Collection: Eric Andersen

A conversation with Erik Andersen...
...and the exhibition features objects, wall works and paintings by you. Can you say something basic about your working method?
My working method is as follows: I think about what I want to depict and then consider whether this idea is more suitable for an installation, a sculpture or a painting. Then, of course, come all the formal considerations: finding the right material, the format or the type of presentation. The work Handshake, for example, is intended to be touched in the exhibition. - You are meant to touch it. I think that's why ceramics were a good choice. With the mask, the self-portrait, it was more a matter of content. For some other works made of epoxy resin, it was necessary to wear a protective mask during daily production. Since these works were objects lying around in a workshop, such as cable drums or saw blades, with which I wanted to do something, I came up with the idea of ​​documenting this whole work situation with the self-portrait.
So your ideas for new works arise as a kind of logical consequence of previous works?
It varies. During a longer stay in the USA a few years ago, for example, I was far away from all the museums, galleries, my own studio, other artists and all the things that influence you. That made me start to think about the material I use every day. The first canvas work was a turning point in my work. I liked the empty, dark canvas, but at the same time it was completely worked on. The paradox of fullness and emptiness at the same time and the reference to painting itself. The canvas works are each an enlargement of the structure of a small section of canvas. They do not claim to be photorealistic. The first canvas is almost 9 m², but is based on a section of canvas measuring around 20 cm.
The same applies to the work Cord. The pixel structure is based on the surface texture of a small canvas work, a painted cable drum, which I then painted again in a much larger format.
The aspect of magnification also appears in your sculptures.
Yes... the handshake is about three times as big as the living impression I made at the beginning. This was necessary in order to be able to reach into it. I then took the traces of this first, rather rough impression when modeling the final form.
In the work Self-portrait, the negative form of my face and the bands around the empty volume are exactly twice the size of the original. However, the more or less exact form is more a necessity to refer to the content than an end in itself.
Is this also the case with the work Handshake? Since I know the work, I know that it is less an object to look at than to try out...
Yes, the openings on both sides through which you can shake hands are actually dead ends. You can't really touch the other person's hand. The promise of this gesture is not fulfilled. I was preoccupied with the question of how we treat each other.
If you know the artist Gordon Matta Clark, you might find quotes from his work in yours.
This is certainly the case in the work Cut. Gordon Matta Clark has cut through houses completely, I am just simulating the cutting through of a wall. A wall that is cut through relatively close to the ground actually collapses, it loses its security. That is the moment that interests me: what was supposedly safe becomes a factor of uncertainty.
The same applies to the ladder made of knotted extension cables. It actually tempts you to pull on it or climb it. But since the installation is only held in place by two sockets on the ceiling, you hesitate. This fragile connection bears the weight of the work up to a height of perhaps seven or eight meters... This balancing act interests me as a metaphor.
I would like to know how you came up with the title Done, which you gave to a very small work on which it is difficult to make out anything.
Yes, similar to the wall work Daylight or the picture Atelier, Done refers to everyday life in the studio. What is now barely recognizable in the picture was once a realistically painted rag smeared with paint. Painting over it is perhaps equivalent to taking away the rag, removing the traces of work. And yet at the end something remains - at least the brush full of paint.

- Juliane Lachenmann and Erik Andersen, Berlin, September 2014

CV