What are you working on at the moment?
The second work of the choreography film series is on the way. The first film ›Wish You a Lovely Sunday‹ (2021) has the German premiere at Julia Stoschek Foundation in Berlin and Düsseldorf from this September. Both films juxtapose, alternate and daringly try to merge two drastically distinctive situations through queer bodies and dance: the first was shot at the church Kirche am Südstern and the queer club SchwuZ in Berlin; and the second triggers the hypermasculinity glorified by Spanish legion soldiers’ annual Catholic ritual during the Holy Week and the hyperfemininity worshiped by numerous male dancers lifting up and carrying a love-thirsty female protagonist in Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet ›Manon‹ (1974). In this new film ›Love Your Clean Feet on Thursday‹ (2023), which will be premiered this November at Atelier Hermès in Seoul, six male gay dancers fill the gap between the conventional hyper binarity of gender presentations by materializing intimacy with their new choreography in Berlin-Grunewald.
Such haptic visuality in the immaterial medium and interest in beliefs are continued by my sculptural practice on the other hand. I try to build my imaginary temple with the sculptures and films and in this context I am currently working on a new series such as a monumental gay Christmas tree and Saint Nicholas the sausage following Saint John the white asparagus, known as ›Spargel‹ in German.
What are you reading or listening to right now?
I am reading ›Gender, Nation and Religion in European Pilgrimage‹, edited by Wily Jansen and Catrien Notermans, while listening to NewJeans’ new album. It is interesting that one tends to feel somehow dislocated either in one’s original community or in a resited surrounding and then in compliance with the needs one builds around oneself a mobile fortress made of certain beliefs in order to carry around and seek for the desired sense of belonging. It is not only limited to religions but also about collective culture, customs, norms and political inclinations.
What does good art education/outreach require?
When the art suggests or invites viewers to its own immersive parallel or multiplied realities and this experience makes their engagement to the (whatever) reality more meaningful.
Do you have a favourite building?
Churches in general rather than a specific building. Whenever I visit a new city, I get sucked into them as if I accidentally fell into sink holes. They often stand out with their own extravaganza, and almost force the visitor negatively or positively to adjust oneself for specific behavioral patterns, mindsets and moods. Their architectural design and configuration of objects formulate our postures in different styles from the daily routine such as looking up in awe or kneeling down. This urges us more actively to become involved with the objects and surroundings. Many people in the world have quite concrete (or at least vague) perceptions about the interior and exterior structure of churches. I like to embed these characteristics within my work: for instance, I would let viewers conceptually build a shrine in my exhibition by arranging my works, which are often inspired by church items or furniture, according to the religious architectural grammars. Furthermore, during the church visit I enjoy looking for quirky paintings and sculptures that differently minded artists in the distant past managed to create in spite of the centuries long rigid form of Christian arts. As a non-believer I consider this as my spiritual linkage.
Is there someone you would like to meet?
Cady Noland. I am still relatively a beginner, and she is a deliberate ender. I understand her frustration about the somewhat flimsy role of arts in suffocating societal issues, and I would like to hear how her life has been without producing works anymore since the powerful good-bye manifesto. Her legal battles now and then are well known, and her retrospective at MMK in Frankfurt in 2018 that basically shook me from head to toe was a big surprise to the world, so some might be wickedly excited to blemish her as a very calculated player, but regardless of the claim her determination, words and visualizations are still firmly impactful and valid. I do not know if this wish about meeting her is to defend myself still ›doing‹ it with more passionate excuses that I would counter-learn from her or if I want to become a better bad news consumer with life lessons from her, but I have a little hope that I might be able to provide myself with a room for enjoying the bitterness of the vicious circle of human history like biting a piece of 90% dark chocolate. I am also curious whether she would ruthlessly cut this little sprout or rather encourage me for now until I would start banging my head against the same wall that she confronted.
Do you have a daily ritual?
Duolingo: I am the happily abandoned husband when America Ferrera spontaneously travels to Barbieland.
What accessory or object could you not be without?
I am quite self contradictory: I love pervertedly feeling the goose bumps on my skin when I am in the middle of a maximalist lavish baroque church, but I also feel very mesmerized when I stroll along the Frankfurt airport in its clinically dry sublime. I never wear any accessory, but I keep around me a variety of things in the most efficient way like an alerted parent. Therefore, I do not have such a thing in the question as it can be nothing or everything.
What does sustainability mean for you?
When it is not narcissistic in the name of one’s own feelings.
What do you think Berlin’s artistic and cultural landscape needs?
Please bring back affordable studio spaces.
What do you do when you’re done working?
Daily cozy dinner with my partner. I appreciate details of repetitions in life, and all laughter, complaints and silence at the dinner table with him nourish and reset me for the next leap.