Month: April 2019

Simon, how would you call yourself?

I call myself an artist, a conceptual artist to be precise. However, the title of what I do does not really matter to me that much. At first, I didn’t really feel very comfortable calling myself an artist, now I don’t really care – I’m a human most of all.

When did you find out that you like to become a creative?

When I look back I was already most certain that I would like to work as a creative when I was in school and I decided against doing my a-levels, although I would have easily had the grades to do so. I was just convinced that I would never want to study law, medicines or any of those things. In fact, I didn’t really want to study at all and started my own fashion brand “SIMON&ME” directly after school.

Please tell us a bit about the steps of your art career so far.

After founding my own fashion brand at the age of 18 and running it for roughly 8 years, I basically spent most of the time of my professional life working in the fashion and design industry. It was only after those eight years, that I finally decided to stop all of my commercial work to make art.

In a way that’s what I always wanted to do, but I never really dared to consider myself an artist. The last collection me and my assistant created for my brand was so conceptual however, that it clearly stepped over the line in terms of being a commercial brand, while still being within the fashion context. When we showed this concept in Copenhagen there was only one – highly conceptual – store, which decided to stock our items and as this clearly was too little to make a living and there is only a very small handful of these kind of stores in general – I sort of brought myself in the uncomfortable position needing to close the brand, while in the comfortable position as well being ready to make the step into the art world.

After making this decision I worked a full-time job, to finance my art for about one and a half years and after also quitting the job I started to study fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich.

What inspires you?

I’m very inspired by films and videos. I love watching videos on Vimeo for example and always include my favorite at the of my “newsletter”. It sounds cheesy but in general I’m mostly inspired by life itself, which is also the topic of the films and videos I enjoy, like documentaries for example.

As I’m not into decorative art I don’t need visual inspiration that much. I’m mostly looking for topics and thoughts, which I find interesting to work with.

You made various design objects. Can you tell us about one or two?

Some of my artworks from 2015 are the remains of the transitional period from my brand towards art and therefore are probably as much design object as they are artworks. One of my favorites from that time is the “wooden ladder“, which was handmade by a local crafts smith in Berlin from a local walnut tree and another one, also made from wood but painted white, which was the base for my installation from 2018, called “onwards & upwards“. The funny part about those ladders is that they are so carefully crafted with such high-quality materials, that they were so expensive, that even if you would be able to afford it, you might not dare to use it anyway.

When I was still living in Munich I had the walnut version of the ladder in my living room and when a handyman stopped by to fix something on the ceiling he simply took the ladder and stepped on it, with his dirty boots. That was a strange moment as I wasn’t really comfortable about him doing this, but at the same time I could not tell him that he could not use the ladder because it’s too expensive to be used. Since then I’m treating the ladder as any other ladder.

Another object from that time which I really like is the piece “glass & tumbler“, which follows the same concept as the ladder of being so expensive already in its production and due to the materials that you wouldn’t dare to use it for its original purpose anymore. So, the glass was handmade / mouth blown and the silver tumbler as well according to the measurements of the glass. From six glasses only one fit into the tumbler though, as being handmade they were all slightly different in their size – so not only was it expensive to produce it, 90% could not be used for the final product. And although this piece is always in perfect reach in flat, I never drank from it once.

This might sound a little bit stupid, but the idea behind those pieces is to question the general value of the things we buy. While it’s easy to argue why those two objects are so expensive, I would argue that they represent a rather normal price if we take everything that goes into producing such a product into account. However, it’s difficult to say how much a tree should cost for example and so companies just take advantage of everything they can (the environment, their employees, laws, etc.) to produce products which seem to be sold to us at a fair price. However most of the times the costs for the environment, fair loans and the fact that we might need to buy it again soon, due to poor quality are not part of this price… and that’s roughly what I want to express in those pieces.

How would you describe your art?

Calling myself a conceptual artist, I also make conceptual art. This basically means that I don’t make art, with the intention that it looks nice or stunning, but art which has a concept behind it. While the idea might be complex sometime, I always try to execute that idea as simple as possible. This mostly results in a rather minimalistic aesthetic. Not because I’m a minimalist (I’m not), but because I like to leave everything out that’s unnecessary. Once I have an idea or a concept I would like to explore I see which materials or which medium I can use to express it. The results range from installations to performances and lately also websites, which serve as the medium.

Can you give us some examples?

The topics of my latest exhibition “+49 173 37 42 908” in Munich for example were our current addiction with social media and internet. So, I exhibited my mobile phone and three websites, which deal with those topics. And, “allipossess.com”, where I photograph everything I own; “countless.info” where you can see my current financial status and “fiverooms.cam” which shows 24 hour video recordings of every room of my flat. Last year, to show my disgust towards Black Friday, I created an installation with trash bags with the Nike logo on them, called “Black Friday”. Another piece I really liked doing is the photo series “Selbstportrait” For this series I photographed 100 people wearing my signature outfit and vice versa. The result is quite stunning and I really enjoyed the process of meeting and photographing all those people and wearing so many different outfits.

You are currently living in Gotha. How does it come?

Before moving to Gotha, which is basically located in the middle of Germany, right where it says Germany on the map, I was living in Munich. Before Munich I was living in London, before that in Berlin and before that in Amsterdam. So, in a sense you could say that I lived in a fair amount of really cool cities already and after not being able to afford a flat in Munich anymore I thought I start looking for alternatives. I literally simply took it to Immoscout to show me all flats in Germany for 250€ cold rent with wooden floor located in an old building (Altbau). From the 20 something results at that time, my current flat in Gotha was the most beautiful. In Munich I would pay around 600€ for a small room in a flat-share, so I decided to move to Gotha. The decision most definitely has not been easy though and I must say it’s really tough to live in such a small town where you don’t know anyone in comparison to living in a cool city where all of your friends are. Gotha allows me to fully concentrate on my next steps within my career as an artist though so for now I’m happy about the decision.

I’m traveling between Berlin, Munich and other cities most of the time, anyway…

What are your plans for the next time? Is there any project which you really would love to realize in the future?

There are plenty of projects in my drawers which I would love to realize, however I’m currently struggling to finance myself, even with my cheap flat in Gotha, so most of them have to wait for a more fruitful time of my career. For now, I try to stick with what I already have. I love to reuse my own work for example, like I’m doing with it with the “letter boards” or the “metal chair”, which I used for several different pieces so far. Also, I’m planning my next exhibition in Munich in September at the CoMa (Container of Modern Art) and I’m hoping to be able to show my work outside of Germany for the first time as well this year, however that’s still to be decided and I’m afraid I’m not making the decision.

Thank you for the interview!