In advance of the launch of his first solo exhibition in China, Flowerbed in the Cellar at PIFO Gallery, Beijing, the artist Benjamin Appel discusses his work with London based curator and writer Adrian George.
Adrian George (A): Your practice is very much about space, your physical relationship to space and existence within any given space. I wondered therefore, how the two PIFO Gallery residencies have affected your work, your practice and your approach to you your current exhibition?
Benjamin Appel (B): Yes, that’s right. I think it’s developed gradually. It’s one of those things I do because ‘I can’t not do it’. I’m rather slow and need a lot of time to reflect and work. I believe that if you consistently do what you want – follow your instincts – then the result will be very close to what you want.
Being in Beijing for extended periods of time has been very important in the development of this exhibition particularly. It’s great to have the luxury of space and time to prepare for the exhibition and I really value the support I’ve received from PIFO Gallery.
A: PIFO Gallery was designed by Han Wenqiang of archstudio practice in Beijing. It’s an interesting space to curate as the design is quite open plan and sightlines are offered from above to below, below to above and into the various spaces. I imagine this is an exciting space for you to work in, ideal for your paintings as well as the sculptural installations. How have you approached the space? Do you spend as much time there as you do in the studio, which I think is a drive away from the gallery?
B: Han Wengiang’s design is great! The spaces are very open and conversely, they are also very intimate spaces at the same time. What I’m attempting to do with the space now is to create a total installation. The individual pieces are autonomous and yet fragments of a whole. It is very important that every piece is complete in itself and has the strength to stand alone. And yet, every piece on display has to be presented as fragment. Through the placement of the structures, an intermediary space arises between the two spaces at hand. This describes its own space and simultaneously opens the space that is already present. For me, it’s very important to be in the gallery spaces as often as possible. I had plenty of time to think about this exhibition in Germany. Now it becomes concrete.
A: One of your previous texts reads like a series of instructions for creating your installations or for directing someone’s perception of a space. In our early conversations I mentioned Yoko Ono's Instruction Pieces – where the work exists, from the artist's perspective anyway, as short texts setting out the parameters whereby the reader could/should create a/the work of art or a performance. I also mentioned Bruce Nauman, where, in an early work, he is shown delineating the perimeter of his studio space. Both, to me, seem relevant to your practice. Andreas Beitin references the work of Mondrian when writing about your paintings in his essay Thinking Negative Space... I wondered how you felt about these comparisons and references?
B: The works of Yoko Ono, Nauman and Mondrian are very important for me. There are so many artists that are important. Ono and Nauman have a very political presence. I think that this is an important difference. My work is more apolitical. My work is what you see. Concrete, plaster, chairs, tables, paint and a video with fish. When I have to paint, I often think of Claude Monet. I often think of the works by Francis Alys, Bas Jan Ader, even the pictures of Peter Doig. Yesterday I saw a very nice piece by Gillian Wearing. I’m pleased by these comparisons and references. Without these artists, my work probably wouldn’t have happened. In relation to my more recent video work I think of Der Lauf der Dinge (“The Course of Things”) – a Peter Fischli & David Weiss's film from 1987.
A: Andreas also references the use of everyday objects in your sculptures. I would go a step further and suggest that these are often mundane objects, that you have consciously selected the simple, utilitarian items for inclusion in your work. There is no over-design, no ulterior motive to these objects – to put it simply 'they are what they are', a paraphrase of the 'nothing more than what it is' idea set out by Dan Flavin and Frank Stella that Madeleine Frey references in her essay on your work. I'm intrigued to know the process by which these ubiquitous elements are transformed into your highly aestheticised and strict sculptural installations? It is an almost alchemical transubstantiation of the base into something of worth… something a great deal more than what it is.
B: Yes, you’re right. However, its not just objects, it’s quite similar with the space. The space is there. It exists. When I find an object that interests me, then I understand it as an object. Not in the sense of something ready-made. Now I ask myself the question of how this object can be united with the space. What happens when I put the table in the corner? Gaston Bachelard wrote that ‘a piece of furniture is a barrier, a wall covering a roof’. I don’t evaluate the objects. For me they remain what they are. The pictures are paint on canvas. Concrete remains concrete. A fish in an aquarium remains a fish in an aquarium.
Your comment on alchemical transubstantiation I find very good. I think of artists like Joseph Beuys, but also to the deep-field photographs of Gordon Matta-Clark. I do not want to see any sublimity in the concrete. Not in the oil colour either. I only work with it. The floor of the gallery is made of concrete. I have a chair. I would like to combine this with the gallery. So I construct a second concrete floor.
For my work the material is very important. The things are what they consist of. The image is not an image of rectangles. The image is colour that happens to be placed on the canvas in a series of overlaying rectangles. The material is not a medium – it is content. The object "flowerbed in the attic" is a concrete slab and a stool. Not the abstraction of a concrete slab and a stool. The object "flowerbed in the cellar" is a drywall and 5 metal objects. Not the abstraction of a drywall and 5 metal objects.
Objects = shape, material and space
Paintings = shape, material and space
Text = shape, material and space
Video = shape, material and space
The things are what you see.
A: This way of describing how you put elements together bring to mind ideas of the chimera or the combines of Robert Rauschenberg. Does that have any synchronicity with your practice?
B: Yes, it’s very important. With Robert Rauschenberg the goal was a reunification of artistic visual reality with the reality of life. This is an important distinction to the other material artists. When I remove a fragment from a concrete slab and place it on a stool, I take away the stool’s function as a stool. Instead of taking up space, it becomes the carrier of a new space. You could say that I’m looking for the simplest intervention to remove an object’s significance. Rauschenberg studied with Josef Albers, who is also very important for my work.
A: During your residencies in Beijing have you seen works by Chinese artists that have had a resonance with your work, or that you find interesting?
B: I’m fascinated by traditional Chinese art. The role of the subject and how space is handled is extremely interesting. There was always a very strong separation between subject and object in European art. The space in which the people were depicted was always some sort of backdrop or staged scene. Artists such as Caspar David Friedrich were able to move away from this tradition. Chinese artists recognized this challenge much earlier.
I believe the influence of traditional Chinese art on contemporary global art is very strong. This is about the simple gesture that can cause such a great effect. As an example of this ‘light touch’ in terms of art practice in China, just a few of days ago I saw a very impressive work – a constructed machine that, with the help of conveyor belts and rollers, very slowly carried tree leaves into the air and then let them fall. The falling leaves fell back onto the belt, which in turn brought them up into the air again.
A: I very much agree with you Benjamin. I think the Western hegemony in history and theory of visual culture has overshadowed the innovative and early developments in Chinese art practice. Time will demonstrate that many so-called advances in the West have been taken decades, if not centuries earlier in the East.
I was wondering how you decide on the objects you use in your installations. Do you collect the objects and play with them, rearranging them, seeing how they fit together or how they could fit together... and then look for materials that could work with that... or is it less conscious, more intuitive? Is it that you walk past a store and see something that catches your eye? I think you previously made some sort of table for PIFO Gallery from an everyday cheap stool that can be bought everywhere in China. Could you tell me a bit about how you find and combine these elements?
B: Intuition could lead us to where we consciously feel that a creative process could be closed. That’s what it could be about. In this regard, there’s no differentiation between various media. Intuition is probably tied to my experience. I don’t have a rational explanation that could describe to me why I become interested in a certain object. It’s similar with painting. When I paint, I don’t have a conscious idea of what it will look like. There is a simply a moment when it is finished. Recognizing this is probably based on intuition. Beyond that, there’s a series of instructions that the space as found (any given space) offers me.
A: Your sculptural works are quite bodily – they suggest a human scale – in the way that Le Corbusier resolved many of his design-objects and buildings based on standard human form. In that way each of your sculptural installations, in its most empiric sense, 'feels right' to the viewer. Could you tell me about your experience of space – in the studio, in the gallery etc.?
B: I did a piece that was made up of blueprints. These are from houses and apartment I’ve lived in. One house it is Puyo, a small town in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Another house is in a suburb of Augsburg, a mid-sized city in Germany. Thirteen blueprints have come together to date. A new one will be added upon the next move. It’s amazing that all of the blueprints reveal a very similar room makeup. There’s always a certain proportion between hallway, kitchen, bathroom, living room, and bedroom. I find it exciting. All of them are made up of rectangles. All of them have walls, floors, and ceilings. The proportions and the placement of my work follows this thought. The same thing happens when I draw rectangles. Even an aquarium usually consists of rectangles. The basement is usually underneath us, and the bed of flowers in the garden.
A: It is extraordinary how the floorplans of living places are replicated and follow a similar pattern. The rectangular form, as you say, does not appear in nature, yet it has somehow taken over our living environment. Many architects, such as Zaha Hadid for example, resist the rectilinear with their buildings but the interior design often ends up being box-like. However, we should not forget that in many countries, historically and in many places still now, people live in all sorts of different spaces where the floorplan is entirely different. In rural China, in the desert, on the Mongolian planes, circular dwellings and even cave dwellings are still prevalent. This might lead to a whole new body of work for you if your next home were to be a cave or a yurt!
B: When I leave the studio and head towards the gallery, I can see a building from Zaha Hadid. It’s beautiful. But that’s precisely the point – when an architect decides against the rectangular then it [their building] becomes a statement. When you visit the Uffizi in Florence, you can see very clearly how apparent mistakes can be smoothed over by tricks of perspective. It’s very interesting – the rectangle as the ideal perfect form.
Of course you’re right. Not all residences are rectangular. I personally spend very little time in my apartment. There’s a very large and beautiful wood directly in front of our apartment. That’s much more beautiful. I love the Ecuadorian rainforest. If I lived there now, then I surely wouldn’t be pouring any concrete slabs. If you take the world of colours there into account, then every attempt to paint appears meaningless. And concerning architectural pragmatism, think of a snail’s shell, which for all intents and purposes can be understood as the original hut.
Notes：
——————————————————————————————
1. Beitin, Andreas Thinking Negative Space, in the exhibition catalogue Den Keller mit Beton füllen (Fill the cellar with Concrete) Galerie der Stadt Sindelfingen am Sonntag, 2017
2. Bachelard, Gaston La Poétique de l'Espace (The Poetics of Space), Presses Universitaires de France, 1958
About the Author
