Interview with Kai Teichert by Richard Schemmerer
What is your background in art and what do like about being an artist in Berlin?
I am based in Berlin Mitte since 1993. After the wall had
come down, this area developed an exciting attraction to artists from
all over the world. Creativity was blooming in old, rotten houses and
ruins of the war. Techno parties, wild performances, weird exhibitions
everywhere. I had my first solo show in an occupied house in
Linienstraße, where an artist from New York City ran a little exhibition
space, “Ed Brezinski ́s Magic Gallery”: handwritten invites, no heat,
no water, no electricity, but candle light, open fire in the court yard,
lots of cheap vine and music from a ghetto blaster. Soon after, Ed
had some heavy fights with the other squatters in the house and
ended as a clochard. Some years later, this place became a very
fancy “white cube” gallery.Today Berlin still profits from those crazy
days. The art crowd is very international. Artist from all over the world
are living and working in the city. Many unknown and many famous
too. In Berlin you can meet them.
When did you have your first conscious experience of a piece of art and what was it?
I grew up with the paintings of my uncle. He was a
very talented painter of organic abstraction in Hamburg. Unfortunately
he was killed very early, when a car hit him on his bike. That
happened in 1962, short before I was born. Later, many of his studio
materials came into my hands. I still have blank papers from the1950
́s in my studio. And early I developed a talent and an ambition, to
become an artist too. It was learning by doing from the very
beginning. I never went to any teaching lessons.
Did other historically relevant artists inspire you?
An other uncle owned a publishing company for postcards and calendars of
fine arts in Munich. They were very successful, especially in the
American market. Every Christmas we got a big parcel with the whole
sortiment for the upcoming year. So in every room of our house were
hanging calendars with high quality reproductions of great
masterpieces. I grew up with Van Gogh images in the bathroom, for
example. And over the decades I learned to know almost every Van
Gogh painting very well by sitting on the toilet, and not only his works,
but also the paintings of the impressionists, expressionists, Pisasso
and Dali, etcpp., also Dürer, Cranach, German Romantic and
Spitzweg (he sold very well in the US). I always loved the elegant
brush strokes of Manet and the extraordinary, vibrating drawings of
Toulouse-Lautrec. And when ever an artworks caught my attention, I
automatically tried to imitate it.
Tell us about your process and how you find the motives?
Later I studied human medicine (Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe Universität) and
fine arts (Städelschule) parallelly in Frankfurt/Main. Through my
studies of anatomy, when we had to cut the corps, I found the focus
for my artwork. The human body is the center motive in my Œvre. My
favorite is the nude body, its beauty and its injuries, carrying the
secrets of life.
Is there a mission to your art?
There is lots of “mission emission” nowadays. The “digital mission smog” is intense. Paintings are silent,
the don ́t shout for attention, but they offer a pause. Good paintings
can be an anchor for the essential questions of life. And they say:
“slow down, relax, clear up!”
How does Berlin influences your art practice?
I am working in the very center of this city, I watch the art scene and keep in touch. I transform my personal experiences in Berlin into handmade images.
For example my “Teufelssee” panorama (2015-2016, charcoal on
canvas, 36m long). Teufelsee is a small lake in the middle of the
forest Grunewald in Berlin. The area draws a wide range of people
looking to bathe in the sun or swim in the water. Although
„Teufelssee“ means „Devil's Lake," it has also become a "Garden of
Eden." Young families bring their kids. Skinny full bearded hipsters
lay side by side with a couple of chubby skinheads. Lesbians kiss in
front of a group of young men trying to cure their hangovers. An
allover tattooed mother breastfeeds her newborn child, while a
middle-aged man snores in the sun and a couple of young girls
discuss their recent love affairs. Everybody is nude, relaxed and
peacefully enjoying life. No restrictions exist. No aggressions occur.
Teufelsee is a place where the soul of Berlin is breathing, and one
can feel how wide and open the heart of Berlin has become and still
is.
You just had an exhibition at Gallery Z22, how do you feel after such an event?
I have prepared this solo exhibition for 18 months and
created a new body of work for it. To me it is every time again very
interesting to watch, how my paintings change as soon as they leave
the studio. When they are out in public, I see them with other, more
critic eyes, even when the resonance is very good. Often I think: next
time I shall do better.
Where can one see your next art project?
Soon, but secret, yet.
Please follow me on facebook and watch
www.kaiteichert.de
