Jens Nippert Hand-Faust-Grenze, 2012 Wood, steel, thatch, clay 90 x 80 x 140 cm Photo by Philipp Külker
1. If you weren’t an artist, what else would you be?
What else would make sense? An artwork?
2. Can you tell us more about your work and what are the main ideas you would like to express?
My work deals with the very moment that something becomes art, what happens then? I want to understand that. To catch this very moment when something shows. In that sense, my way of working is experimental. I want to replace having ideas with practice. A permanent practice, that brings thinking and doing as close together as possible.
When we are talking about sculpture, that means also to join constructive and plastic elements. Inner structure and outer body shape in communication, like a physical being.
3. How do you start the process of making work?
Ideas, concepts aren’t a work plan, but have to sink into a physical practice during a sort of training process. They are not telling me what to do, but slowly inform the gesture of the work, until a form develops that is as non-theoretical as possible. Drawing is a necessary part of this process.
4. Do you consider the viewer, when making your work?
Since I am the first viewer of my work, of course. And sculpture is always about where is the viewer, and where is he or she is now. It is about presence as such. Terrible, if he or she is absent. I have to live with misunderstandings concerning their verbal interpretations because I try not to speak of finished mind products, but of developments instead.
5. Name 3 artists that have inspired your work.
Fischli und Weiss, Tatlin, Andre
6. What defines something as a work of art?
That it shows itself.
7. Anytime, any place – which artist’s body would you most like to inhabit?
None.
8. What was the most intelligent thing that someone said or wrote about your work?
Related to pieces like the one in the Berlin Art Prize show: “It is Minimal.”
9. Which artists would you most like to rip off, sorry, I mean appropriate as a critique of originality and authorship?
I don’t have a problem with someone who really manages to speak personally, and that is what ”originality and authorship” is for. Those who really try don’t get rich anyway because marketing is difficult for that.
10. Do you care what your art costs? State your reasons!
Don’t really understand. Like others, I have to make ends meet. My work causes costs only for myself.
11. What’s next for you?
To continue.
The Berlin Art Prize closes tomorrow Saturday 29th June with a special BBQ closing party.
www.berlinartprize.com
About The Prize
The Berlin Art Prize is a newly established independent award annually honoring contemporary art from Berlin.
On June 22nd, 2013 the Berlin Art Prize was awarded for the first time. Founded by contributors to Berlin’s arts and culture scene, the objective of the prize is to support the creative endeavors of Berlin-based artists. Four winners, selected by an independent jury of art professionals, where awarded with an exhibition, representation in a catalog, prize money and a two-week resi- dency in a villa in San Martino, Italy. An additional 20 shortlisted artists will be presented in the exhibition and catalog.
