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The AI Interview: Christian Hellmich
"Bauzaun," 2006
Christian Hellmich
Installation view: Christian Hellmich at Lehmann Maupin Gallery
"Eingang III," 2006
Christian Hellmich
"Schänke," 2005
Christian Hellmich
Installation view: Christian Hellmich at Lehmann Maupin Gallery
Installation view: Christian Hellmich at Lehmann Maupin Gallery
"Trinkhalle," 2005
Christian Hellmich
"Eingang IV," 2006
Christian Hellmich
Christian Hellmich (1977年生) 是往纽约发展的德国新浪潮年轻艺术家的其中一员。他最新的个展<排列> 在纽约画廊 Lehmann Maupin gallery 展出，这是他在美国的第一个展览，还没开幕画就已经全买出去了。
by Robert Ayers
NEW YORK, July 5, 2006—Christian Hellmich (born 1977) is among the latest wave of young German artists to make their mark on the New York art scene. His current show, “Arrangement,” at New York’s Lehmann Maupin gallery, is his first solo exhibition in this country. The entire show sold out before it opened.
It comprises mostly large-scale, oil-on-canvas paintings depicting bleak views of post-industrial urban architecture. This depiction is never straightforward, however, and space in his pictures is often complex and broken, with objects and structures often placed together without regard for reality.
When he spoke to ArtInfo, Hellmich confessed that this would be his first published interview.
“Arrangement” is on view through July 14.
Christian, I wonder if I could start by asking you about your influences and about how your painting has arrived at this particular point.
Gerhard Richter is very important to me, because of his question about what painting is, which is what interested me most when I was a student.
Another thing that was really important to me was the simple act of drawing, because as you’re working, it’s a constant balance between being satisfied and correcting, again and again. My painting process has a lot to do with this—there might be mistakes along the way, but this is what makes the final thing interesting.
Talk to me a little bit more about this process.
Well, at first the paintings tend to be very abstract, and then I decide upon a motif.
Can you explain that? Do you mean you discover your subject matter in abstraction?
That is one possibility. Often it is abstraction that’s at the heart of it, but sometimes it’s totally different and you have an idea for a painting that you want to do. You think it will work well with an abstract ground, but then you abandon parts of your idea, and it becomes something totally different.
There is always what Max Ernst used to call an “optical provocation,” and when you discover this, things change. Often it’s because you’re working with a combination of several photographs, drawings and sketches, and you take these and you put them together like a puzzle.
Could you take an example, and show me the sort of thing that you’re talking about?
This painting [Schänke, 2005] is quite typical. It’s a motif that I found near my studio when I worked in Essen. It looked a little different to this—the original place was much lighter—but what I found exciting was this staircase going down. Like I explained earlier, it started out abstract. It was very drawing-oriented to begin with, but the flatness of these cheap tiles became interesting to me, and the balance between flatness and space—the depth that you could create by just putting areas of paint together. This is the important point for me. Just the act of putting things together to create a cohesive space [he traces his finger along the stair railing] regardless of whether that space reads correctly.
Do you feel there’s something specifically German about your work?
Well, I don’t feel as though I’m part of a tradition, but I suspect I’m too much part of one to leave it behind me. I grew up in Germany and studied there, but certainly there’s no symbolism about it for me. All I can say is that you might see a little bit of the Ruhr region in my work, because of this cheap pre-War and 1950s architecture that I use.
Yes, architecture is a constant in your painting.
The paintings are not about architecture, they’re about painting, but architecture’s a good reflection of painting.
Because they’re both about the definition of space?
For me, architecture is about the difference between inside and outside. It’s not a closed system, it’s about openness.
So finally, can I ask what you think people will take away from your paintings?
That’s a good question. It is impossible for me to say what they are about, or what the point of them is. But it’s this idea of openness, so that every viewer has the possibility to discover something for themselves.
"Bauzaun," 2006
Christian Hellmich
Installation view: Christian Hellmich at Lehmann Maupin Gallery
"Eingang III," 2006
Christian Hellmich
"Schänke," 2005
Christian Hellmich
Installation view: Christian Hellmich at Lehmann Maupin Gallery
Installation view: Christian Hellmich at Lehmann Maupin Gallery
"Trinkhalle," 2005
Christian Hellmich
"Eingang IV," 2006
Christian Hellmich
Christian Hellmich (1977年生) 是往纽约发展的德国新浪潮年轻艺术家的其中一员。他最新的个展<排列> 在纽约画廊 Lehmann Maupin gallery 展出，这是他在美国的第一个展览，还没开幕画就已经全买出去了。
by Robert Ayers
NEW YORK, July 5, 2006—Christian Hellmich (born 1977) is among the latest wave of young German artists to make their mark on the New York art scene. His current show, “Arrangement,” at New York’s Lehmann Maupin gallery, is his first solo exhibition in this country. The entire show sold out before it opened.
It comprises mostly large-scale, oil-on-canvas paintings depicting bleak views of post-industrial urban architecture. This depiction is never straightforward, however, and space in his pictures is often complex and broken, with objects and structures often placed together without regard for reality.
When he spoke to ArtInfo, Hellmich confessed that this would be his first published interview.
“Arrangement” is on view through July 14.
Christian, I wonder if I could start by asking you about your influences and about how your painting has arrived at this particular point.
Gerhard Richter is very important to me, because of his question about what painting is, which is what interested me most when I was a student.
Another thing that was really important to me was the simple act of drawing, because as you’re working, it’s a constant balance between being satisfied and correcting, again and again. My painting process has a lot to do with this—there might be mistakes along the way, but this is what makes the final thing interesting.
Talk to me a little bit more about this process.
Well, at first the paintings tend to be very abstract, and then I decide upon a motif.
Can you explain that? Do you mean you discover your subject matter in abstraction?
That is one possibility. Often it is abstraction that’s at the heart of it, but sometimes it’s totally different and you have an idea for a painting that you want to do. You think it will work well with an abstract ground, but then you abandon parts of your idea, and it becomes something totally different.
There is always what Max Ernst used to call an “optical provocation,” and when you discover this, things change. Often it’s because you’re working with a combination of several photographs, drawings and sketches, and you take these and you put them together like a puzzle.
Could you take an example, and show me the sort of thing that you’re talking about?
This painting [Schänke, 2005] is quite typical. It’s a motif that I found near my studio when I worked in Essen. It looked a little different to this—the original place was much lighter—but what I found exciting was this staircase going down. Like I explained earlier, it started out abstract. It was very drawing-oriented to begin with, but the flatness of these cheap tiles became interesting to me, and the balance between flatness and space—the depth that you could create by just putting areas of paint together. This is the important point for me. Just the act of putting things together to create a cohesive space [he traces his finger along the stair railing] regardless of whether that space reads correctly.
Do you feel there’s something specifically German about your work?
Well, I don’t feel as though I’m part of a tradition, but I suspect I’m too much part of one to leave it behind me. I grew up in Germany and studied there, but certainly there’s no symbolism about it for me. All I can say is that you might see a little bit of the Ruhr region in my work, because of this cheap pre-War and 1950s architecture that I use.
Yes, architecture is a constant in your painting.
The paintings are not about architecture, they’re about painting, but architecture’s a good reflection of painting.
Because they’re both about the definition of space?
For me, architecture is about the difference between inside and outside. It’s not a closed system, it’s about openness.
So finally, can I ask what you think people will take away from your paintings?
That’s a good question. It is impossible for me to say what they are about, or what the point of them is. But it’s this idea of openness, so that every viewer has the possibility to discover something for themselves.
有点感觉的！不错顶！
