Gregor Schneider interview

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Interview: Haruo Kobayashi Text: Akiko Inoue Photo: Masamasa Nishino

- This is the first time I've seen your work in person, but I've seen it on the web and in magazines. I would like to hear a lot of questions from you, including your impressions of the works exhibited at Yokotori 2014.

Born and raised in a coal mining town...

- First of all, Gregor and I are of the same generation. Of course, I grew up in a different culture, but I felt some sympathy with your approach to "rooms." I imagined that the era in which you lived influenced the way you perceived your room.What do you think?

Gregor Schneider (G) : Of course, the fact that I was born and raised in a coal-mining town called Reit in Germany has had an influence on me. Wright was a town with many unemployed people and many vacant houses, so in a sense, the entire town was my atelier and a place to create works. And it was in this town, which has an environment and atmosphere somewhat similar to Detroit, that my first work, House ur 1985-today, was born.

Thousands of people came to Wright each year to dig, and huge machines dug up the town. As a result, the town has continued to change rapidly. It can be said that 90% of Wright's town was destroyed after the war. In other words, more destruction was caused by mining than in any previous war.

My family has run a lead factory for five generations, and over the years some of the buildings have fallen into disuse. Unable to demolish it, I started building a ``house''. I think it's the same for everyone that their environment can be the trigger for them to start something.

- For example, in a city or town, I think of houses as something that separates things, but Gregor has created spaces that are further divided into rooms nested within the house. . First, please tell us about your approach to such rooms.

G : The most important method I use to create my work is to copy an existing room into or next to it. Create another room in your house, such as a bedroom, kitchen, small room, etc. I continue this kind of work to this day.

Let's take a look at some of the rooms in ``House UR''.

About “House ur”

G : These are not architectural spaces, but spaces that are works of art created within actual rooms. For me, the most important thing artistically is to create a complete room within a room. Rather than just dividing a room, we're duplicating the entire room, including the walls, floor, and ceiling. It's like an onion, when you peel the skin, there's another skin underneath. And there is no need for the viewer to be aware of this.

- Does what you just said mean that conceptually only the room can stand on its own as a room?

G : It depends on the work, but the rooms I create can actually be used and function as living spaces. I am replicating both its form and function. The ``Ur'' has running water and a room where you can sleep, so you can actually live there.

There is a room in ``House UR'' called ``Coffee Drinking Room'' (U R10), and while you sit inside and drink coffee, the room rotates once. It has a mechanism that allows it to return to its original state. However, it rotates so slowly that when visitors leave the room, they are unaware that the room has been rotating ever since.

...There is also a room with a similar mechanism in which the ceiling rises and falls very slowly. (Raises 5cm over 45 minutes, then lowers 5cm over the next 45 minutes)

The most important concept for me is to create rooms in an onion-like fashion, with another room within a room, and another room within that room, and so on, creating a room that actually existed. It means making it invisible. When this happens, the person in it no longer thinks about the room.

- Does this onion-like sensation occur inside the viewer's head?

G : I can't make a general statement because I think people have different opinions about it, but the UR looks like a normal house from the outside, so one day I was asked something like an insurance salesman. There was also. Also, someone I didn't know anything about came, had coffee and cake with me, and left without noticing anything. However, in reality, they were spending their time in the room surrounded by the works.

And the same can be said for myself. Although I was living a normal life in an isolated room in my "home", I continued to make renovations and changes to the point that even I no longer understood the original form of the room. is. For example, let's say you bury a black stone, a red stone, and a blue stone in a wall somewhere. A day later, when you think, ``Where did I bury it?'', the situation becomes even more confusing as you find yourself facing another wall in front of the same wall.

What you can see / What you can't see What you can recognize / What you can't recognize

G : For example, there is a ladder at the back of this room. But it is invisible. It's something I'm creating outside the room, but I can't see it.

- Even if the room is not recognized as a work of art, I think there is something you are ``setting up'' to the viewer. What is it?

G : Yes, the issue here is visible/invisible, recognizable/unrecognizable. A room created within a room is ``visible'' but not ``recognized.'' In other words, although it ``looks'' like a normal room, it is not ``recognized'' as a work of art. Here's the difference. In this way, my works are intricately intricate. Furthermore, the situations of people who visit vary, and their ideas about each room are also diverse. All I can say is that as visitors walk through it, they will ask themselves, "Can this really be considered a work of art?" And in the end, the very question of what "art" is disappears. In short, the boundary between life and art disappears.

- How do you perceive a "room" as a work of art?

G : For example, when I look at a painting, I stand in front of it. When looking at a sculpture, walk around it. However, in the case of a ``room,'' you are surrounded by the work, and there is always something behind you, but you cannot see it. That's the difference. Also, when you create a room within a room, a shadow will be created between the wall of the original room and the wall of the new room. And the narrower the gap, the darker the shadow area becomes. I have been doing this kind of work, creating double walls and double rooms, ever since I started building UR in 1985.

Then, at the 2001 Venice Biennale (*2) , he dismantled part of the ``house'' he had built in his hometown of Wright, took it to another city called Venice, and reconstructed it.

- I was able to understand the mechanisms in your work, such as visible/invisible, recognizable/unrecognizable, and the way your works should be. So, are there any differences in the meaning contained in each work?

G : My first work, House ur, began as a personal act of living in a room, but since the Venice Biennale, I feel that it has taken on social and political aspects as well.

About “death”

- How do you perceive "death"?

G : I view death as a natural scientific problem.
There is a work called ``Chamber of Death,'' and the title is an architectural expression that has the meaning of ``a hidden place.'' Tot means "death" in German, but the word "Toter Raum" here includes the meaning of "a place that cannot be entered" or "no exit" or "dead end."

In this work, I created a ``room of death'' in the same way that I create a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. And the death room is not a special place for me, it is one of the rooms that exists as ordinary as a bedroom or a kitchen.

What I'm trying to say is that for me, there is nothing that separates my life and my works of art. Inside the room, you can live, that is, you can live, and you can also die. And dying is also part of living. For me, death is a sculptural act. And it is also a task that each of us must inevitably accomplish.

-Do you mean that your work is your own world?

G : Not the world. My work is an architectural work, and it is a concrete three-dimensional object. And for me, a work of art cannot exist without being built. In other words, it cannot be called a work unless it is specifically constructed and created, rather than the concept of ``the world.''

To build is to approach the unknown

There is a work called ``White Torture.''

This work is a recreation of Camp #5 at Guantanamo (*3) , which is isolated from the public eye due to strict security, based on materials on the internet. I also take rooms that are inexplicable to me, or that I cannot step into, and turn them into works of art.

By doing this work, you can learn how it was created. And when you make it the second time, you'll understand why you did what you did the first time.

You can see Guantanamo's torture chambers online, but you can't go there yourself. So the only way for me, as a sculptor, to approach that place is to build it based on the information given to me.

- For you, is building the same as thinking?

G : For me, building is a means of self-completion, a process of trying to understand things. There is a work called "Cube" that was inspired by the building of the Kaaba (*5), which was made using black stone (*4) . By creating this work, I was able to realize the physical experience of standing in front of a black stone, something that would normally not be allowed to me as a non-Muslim. This is my way of approaching the completely unknown and incomprehensible. In the case of this work, by imitating a building, I am able to confront the subject matter.

- Why do you choose to create an installation in a hidden place like that? Or why do you deliberately hide the situation and display what is invisible? Does that mean it's impossible for a person to see everything anyway?

G : It's hard to generalize because each work is different, but for me, that's all there is to it.

About Yokohama Triennale 2014 exhibited works

- Your work installed in the parking lot space at Yokotori 2014 had a more "closed" feel to it.

G : For me, this work is something new and different from anything I've done before.

― I think one of the keywords that Yasumasa Morimura, artistic director of Yokotori 2014, suggests is "oblivion." This time, I would like to talk about the work "German Uncustod" that you created in the parking lot space. What kind of relationship do you think these keywords have?

G : I don't know if this work has anything to do with "oblivion." This is because this work is new to me as well. Also, as always, the work always absorbs itself, and starting something is an intuitive process, so there are many things that even I don't understand. In other words, I'm doing something that I don't understand. It's interesting for me to be here in Yokohama and to be making abstract things again.

In the past, I created a separate entrance to an art museum from the normal entrance, creating a space that was open 24 hours a day. Art museums are public facilities built to display paintings and photographs, so it is extremely difficult to create such a space, but the friction that arises when creating such a space is also interesting to me. is.

Regarding this work, as part of the white exhibition space of a public facility called a museum, there is a dark and muddy space at the bottom, and being able to walk inside it is an interesting experience for the viewer. I think it will become. (*)

Translation: Takae Ichimura