Журнал Andy Warhol's Interview Россия Interview № 5 | Page 176

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everything hinges on demand: if no one had been
interested in my pictures with stripes I would not
have done them. But they’ve been bought in huge
quantities, and I thought: why not take advantage of
this and start recasting this story over and over?
BRANDLHUBER: But you don’t do the same
thing! You still resemble a mad genius. One of your
catalogs ends with a photograph of a shield on which
is written “Die Pinsel Sauber Halten” (a play on
words: it can be translated as “Keep your brush
clean” or “Keep your dick clean”.—Interview). I real-
ly like it!
REYLE: Creativity is a routine like anything else.
I love to relax in the evenings; it’s great to not have to
work all night. Since you remembered the shield;
I spend the same amount of time thinking about
the arrangement and cleanliness of the studio as
about the art itself. It is created within these walls.
Yes, sometimes ideas come to me at home at night,
but they still come to life in the studio together with
my team. So everything should be very comfort-
able here.
BRANDLHUBER: That is to say in your life, as
in your work, the main thing is the system: an endless
choice of variations, continuous improvement?
REYLE: Without a doubt. Is it not like that
for you?
BRANDLHUBER: It is different for me: an ar-
chitect’s success is expressed through the size of his
studio. What is more, the question of collective au-
thorship hardly enters anyone’s mind. We are obliged
to produce precise and clear handwriting, recogniz-
able language, like Zaha Hadid or Frank Gehry.
REYLE: Or Brandlhuber! I clearly see your style
and understand that it is mainly dictated by the se-
lection of materials. They are always very original;
it seems that you pick them in spite of what other
masters gladly use.
BRANDLHUBER: Oh terrible! Actually, I long
ago began working differently and stopped position-
ing myself as an architect with a clearly defined style.
REYLE: I think that it’s impossible to avoid con-
ventional notions of my favorite materials. For ex-
ample, once the color lilac seemed to be the most
dreadful in the world to me, and now it is one of my
main colors, I use it everywhere.
BRANDLHUBER: I saw your most recent works
made with Franz West—it is a striking collaboration.
As I understand it, you send each other pictures or
sculptures that you yourselves consider unsuccessful,
and then each puts the finishing touches on the oth-
er’s version. How does it work?
REYLE: It works! This is how we have made
30 paintings and we are now preparing two exhibi-
tions—Berlin and Mallorca. For me our cooperation
is like children’s coloring, where you join some al-
ready drawn points in a certain order. The result,
alas, is almost always perfect.
Franz’s tendency toward perfectionism is com-
pletely absent here. Say he’s working with paper-
mache—nothing of his was in its place, perpetual
chaos. It’s unusual for me, but I feel kind of liberated
by this, it’s something that allows me to generate new
ideas. In a word, our cooperation came at the right
moment.
BRANDLHUBER: Do you get the feeling that
you are speaking about something through objects?
REYLE: Yes, exactly, it’s an incredibly fun and
fascinating way to communicate without words. We
constantly kid each other—for example, when Franz
daubs my stripes over his canvases, and I mix in his
pink in my work. But this is no more than jest. Such
an exchange of ideas reveals our own creative charac-
ter that distinguishes us from others. I begin working
on his sculpture and think: a couple holes in the style
of Henry Moore could go here. And Franz laughs:
“Well, what are you up to? You want to do something
that I would never have done in my life?”
BRANDLHUBER: I remember at the end of last
year we were in your studio. It struck me then how
organically the composite parts of your work com-
bine. How important is this precision of details?
REYLE: Well, they are not so precise. We just
understand each other well. Generally I think that
the majority of artistic collaborations operate in such
a way: with the aid of another person, you can try
things you would never have dared on your own.
And the whole buzz is in that you don’t need to be
responsible for every step! Of course, there are cre-
ative partnerships that have been working together
since the very beginning, like the Swiss artists Fischli
and Weiss or the Britons Jake and Dinos Chapman.
And I’m crazy about this idea, that these artists’
starting point is not their own egos but a collective
intellect. When there are two of you, there’s always
somewhere to start from and move forward. In archi-
tecture you can count these examples on one hand—
where people coexisted in a duet and approached it
with irony and humor.
BRANDLHUBER: You’re right—joint and still-
fun architecture is hardly possible. Well, maybe only
in the Chinese buildings in the style of “Made in
Shanghai”. It’s funny that what in our eyes looks like
hurriedly cobbled together trash is a model of good
taste for the Chinese. Certainly something like this
will happen with the reconstruction of our Berlin
City Palace. If we are to believe the television chan-
nel ZDF, in 2017 we will take the ruins of Franco
Stella’s Berlin City Palace and the unused roof from
the Reichstag, planned by Norman Foster, and sim-
ply stick them on the construction site. And then
transfer all of this to a Chinese investor. (Laughs.)
REYLE: Here is a successful example of architec-
ture with humor: in the inner courtyard of the build-
ing on the Brunnenstrasse you erected a staircase
that hangs freely from the building. It was bold and
not at all conformist—usually architecture does not
indulge itself that way.
BRANDLHUBER: Yes, for the most part archi-
tecture is determined by the building codes. The
given parameters bind you, and then you add the rel-
evant context. This staircase was an experiment, an
attempt to graphically measure the depth and malle-
ability of the architectural framework. Something
like chess.
REYLE: I frequently advise my students to start
a project “from scratch”, indeed, it’s also hard for me
to begin work without a starting point. It’s precisely
for this reason that I use assistants—they can come up
with things that I wouldn’t have on my own. It’s also
easy to manipulate me. Let’s say I don’t like my
picture, but it catches someone’s eye—most likely
I will take a closer look at it, maybe there’s something
I missed?
BRANDLHUBER: But then buyers see your
works in already final form, right? Collectors don’t
say to you: “Hey, Anselm, why don’t you make it
a little smaller here? And please paint the corner
pink! Maybe use a brush, add a couple of holes?”
REYLE: You will laugh, but that happens all
the time.
BRANDLHUBER: And what do you do with
them?
REYLE: Frankly, sometimes it can be really good
advice. Then I start to think, I should make a whole
new picture.
BRANDLHUBER: So you take such advice and
suggestions seriously?
REYLE: For me the important thing is to create
something distinct from what others are doing, but so
that these distinctions were not forced. So, yes, I take
it seriously, only if it is really important. It’s not
a question of originality at any price. But I always ask
my clients: “Is there anything that bothers you in this
picture?” I want to avoid any irritating factors that
I introduced subconsciously.
BRANDLHUBER: Do you ask right here in the
studio?
REYLE: It depends on who is in front of me.
BRANDLHUBER: By the way, that’s a wonder-
ful characteristic—“unforced distinction”.
REYLE: For sure. I try to work thoroughly but
something like very sparingly. As soon as I spend
a lot of time and effort on a painting, I can start
all over again! However, in this thirst for perfection
I try not to feel like I am in over control, or have an
iron grip.
BRANDLHUBER: How do you decide what fits
and what doesn’t?
REYLE: All my works are based on what I have
noticed earlier, even the picture with stripes. I saw
the foil, for example, in a shop window. Car wheels—
in general, typical decorative objects. These ceramic
sculptures that I am fashioning for new works—I ac-
cidentally discovered them in my mother’s home.
Everything that I do is a replica of found objects.
I do not stop there, I am forever actively searching.
BRANDLHUBER: So you never stand in front
of your work and think: “Here I don’t have enough of
something long, pink and shapeless?”
REYLE: It is exactly this that means one is an
artist! At least, as I understand it. Were you always
sure that you would work as an architect?
BRANDLHUBER: Interesting question. I admit
that I envy you a bit. You artists can pore over tiny
differences and then deliver a finished result without
needing to think about some specific client, while
I being an architect, am tied to a lot of given tasks
and requirements. Still, the idea that everyone is in
one way or another an artist seems wrong to me. I am
not an artist, I’m an architect, absolutely.
REYLE: But I can imagine myself in different
guises. The role of a musician, for example.
BRANDLHUBER: Why didn’t you become one?
REYLE: Actually, I played in a band, but it didn’t
work out. I didn’t have the prerequisites for music.
I quit a few schools, worked in landscape design,
but lost interest in it. Then my mother, also an ar-
tist, suggested: “Study painting. You don’t need to
pass exams”.
BRANDLHUBER: All the same it’s not so easy.
REYLE: Well, one can make a portfolio in a cou-
ple of weeks, and with a little luck and some talent it
was not difficult to get in. That wouldn’t have worked
for music.
BRANDLHUBER: You know, I once seriously
decided to quit architecture. This was right after uni-
versity. I told myself: participate in one competition,
and that’s all.
REYLE: And what happened?
BRANDLHUBER: Fortunately, at that moment
the competition for the Neanderthal Museum in
Mettmann was being held—I won it in 1994, toge-
ther with two colleagues. If that had not happened,
I would never have become an architect. But then as
now, I’ve never really been content with the creative
process.
REYLE: It sounds familiar. It was like that with
my collection for the House of Dior, for which
I couldn’t make a single independent decision. Natu-
rally, I put forward some of my own suggestions, but
in the end we had to find a compromise. For me that
creative approach was unfamiliar—and so that expe-
rience turned out to be very interesting.
BRANDLHUBER: So you could also become
a designer?
REYLE: No. An artist still has a freedom that
a designer can only dream of.
BRANDLHUBER: Why don’t you have any
men’s bags in your collection? Large, multi-colored
ones? The ones that are now being sold in stores—no
man would buy these.
REYLE: No, that’s for sure. I myself wear only
a travel bag and a scarf.