Art

1987

Art has haunted me all my life but has not defined this life. She attracted me and I ran away from her depth. I never produced art despite excellent teachers and people I was privileged to observe at work – however, I never had to make a living from art either. After deducting all salaries for technology and people involved, I was always able to complete my projects without a loss, but also without a profit.

Add to that my approach: always perfectionist, elaborate and obsessed with detail. In my lifetime, therefore, I will probably realize only two or three works.

In the end it doesn’t matter, because at the core everything revolves around the same thing: Contact, longing, love and death with all the ramifications in detail.

My film Trouble and Soul was the first work in 1988, and to my complete surprise it won an award and was invited to international festivals. It was too much – in front of myself I didn’t deserve it – it was ONLY the first film after all, a short film – nothing but a small insignificant finger exercise, so to speak.

It took many years until 2020 for me to surrender myself to creative processes again.

There were two aspects: one was that in the meantime I really had nothing to say that was worthy of my framework of art. The other aspect was the fear of art and being swallowed up in the creative process.

In contact with artists and through profound changes in my life, something unimaginable to me just a few years ago has happened: I am focusing on two new works. One is the interactive video installation Time and the Space Between, the other is the feature film Pale Blue Dot.

At first I thought I had lost a part of my life during my artistic abstinence, but that is not the case: I have learned to realize big projects and to lead people. When working on larger works and in teams, it is precisely these “skills” and the humility associated with them that seem to me to be just as important as inspiration and creativity.

People and artists I was allowed to observe and learn from at their work:

ArtistWhat was it aboutThe work
Vollrad KutscherPerformance and installationThe White Dream
Gerhard ZwerenzLiterature (cinematic adaptation)The earth is as uninhabitable as the moon
Michael GielenOpera (Music)Parsifal / The Ring
Ruth BerghausOpera (Director)The Ring
Robert WilsonStage and lighting designThe Black Rider (Der Freischütz)

Management and humility