collector of North and South.
IM
Today it is very difficult to imagine an artist who has no formal college education. I went to school at a time when there was no formal education for curators, and now I am a professor at a school for curators. Nowadays it is almost impossible to believe that someone could become a curator without having an academic education. How important is formal education for an artist, and how did you become a professional artist?
JP
In Europe, the traditional education for an artist is to enter an academy of fine arts. In 1968 I decided to apply for the academy in Munich, where artists like Paul Klee and Kandinsky had once introduced an important and very influential aspect of modernism into European art. However, I found the Munich Academy to be too conservative for my taste, and enrolled at Munich University instead, where I studied Philosophy and Art History. I wanted to know more about artists and the history of art.
IM
And how and when did literature, poetry and music become part of your background and of your artistic and creative activities?
JP
During the 1960s and ‘70s, Munich was one of the liveliest and most culturally active cities in Germany. It was there that I was first introduced to the contemporary music of Luigi Nono and John Cage, and also to contemporary theatre. My main inspiration at that time was the world of words and music, literature and the performing arts.
IM
There is a wonderful Pinakothek in Munich.
JP
When I was seven years old, my mother took me on my first visit to the "Alte Pinakothek", and I remember sitting in the gigantic galleries with all those masterpieces. It was a dream world, and as a child I felt: "This is it; this is where I want to belong." Much later, in 1969, while still a student, I came into contact with the leading group of Spanish contemporary artists and I was invited by them to spend some time in Spain. Then, in 1970, I received a scholarship to continue my studies in the United States.
IM
You developed a relationship with Spain and have worked with major Spanish poets and exhibited there very often.
JP
The curators in Spain who invited me in the '80s and '90s to exhibit at their museums were not aware of my "Spanish past". In addition to my Spanish contacts, however, I had been teaching and exhibiting in the United States ever since I received a scholarship in 1970 to study there.
IM
Your work has much to do with American painting and the American heritage of contemporary art. You also mentioned Spanish art, but it seems to me that American Abstract Expressionism developed a stronger presence or reference in your work.
JP
American painting did not make such a strong impression on me at that time. I was more intrigued by the attitude and work of Max Beckmann, but artists like Barnett Newman and Philip Guston impressed me. After the United States I returned to Germany and decided to continue my studies at the University of Munich. I finally completed my studies both in theory and in visual art. I received a Master of Fine Arts degree in the U.S. and a PhD in Philosophy and Art History in Germany. During that time, I gradually developed a double career between the U.S. and Germany. In the '80s I was introduced to Leo Castelli in New York, and in 1984 I had my first exhibition with prints and drawings at the Castelli Uptown Gallery. For a young artist it was a tremendous experience.
IM
You also said that you had an interest in the theater. It did seem somehow related to your studio work, and not just because of your installations. There is a certain dramatic quality in your work. Despite the small formats, in terms of gesture and a kind of eloquence, some of the drawings seem to have been done by a choreographer.
JP
Certain drawings have a similarity to musical scales; others look indeed like choreographic notations. The drawings have often been described as a particular state of energy, perceptions of the void or state of mind. In the late '70s my drawings were often related to conceptual art. At that time, I lived in Düsseldorf, and in 1979 I was invited to my first international gallery exhibition in Edinburgh, Scotland. Edinburgh at that time was in active contact with the Düsseldorf art scene.
IM
What do you think of the notion of the "Death of Painting", which is the great legacy of American Abstract Expressionism? How do you yourself cope with this notion as a painter?
JP
As a young artist my metaphoric response to tradition was "to break down the bridges, though not in order to destroy them, but to rebuild them." Since I was quite aware of art history, I was not interested in "repainting" classical modernism, so I took up drawing instead.
IM
Every good artistic practice must be able to draw its genealogy. Every good artist must be able to show where he or she comes from. There always seems to be a reference. But I am talking about a certain awareness, about the mortality of painting, or about dealing with one’s own mortality.
JP
It is of course important to be aware of transience and still discuss possible permanence. Dealing with a suggested or predicted end of something might initiate a revival. What remains is the question of how to identify reality on a contemporary level of artistic expression. I wonder if there is a specific medium for a specific zeitgeist, and whether that medium survives the zeitgeist. A seemingly archaic medium can be just as contemporary if it is invested with the content of its time. True expression lies in the true medium; it will be timeless.
IM
That is what is interesting about your work: it seems to look for the ideal. It proposes a world of silence, an awareness of history from a 21st century position, with its technology and noisy environment, where art is part of entertainment, tourism, show business, industry. It seems to me that your work seeks to rescue this dimension, a dimension in which the subject is confronted with a very particular and unique experience.
JP
What you describe is true, yet it can easily lead to a misunderstanding when it is seen, for example, as a kind of escapism. Being a true contemporary spirit, the artist is well aware of the "here and now". He saves and guards the dreams; he shows the sources to all the innocent who have no memory.
IM
But what does it mean? For example, it is very interesting to see how you have exhibited in different countries throughout the world. Why do you travel with your work? What does travel around the world mean to you? Do you have some kind of strategy for the political and cultural inscription of your work?
JP
I have always been invited to show my work abroad. Traveling is a state of mind; it describes the attitude of the modern artist as a nomad. It is a form of self-exposure, a challenge to overcome prevailing cultural prejudices. I find it very inspiring, for it sharpens my attention; it keeps me awake, enriches my life and generates important encounters.
IM
But you have references in your work, such as Chinese mythology, calligraphy. Do you have any kind of free disposition or openness towards this kind of subject, whether archetypical references or cultural hybridization? Another interesting point is that when you travel with your work to Spain, Brazil or China, it seems as if you try to create a kind of local context for it. For example, the integration of your sculpture "World Axis" into a specific site in China, or the photographs you are taking here in São Paulo with your paintings displayed in different locations.
JP
The sculpture existed long before I went to China. A cultural misunderstanding is always a projection. The apparent similarity is a trap. The context I create is the context of the work itself. It is the identity of the work that establishes a formal relationship to the site, as well as a relationship with regard to the contents. The photographs I took in São Paulo within the context of my exhibition at the Pinacoteca are the expression of a reflective inspiration, which can occur at any place and moment where attention and awareness are focused. The series is now part of this book as an independent work inspired by the city of São Paulo. You may call it geopoetics.
IM
But what you are saying refers us back to the transcendence of the work, a concern with a certain spirituality inherent in the work, something embedded in art history with artists like Kandinsky and Klee.
JP
Isn't the critical awareness of tradition a prerequisite and a universal quality of art?
IM
Absolutely! We have already mentioned that. By the way, I don't think this is a sort of escapism, as you said before. It is more like "keeping the film in motion", keeping the field working.
JP
That is a good point. When I used to exhibit in the U.S. during the '80s, particularly in New York, I remember that art critics were viewing my work as an unusual "Non-German" poetic abstraction, which they considered cosmopolitan rather than national. At that time, German Neo-Expressionism seemed to be conquering the world, and I was in New York doing something completely different.
IM
It was the boom period for identity politics, multiculturalism and all those ideas concerning representation and otherness. At that time, as a German artist, you would probably be expected to work like Kiefer, or to be related to Salome and all those artists.
JP
I did not want to be related to any of that. For quite some time in the '80s I had a singular position as an artist in Germany, labeled by some curators and critics as an "intellectual", and being accused of having a PhD in art history. In other words, the possession of theoretical and analytical capabilities seemed unhealthy for a true artist! Today, this former negative attitude has undergone a complete reversal. One of the issues of curators and critics nowadays is to proclaim the "artist as a public intellectual", and they demand of the young generation a pseudo-theoretic discourse on their work. Here you can see both ends of dogmatic exaggeration, which is kind of silly. If I choose to write, then the text is the image, and if I choose to do a sculpture, or a painting, I refuse to be categorized in a conventional tradition.
IM
What do you expect from your exhibition in São Paulo? What does it represent for you? I don’t know if you have had a chance to see something of Brazilian modern and contemporary art and notice how your work could resonate here. There is a tradition of, and current interest in, the type of abstraction you work with. But not just that. I would say that you share your imagination, your materiality of the medium and your commitment to pure abstraction with some Brazilian artists.
JP
I did not come to Brazil with any expectations; I came with a strong interest in discussing certain issues I find important. I came, however, to reflect and to see my work in a different cultural context. I came to experience how it can hold its own in this environment and express its identity, its content, and its emotion.
The museums of this world have enormous responsibility and importance in our society, not least because they provide a forum for imagination and discussion. By using the hallways, the space of transition between the traditional exhibition galleries of the Pinacoteca, I am deliberately marking the particular architecture of this museum, thus drawing attention both to the work and to the topology of the architecture. The concept of presentation calls in question the traditional perception of art within the museum as a sanctuary. The hallways, open niches, rest rooms — places where the work risks being overlooked. Using drawings and paintings like an installation provokes a different perception within the conventional presentation of the museum: the museum becomes a stage, and the artist a choreographer. The way we present something does not change the quality of the work, but it changes the perception of the work.
IM
Absolutely. I agree.
JP
Let me come back to your initial question — what do I expect from São Paulo? I did not know the city, but I always knew about the city and was absolutely intrigued by the way it is seen outside of Brazil, and even in Brazil. People say that the city is monstrous, ugly and has no face. As I see the city, it reflects an incredible energy and a remarkable liveliness, which I find absolutely inspiring.
I think the artificiality and abstractness of the city intrigued me most, besides its energy and vitality, which you pointed out as being anonymous. The anonymity is the challenge.
Published in "Jürgen Partenheimer. Siave Loucura / Gentle Madness", Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, AR (2005), p. 51 - 62
