CONSTRUCTED COLOUR - Interview Questions 2004

Kyle Jenkins

KJ: What do you think Constructed Colour represents?

DG:Construted Colour represents a conglomerate of different positions by  artists who work mainly in the field of painting developing painting into three-dimensional space by using different material and techniques to ‘construct’ a work of colour.

KJ: What does your process of making mean to you?

DG: The process of making demands the analization of the existing spatial situation and its conditions. Meeting and respecting the real existing space allows working site-specific and in an unique way.

KJ: What type of work do you do, and do you classify it as being one thing more than another e.g. painting or architecture. Or, do you believe that you produce a kind of construction dealing with concepts and concerns in which the final product is a visual answer to a problem you have set up?

DG: Regarding Constructed Colour I classify the work I do as installation. It is based on the concept mentioned above (2). The work results in a collaboration/commmunication between (the conditions of) the existing space and my ideas and concepts concerning this specific spatial situation.    

KJ: Do you think your projects are continuations of linear conceptual concerns that are upheld over a period of time?

DG: My conceptual concerns are basically linear, and they are upheld over a period of time. A new (spatial) situation enables to develop new steps. I understand visual art is slow, it takes time to make new steps. I can not force a concept, it is ideal if changes happen within new conditions. It is also possible to work on several different projects at the same time. This allows parallels and a non-linear way of working.    

KJ: Do you believe your work is about presentation or representation?

DG: I believe my work is strongly (about) presentation and existence. I try to create a natural co-existance as an entity of the existing space and the work. The work is the entity of the space and my creation. Both parts do exist simultaniuosly  in the same space and time. They have the same presence, it’s one.

KJ: When you work with historical inquiry, it functions as a foundation for future action to proceed. Do you agree? Have you ever been directly concerned with any historical inquiry and what was it specifically about?

DG: If I work with historical inquiry, I do agree. I understand my work partly as a development from historical inquiry  as there is e.g. merz/dada, concrete art, minimal art and others. But it is also possible to ignore the historical inquiry. This can allow more independent proceedings into unknown fields.

KJ: Does your practice embrace formal concerns like unity and simplicity? Are formal concerns intrinsic to your practice? If not why not?

DG: Yes, it does. It is one of my  central concerns to reach unity or/and simplicity by proceeding from a subjective(informal) to an objective (formal) language and vice versa, similar to proceeding from private to public and vice versa, too. This can create a balance and entity between the ‘contrary’.

KJ: What kinds of projects have you been involved in that have allowed you to extend your own practice?

DG: I have been involved in different projects that have allowed to extend my own practice as there have been  2 artist recidencies (6 months) in both Australia and USA. I will begin a new artist recidency

in New York in the first 6 months of 2005. Other projects have been collaborations with artists from

different countries e.g. Japan, Australia, Germany, Switzerland. In addition to that I am participating

for many yers in art competitions for Art in Public Space. These different fields can extent one’s own practice.

KJ: Do you believe that by working with other people, through projects that your own work becomes more informed. Do you believe that another people’s work can set up questions about your work that may not have been asked before?

DG: Sometimes yes. Many of the collaborations have been with painters. Since my work is mainly site-specific, my concerns are slightly different to the concerns painters have. Colour, texture and light are usually the painters concerns, space, structure and proportion are more my concerns.

KJ: Do you think it’s only looking back that one can see the limits and define them or clarify the choices that were made?

DG: If the concept is linear, maybe yes. If the concept is not linear or there is no concept, one does not necessarily have to look back. You do this and then you do that and then something else without a connecting concept for all works. Sometimes the works can be very different.

KJ: What type of work are you doing now?

DG: There are different types of work I am doing now. I am working on an installation concept for an exhibition that will come up soon, some different multiples for several group shows, a private commission, and I am preparing for a residency  that will come up soon in New York.

KJ: What types of choices are available to you now, that weren’t when you were first starting out?

DG: Knowledge about material, techniques, skills, tools, reflexion on the work, contexts, art history have been developped over the years. Seeing art exhibitions in real, experimenting and observing in different fields of art and life make the choices grow.

KJ: Do you feel your new work has changed the basis of criticism that has been directed towards how your work as a whole is viewed?

DG: Now that we have entered another century completely, is there any discernable difference in contemporary art making that you have observed? If not, why has little changed in your opinion?

The computer technology enables to work fast, and enables to create inside the machine. The quality of many art works is more and more orientated on the surface and the presentation of the work. A tendency of personal (private) myth is to see. The private gets more public, and the public turns into private. This is to see in art and life.

KJ: Have the formal concerns informing your practice, changed or been manipulated in anyway as time has gone by?

DG: The formal concerns have developed towards a more open field of using different ways of practice, technique and material simultaneously. The process of working shifted from formal pre-concepts to more flexible and partly improvised concepts.

KJ: Do you think everything you need to know is within the made work, or is it the visual framework that provides the foil for further discussion?

DG: The made work is basically the whole information one needs. It is the entire articulation. Using it as a framework for further discussion is a different level and always secondary and descriptive, later in time, outside reaction on what is already existing.

KJ: Are you limiting your artistic activity or your boundaries by formalizing what you do?

DG: Limiting and reducing are misleading words. They imply that there is something more one has to choose from, not just doing this. Doing something is concrete as such, not a reduction or a limitation from something more. There is no limitation, only a choice of doing.

KJ: What do you feel is the aim of your art?

DG: Existence of art in the world.  

KJ: Do you believe that form and content play a role in your production, and how does your intentions relate to those concerns?

DG: Form and content are simoultaneous parts of the production. Sometimes form is content.

KJ: Do you think location is important in regards to the nature of the work?

DG: Yes, location is important, and it can have a strong influence to the nature of the work. Spending longer time in different locations can show this importance.

KJ: How do you think your work is judged? Do you believe there is any judgment system suitable to your practice?

DG: Generally spoken every judgment of anybody should be accepted. Anybody’s judgment is suitable

to my system and to the person who judges. Many of my works deal with a basic geometric language and ordinary (and sometimes) cheap material. I use a deductive system in an inductive way and I try to keep the level of general seeing, perceiving and understanding.

KJ: Is there any historical precedence in art that relates to what you have been doing?

DG: Merz (Dada), Konkrete Kunst , Minimal Art , Conceptual Art are some historical precedences that  relate to what I have been doing.

KJ: What was it like being involved in the Constructed Colour project? Do you see the project as an

extension of what you have been doing?

DG: It was a pleasure to be involved in the project. It is not an extension of what I have been doing, it is

what I have been doing for some years. The extension was getting to know other artists and their positions regarding a project like that.

KJ: In the conceptual framework of ideas within which you work, are these ideas turned over and worked in various ways, further is there a limit to that in your opinion?

DG: The conceptual framework is a flexible system of ideas, movements and material choices that can change from work to work or from series to series. Each location or situation and its condicissions demand a new specific way to work with.

KJ: Is there anything else you would like to say about your art work or your contemporaries’ practices or about the Constructed Colour project that hasn’t been raised?

DG: One aspect about the Constructed Colour project is the title. It is interesting, since my understanding

of the project was literally to a certain point. My contibution had to do with the construction of colour without using paint and painting. I am pleased with the result.

Daniel Göttin, Basel

Dezember 2004