I didn’t think it’s that visible, but the fact that you start with this is really interesting because yes, that is what I concern myself with and that is also how it started. I come from a painterly background and although I work with textiles and materials, I continue to see my works as paintings.
One day I visited the junkyard where my dad works as a truck mechanic, and I found a piece from a truck made up of the interior fittings, that I took apart and then stripped. From this stripped textile the surface made itself visible and resembled a painting to me.
Yes, and I compare the action itself to skinning an animal. I call the work itself my prey and the act of skinning is extremely brutal to me. I go out into the world and procure desired automobile parts. I refer to the material findings that I strip as ‘auto-skin.’ The way I think about my work as I create it is in tangent with the processes of painting.
Maybe it’s not obvious at first sight, but hunting for the material and the act of skinning is such a close, visceral and bodily experience, that it could be interpreted as such. It’s also extremely important to know where these auto parts come from. The German diction “auto schlachten” translates to “car scrapping” or “car dismantling” in English. It refers to the process of breaking down a car for parts or recycling. Yet in German, “schlachten” is also commonly referred to as “slaughter,” in relation to butchering animals.
When I search for new car parts online, I exclusively deal with men. “An Audi80 will be ‘slaughtered’ today,” they write – a really sick car! As I get to the junkyard, the men are irritated and shocked to see a woman confronting them. In a confused state, they ask one another “what is she going to do with these pieces?” We are talking about parts they don’t want to sell me that often cost two euros! They look at me, weirded out, and say “you don’t even own a Porsche 911.” Parts are sold to repair or replace older models.
Every work incorporates one car. All works hanging from the wall include the title ewige Äsung. “Ewig” translates to eternal, and “Äsung” is a term used for a ritual that takes place in hunting, where the huntress makes peace with her prey by inserting a green branch into the dead animal’s mouth. As mentioned, I see my work as my prey. The series of three are made from remnants of a BMW X5, Porsche 911, VW Beetle Type 3 and an Audi 80. The remaining sculptural pieces, including the two functional sofas and the three series in the corner of the booth are titled Letzter Bissen, meaning “final bite.”
I approach paintings similarly to my sofas. I don’t plan the three dimensionality or the form in advance, I start with one part, and continue from there intuitively. It’s a process-oriented way of working and the form appears throughout the assembling. I start by collecting materials that interest me, and start with a small section that then expands from there.
That’s a very interesting question. I think I could always continue to work on a piece. To me, an exhibition always depicts work as a snapshot in a given moment. The process never ends, and if it makes its way back into my studio, it’s likely I’ll go back to it.
I call all three of them my “trophies.” I started thinking about what form I’d give my trophy, and so the motif of a shoe, a hairbrush or a bag really resonated with me. I wanted to choose a form that represents stereotypical femininity – qualities, characteristics, or attributes traditionally associated with women.
Absolutely, I find these gender roles ridiculous… Materials I use are also charged with histories. For example, the incorporated Volkswagen Beetle is a car that was affiliated with the era of national socialism. The Volkswagen Beetle has historical ties to the National Socialist era in Germany, as it was initially conceived as part of Adolf Hitler’s vision for a “people's car,” a vehicle that could be affordable for the average German citizen. Every item is attached to its history, and I try to free it from that meaning and shape it into a renewed form. I think it’s extremely important that I determine the form of my body of work.
