COLLECTIVE 8

ANNE SCHWALBE

Collective focus on the artistic process of one emerging artist; we learn about their sculptural practice and how it relates to construction, deconstruction, or both. Questions by Joanna Cresswell.

Tell us about your process. What reference or influence (if any) do you take from other mediums?

Are these pictures concerned with exploring formal and aesthetical interests – studies of form, colour, movement, how things work together, or are they representational, metaphorical? What is the weight that holds these pictures together?

Are you a photographer or an artist using photography?

Does your work reflect on the medium of photography or the photographic image? If so, is that intentional?

Typically, are your works more about construction or deconstruction?

Are you interested in the notion of your pictures as objects? Do you think about how their physicality may endure as you are photographing them or is that an afterthought?

Often sculptural photographic works are concerned with elevating banal objects, situations or events to a status of ‘art’ – when does something become art for you?

All these questions feel as if they are about this one big question - what is art? I think you cannot answer this question; at least I cannot answer the question. Art can be everything. I work and decide very much with my intuition. I don’t plan my photographs. I just take photos. And then sometimes, when I can see a structure or a theme in my photographs I also go to places that could be good. With Vulkan oder Stein it was an open cast mining for instance. I try not to think too much. I don’t like to deal with theories. I don’t think art becomes better art because of a complicated concept behind. I think it is good that there are people who like theories, that there are people who like to think a lot. But I like working with my hands. I am very much inspired by daily life, by nature, by walking in the fields. I am inspired from a great evening with friends. I am inspired by cutting wood, by planting an apple tree, by heating the oven. I am inspired by sewing or by a pottery class I took recently where I made some plates. Things I see online inspires me also. I am very much inspired by calmness and tranquillity. (Byung-Chul Han: You need to have silence and tranquilness and emptiness if you want to be able to think.) I am inspired by old houses and their atmosphere. I am inspired by dancing. I am inspired by an exhibition of abstract sculptures and paintings. Whatever. I think there are so many things that goes into one piece of art. You cannot explain.