Interview: Daniel Richter

Since this is your first show in Scandinavia, could you please tell us how it all began – you being a painter?

I think I was doomed to be a painter but I suppressed it for a long time. When I turned 30, I were in a fox hole I couldn’t get out of till I decided to study art – and then I turned out to be a painter. I have no idea why I didn't start earlier. Well, maybe part of the explanation was that I didn't wanted to be a painter. Back then I looked down at artists, as they, in my view, weren’t able to exist in the real world, they live in their ivory towers, and I didn't want to live there. But now I like living there, I feel very warm and cosy. Then when I started to make art back in the 90´s painting wasn't in at all; the discussions at the universities had as point of departure the second wave of institutional criticism, gender mainstreaming, rereading Judith Butler and other related topics. I never understood that this theoretical stance was actually anti-painting; I just painted and thought that everybody was into painting, like everybody is into music. Eventually I found out that I was wrong, that only very few people actually painted, and I was confronted with the school of postmodern subtleties, that I found very limiting. Anyway, at first I tried to do stuff in an abstract way, to put as many elements into a painting as possible, to create some kind of overkill. It was an interesting time, but at the end of the century, there were a lot of propaganda about change and I thought: Maybe I should change too. So I did.

Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2008. 50,4 x 40,4 cm. Oil on canvas.		Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2009. 55,5 x 45 cm. Oil on canvas

Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2009. 140 x 120 cm. Oil on canvas.

How would you describe this change and was it very explicit?

Yes, the change was explicit and I was very aware of what I was doing. I moved away from abstraction and started to work in a more figurative way, and that's what I'm still doing. I had been thinking about what expectations teach us about reality, once you begin to argue against something the more fascinating it gets. For instance, the more you think about the limits of the symbolism connected to the representations of the body, the more you think maybe I should try it myself. It is always a challenge to work in a field that is already occupied and our understanding of the figurative representation of the body is more or less based on paintings – of course by now it is also heavily treated in photography or video. In addition there are not many ways to deal with the human body in painting, so the main thing for me was to find a way to transform this figurative representation into modern language. I have always been very fascinated by the French painters from the turn of the last century – not by the symbolists, but by painters like Bonnard, Vuillard, and Vallotton because of their beautiful, optimistic, and self aware way of painting. Their style was influenced by what we consider exotic countries and also by photography. You can easily see that, but nevertheless it is very beautiful. So that was one of the starting points: to pull that concept through the century and compress it, and see what I could make of it. It turned out to be a good thing for me, because when you find a field in which no one else is experimenting, you can at least make your own mistakes. Another starting point had to do with the fact that society began to crumble, and when I looked at the thing called the world I felt frustration, anger, tenderness, or whatever, and I began to think about, how I could transform that into a painting.

Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2008. 61 x 91,4 cm. Oil on paper.		Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2008. 61 x 91,4 cm. Oil on paper.
Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2008. 61 x 91,4 cm. Oil on paper.		Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2008. 61 x 91,4 cm. Oil on paper.

All the works on show here are new, what are they about and are they somehow related to your earlier works?

It is a body of works, that touches topics, or issues, on which I have been focusing the last two or three years and they are, more or less, conceptually organized around drawings based on a photo from The New York Times, which I saw when I was teaching in New York last year. It was a very small photo, black and white, and even though it was quite vague, it sparked my imagination. I can’t remember if it illustrated a tribe coming down from the hills in the Pashtun region, members of a militant group or just shepherds; whoever they were, I find, they somehow represented our idea of the romantic person. It is a type of person that the western society tries to ban, but at the same time we are exactly focusing on this kind of person. That is one of the reasons why my works deal with both guns and guitars and the schism between the two. Our concept of a heroic, artistic figure is for instance condensed in the figure of Robert Johnson, the blues musician, a poor guy who has nothing to lose but all to win. He's alone, dealing with the devil and making music. On the other hand it is also connected with the hippie movement and their travels to North Africa, and in Europe the exoticism and beauty of the ornament comes from there, even the guitar comes from there, and I think everybody knows this, but there's a thin layer of lie around it. I am not trying to prove anything with this; it’s just a feeling – a very sad one. We see these pictures of our soldiers in Afghanistan – Denmark has soldiers there as well, right? – and ten years ago you would have said: They are monsters! They look like terminators, high tech soldiers compared with these guys with bare feet and guns that are a hundred years old! This mark a shift in our concept of heroism, we bring them our idea of freedom which to them is just pornography and loud rock music. But I will leave it up to the spectator to interpret for himself and to decide if the people in the drawings are musicians, soldiers, or even golfers.

Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2008. 61 x 91,4 cm. Oil on paper.		Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2008. 61 x 91,4 cm. Oil on paper.
Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2008. 61 x 91,4 cm. Oil on paper.		Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2008. 61 x 91,4 cm. Oil on paper.

Could you tell us a bit more about the romantic figure or the clash between the European/American culture, the desert warriors, and the freedom loving wild-at heart-type of persons?

Yes, if you for instance look at images and read literature on the topic, even before the Soviet invasion, the Afghans were always adored by Westerners. They lived a totally uncompromised life in the wilderness; they were considered a very honest, friendly, religious people. The German and English travel literature describes their strong love towards children and of course their strict regulations regarding the relationship between men and women, but it never specifically mentions the violence against women which we presently are very focused on. A man breaking the set of laws would also be killed. I'm not going to defend these restrictions, but the image of these people is, in my view, closely related to western romantic figures like the Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer mixed with the idea of blues music and the image of honesty. What I want to point out is the transformation of our view on for instance the Afghan people and how we suddenly have turned them into bad, evil people. Europe lives in a dreamlike state, where we believe that our concept of values and reality should be implemented as a worldwide standard. I totally defend our way of living, but I also find it narrow-minded to think that others will just say hello and welcome you and your ideas, especially if you have just killed their sons and brothers. You can't just say: I am sorry, but look; I brought you a DVD player. Now it sounds like my works are meant to be political – they are not! In terms of the drawings I just wanted them to be beautiful drawings and an investigation of how images communicate. I don't want to be known as the man defending the Taliban. Oh, that would be horrible.

Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2009. 42 x 29,7 cm. Oil on paper. Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2009. 42,1 x 59,4 cm. Oil on paper. Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2009. 90 x 120 cm. Oil on canvas.

What about the drawings with the girls – how do they relate to the schism between guns and guitars?

They are a bit different; I actually edited them last month. Some time ago I got a video from a friend, Jonathan Meese, which is somewhat pornographic. In general I am not very interested in pornography, but it's fascinating to see how the image of especially the female body has changed and how the communication and levels of participation between bodies has changed and varies. This film is shot during midsummer sometime in the 60's or 70´s, I don't know exactly when, and you can see that all the actors are professionals, they are not slave labors; it is starring both young and old guys and young and old women. In one of the scenes two girls run around in the country side dressed up in art deco feather boas and stuff. It is all very beautiful and it is very beautifully shot, the colors are mild and the moon is up. Then girls discover a naked man in a meadow, wondering what he is doing out there by himself, and they suddenly realize that he is giving himself a blow job. It's a cliché, I know, but if this image of a pale man fucking himself in the mouth is not a perfect symbol of western culture, I don’t know what is. And as such it is related to the other drawings, but I didn’t want the reference to be too obvious.

Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2008. 61 x 91,4 cm. Oil on paper.		Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2008. 42 x 29,7 cm. Oil on paper.

With these very serious subtexts in mind, why did you choose to call the exhibition Love Parade?

Well, you have to know that I am opening a show in Amsterdam in two weeks called Techno Warrior – that explains everything... Is Love Parade still known for what it was in the 90’s? I think it was disgusting, and I still find it disgusting, these techno events, but the name is great! A parade refers to something militaristic, and a love parade is certainly better than wearing helmets and marching – I prefer the parade to be a mixture of naked guys, stupidity, and contradictions.

Thanks.

Daniel Richter: Untitled, 2009. 42,1 x 59,4 cm. Oil on paper.

Daniel Richter: Studie zu Das erstaunliche Comeback des Dr. Freud, 2005. 220,1 x 170,3 cm. Oil on canvas. Daniel Richter: Alter Fuss, 2008. 40 x 50 cm. Oil on canvas