Birgit Dunkel
NY Arts
courtesy of Birgit Dunkel
Birgit Dunkel’s "Madonna Series," which has been incarnated as a photo exhibition as well an installation at a church, is inspired by that most well-known woman of the Christian faith. In opposition to her celebrity stands her real importance for the religion. She is acknowledged as the mother of Jesus Christ, yet in the holy bible, she is just mentioned seven times. The mass of iconography modeled after her conveys little about her life, her feelings, her relation to her son and her opinions as a woman. Dunkel’s work takes off from the premise that all women are potential Madonnas. She captures the heroic, the holiness, the big, in small moments.
NY ARTS: What is your motivation for making art?
Birgit Dunkel: It’s the only way to research the living and at the same time invent new worlds and parallel lives. It’s a way to get out of this hell. Looking at things, seeing–the pleasure of looking and the obsession of seeing. The camera is my glasses, enabling me to see more than there is. A deep love for creation and the sensuality of all kinds of material. The making of good art is a process of creation that is comparable to a religious action. It is the opposite of human banality, which finds the reason for living in pleasures and the egoistic reproduction of itself.
NY ARTS: How would you describe what it is that you do?
BD: First, I make my observations. I have a look at all kinds of appearances: architecture, fashion, politics, language, literature, sciences, the state of thinking, and naturally the state of the arts. Then I compare it with what really touches me, and where it connects to my work. I look where I can get with my own instruments and try something new…Making photography is like inventing a new world by looking into the visible world from a certain perspective: "reality is a construction" (Kracauer).
NY ARTS: What kind of music do you listen to while you work?
BD: Music inspires me a lot. It gives me connection to a greater body, and can reload my energy. Some of my favorites at the moment are: Moby (in this world/18), Air, The Necks, AMP Fiddler, the sampler Comfort Zone and the pianists Fazil Sai and Glenn Gould playing Bach.
NY ARTS: Do you think art still serves a social function?
BD: I don’t think art should be obviously political or social. Good art always matters in terms of social and political themes, concerning questions of humanity. For example Joseph Beuys, who really influenced the political field as well as in the arts.
NY ARTS: Has there ever been a particular space that inspired your work? Where do you work best?
BD: After traveling around, I come back to my studio, full of thoughts and impressions. Then I do love being alone.
NY ARTS: Do you experience creative blocks? What gets you out of them?
BD: I need to meet inspiring people, and have discussions about deep questions. I need to see my daughter, she gives me connection to the basics: just breathing, just being, just feeling something. Everything else is construction and imagination. Or I take a walk in nature, that’s similar. Or I go to the museum. Seeing art refreshes my passion. It’s like coming home…
NY ARTS: Donald Kuspit recently titled his book, "Art is Dead". What is your response to the statement?
BD: The dead live longer … It’s good to die from time to time, so that you can experience rebirth!
NY ART: Who are some of the artists that inspire your work?
BD: There are a lot of photographers who inspired me, because they have the same love of the photographic picture. Obviously I have an affinity to Cindy Sherman, but there are also prosaic ones who inspired me, like Andreas Gursky. Others are Marina Abramovic for her radical and aesthetic clearness, Louise Bourgois for her power and mysticism, and in terms of a painters, I adore Jan Vermeer, whose view on atmosphere, light and soul is unique.
NY ART: What are some of your favorite exhibitions from the past year?
BD: In 2004 there was an amazing collection of cloud-pictures (paintings from several centuries) at the Bucerius Kunst-Forum in Hambourg, which is now at the Old National Gallery in Berlin. Andreas Gursky and students at the Engholm/Engelhorn Gallery in Vienna and the first exhibition of the New Museum for Contemporary Art (at "Mönchsberg") in Salzburg/Austria.
NY ARTS: Please complete the statement: I am most _______ when I am _______.
BD: I’m most satisfied when I’m in the process of working; forgetting the rules; my photographic memory.
NY ARTS: If you could collaborate with any other artist, living or dead, who would you choose, why, and what would you hope to work on together?
BD: Maybe Olafur Eliasson. I would like to see new combinations of photography and light and the creating of new rooms. I would like to know how he "sees."
