How Could One Be In This World

I Go To The Studio Every Day, But I Dont Paint Every Day. I Love Playing With My Architectural Models. I Love Making Plans. I Could Spend My Life Arranging Things.

I Never Worked At Painting As If It Were A Job; It Was Always Out Of Interest Or For Fun, A Desire To Try Something.

When I First Painted A Number Of Canvases Grey All Over (about Eight Years Ago), I Did So Because I Did Not Know What To Paint, Or What There Might Be To Paint: So Wretched A Start Could Lead To Nothing Meaningful. As Time Went On, However, I Observed Differences Of Quality Among The Grey Surfaces - And Also That These Betrayed Nothing Of The Destructive Motivation That Lay Behind Them. The Pictures Began To Teach Me. By Generalizing A Personal Dilemma, They Resolved It.

Architecture Was, Or Is, A Kind Of Hobby, An Inclination I Have To Fiddling Around And Building Things. Putting Up Shelves Or Cupboards, Or Making Tools, Or Designing Houses ... It Always Has A Functional Or Social Motivation. If Social Changes Are In The Air, I Am Gripped Immediately By The Desire To Build, And I Think That I Accelerate Or Anticipate Changes In My Life By Doing So, At Least In Draft. In The Case Of My House, That Was Anticipation: In Other Words, First Build, Then Change One's Life.

There Was No Special Event That Made Me Decide. I Had Collected Some Photos And The Idea Was In The Back Of My Mind For A Long Time. It Was Growing And Growing, So Finally I Said, 'i Must Paint This.' I Come From East Germany And Am Not A Marxist, So Of Course At The Time I Had No Sympathy For The Ideas, Or For The Ideology That These People Represented. I Couldn't Understand, But I Was Still Impressed. Like Everyone, I Was Touched. It Was An Exceptional Moment For Germany.