Juvenilia

I had big plans in my youth. I wanted to become an artist. Absolutely. I had never planned any alternatives. But when I finished school and passed my A-levels, I was one thing above all: surprised and broke. Here are some works, in chronological order, from my youth and childhood.

1984

We need some eternity 1-4, Eternity (age 19)

On the cover of Led Zeppelin's 1976 album ‘Presence’, a family is sitting at a table around a sculpture-like object. It's called ‘The Object’. I always thought the thing was surprisingly bad, thinking to myself that a form must also function more harmoniously. I couldn't get the subject out of my head for a very long time and so, at the beginning of 1984, I set out in search of the ‘perfect’, harmonious form.

We need some Eternity I (18.01.1984) - DIN A2, oil chalk on paper

We need some Eternity II (19.01.1984) - DIN A2, pastell chalk on paper

We need some Eternity III (19.01.1984) DIN A2, pencil, coloured pencil on paper

Eternity (21.01.1984) - DIN A4, coloured pencil on paper

We need some Eternity IV (09.03.1984) DIN A2, pencil on paper

After this series, I spent three quarters of a year unloading lorries.

1982

Die Welt (The World) (December 1982, age 18)

An early, never realised concept: The World. A lot of Dada, a lot of Nihil, a lot of young man...

Die Welt, concept

Die Welt, outline

Faust (autumn 1982, age 18)

In the German advanced course we read Faust: an early concept for translating text into images. 36 years before the isbn-maschine

Faust, concept

Angst (summer 1982, age 18)

School work for art lessons. My art teacher, Mrs Rousselle1 , said in the last lesson of the school year that I should complete a project so that she could grade me (obviously I hadn't handed in enough). One of the assignments for the school year was to depict our fear through the representation of a threatening bird.

In keeping with the emotional state of the early 1980s, the text reads: ‘Why should we try to portray fear through a bird? Fear is real now, it surrounds us every day, we no longer need metaphors for it.’

Angst (summer 1982) - DIN A3, pencil, color pencil on paper

Der Engel, unfruchtbare Gebärmutter Gottes - The angel, barren womb of God (spring 1982, age 17)

School work for art lessons. The aim was to practise the enlargement of images with using a grid. Coloured paper, oil crayon, pencil, newspaper clipping on paper

Der Engel, unfruchtbare Gebärmutter Gottes (Frühjahr 1982) - DIN A2, Buntpapier, Ölkreide, Bleistift, Zeitungsausschnitt auf Papier

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