Artist's statement: Thoughts and areas of interest in artistic practice
Art as a space for thought
For me, art is not an expression of inwardness, but a tool for understanding the world. It poses questions, opens up spaces, shifts perspectives – a process of learning, reflection and experience. Not about art. But about what defines us: socially, historically, politically, physically, emotionally.
This realisation came early on. I began my studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy with the naive expectation of expressing myself artistically. However, the need to show something "out of myself" soon gave way to amazement at what art can tell us about others, about relationships, about structures. About what shapes us. Since then, I have been interested in the analytical, critical, sometimes ironic power of art – as a means of exploring the world and localising myself.
I believe in art as a form of intelligence. But also as resistance to simplification, to the omnipresent gesture of the quick narrative.
A manifesto as an attitude
Many years after graduating – I had long been involved in the design of art academies – I wrote a manifesto. Not a mission statement, but a collection of convictions. It emerged from conversations with students, colleagues and artist friends. It was a search for a self-image that goes beyond a programme. I still believe in it today:
Art is intelligence: A process of making, which is based on intelligent intuition, intelligent decisions, and an intelligent reflection upon our worlds
Art is stamina: Only a deep commitment, a persevering practice and a sustainable discipline can give birth to works of art which leave the short-lived moment of sensation and entertainment behind. Art is not a hop on / hop off activity.
Art is generosity: Much more than a collection of individual careers. Artists are well advised to be generous with each other and with their work, but within the confines of a very decisive practice.
Art is knowledge: Including political knowledge, intrinsic knowledge and public knowledge. Without art we would know less.
Art is beauty: That still matters, including aesthetic beauty, disturbing beauty, revealing beauty and pleasing beauty.
Artists of the future meet at art school: Art schools create the climate to attract students and tutors which might think differently and very individual, but they encourage, challenge and inspire each other. At art schools they create the networks of the future.
At art schools the future role of artists in our society is invented: Because art schools provide breathing space, fully aware of, but also with a critical distance to market conditions and pure career thinking. Here we can experiment with the role which art and artists will have in the future, for the well-being of our societies.
Art schools are cultural institutions with an educational remit: We prepare students for an entrepreneurial professional practice called culture, including all aspects of how we live together on this planet and how we practice the highest possible level of inclusiveness. That is why we are so culturally curious and directed towards international diversity.
Art schools align the past with the future: We learn from history to build the future.
Art schools sharpen the sensitivity for quality of making: Any form of making, as long as it is decisive.This manifesto was never intended as a dogma. Rather, it is an offer – for an attitude, for discussion, for responsibility. It still characterises my thinking, my work and my teaching today.
Artistic practice: between form, critique and narration
My artistic work began with sculptural interventions: site-specific, space-specific, often in interaction with architectural situations. I was interested in the symbolism of divine forms – both real and invented. Bridges, façades, chairs, obelisks: carriers of meaning, at the same time mirages of an asserted authenticity.
Over time, my interest shifted: away from the object and towards the image. Or more precisely: to the question of how we see images, how we believe them, what they trigger in us – and how we allow ourselves to be manipulated by them. The photographic image became my field of investigation. Not as a medium of memory, but as an instrument of assertion.
I question what a picture shows. And how it shows us something. The documentary appearance, the supposed evidence, the "truth" of the photographic – it all seems fragile to me, seducible, controllable. I want to create images in such a way that they tell a story, but do not impose a narrative. That they pose questions without providing answers. That they refuse to be read linearly and yet lead to associative reflection.
I am fascinated by the contradiction: we long for stories. We need them to localise ourselves, to understand others, to create meaning. At the same time, we know how easily narratives take on a life of their own, become politically instrumentalised, deform truths and produce realities. Public narratives in particular – be they national, economic, religious or media-based – claim a persuasive power that defies scrutiny. The simultaneity of narrative desire and suspicion of manipulation pervades my entire work. I neither want to renounce the power of storytelling nor be naive about its effect.
Books as a form of work
My work has been published in book form since 2014. These books are neither classic catalogues nor books aimed at broad distribution. They are produced in small editions – often as one-offs or as hybrid forms between collection, reflection and artistic object. They are not publications in the narrower sense, but rather concentrated condensations of a specific shadow period.
First and foremost, they serve myself: as a way of organising, reflecting and making visible what I have done – and what has occupied my thoughts in the process. The book form forces me to choose, to decide, to structure. It is a means of capturing the flowing, of marking transitions, to bundle thought processes. For me, every book is also a working tool – not mere documentation, but a space for cognition.
Images and texts in these books are not in an illustrative relationship. The texts do not interpret. They do not comment. Rather, they conduct their own dialogue, with their own themes and rhythms. Their connection to the images is created through friction rather than explanation.
The proportion of text has grown significantly since 2023. I use writing as a second space for thought – independent, but related to the image. The texts revolve around questions that arise from artistic practice:
What do narratives do to us?
Who curates reality?
Why does the world follow a logic that seems to lead inexorably back to authoritarian structures?
How does artistic freedom relate to political reality? Music and structure
New music is a recurring theme
I have been fascinated by its otherness since my youth – even though I was strongly influenced by punk in the 1980s. Later encounters with works by Stockhausen, Philip Glass and Steve Reich made a lasting impression on me.
I have been following concerts and festivals closely since around 2010. I am particularly interested in how young composers deal with form, structure and abstraction. What role do melody, rhythm, repetition or narrative play in contemporary music?
I often ask myself: are there parallels to the visual arts? Just as Kandinsky, Mondrian or af Klint freed themselves from the representational in order to visualise inner states, spiritual worlds or orders – just as Schönberg or Webern overcame Romanticism with atonality – today's artists and composers could also be in a comparable movement: away from narrative, towards form, construction, silence.
And yet it seems that for many young artists and composers, storytelling is making a comeback. Perhaps in a different form. Perhaps more fragile, more fragmented, more conscious. Perhaps also because curators favour this narrative quality – because stories are easier to convey, exhibit and sell. This is also part of the reality of contemporary production: what appears to be an attitude is often already an attribution.
I'm interested in what lies between the poles: between the desire to tell stories and the need to evade this desire.
AI as a sparring partner
I have been working continuously with digital image processing programmes since 1992 – long before artificial intelligence became a topic in the artistic context. AI-supported tools have been added in recent years. I don't use them to generate images, but to analyse, correct or specifically expand existing image material. Many of my texts are also created in dialogue with AI – as a form of a productive counterpart that asks questions, offers alternatives and sharpens judgements.
I don't see artificial intelligence as a substitute, but as a resonance chamber. As a system that reacts when I ask precise questions. As a mirror of my interest, my imprecision, my curiosity.
I change material without physically touching it – but I leave traces. Even when I work with digital tools, the artistic process remains one of intervention, decision-making and doubt. Artificial intelligence supports this process – sometimes clarifying, sometimes contradicting. It does not produce itself. In a way, this is similar to the inner counter-speech that every serious artistic process entails anyway. AI is not an origin, but a resonance. Not a substitute, but one tool among many – helpful if used critically.
And finally ...
... for me, art is a form of friendship with the world. A critical friendship – tough, uncomfortable, tender. One that listens, disagrees, suggests, doubts. One that doesn't lecture, but questions.
Art is an invitation to think. And perhaps sometimes – in happy moments – also an invitation to change.