PRESS

A collection of works by forty-three artists in an edition of 35 copies IV and 1-30, edited by Ansgar Nierhoff and Christian Pricelius in Berlin 2002.

BROOKLYN MUSEUM CURATOR JUDY KIM INTERVIEWS MATTHIAS ALFEN

Quite often these days it seems that most contemporary galleries, museums, and art fairs are filled with videos works or photographs. Matthias Alfen is a contemporary artist who creates sculptures of the human form. Even though he is working in one of the oldest media, his sculptures seem new and innovative in his hands. After 13 years of quietly making his art in Connecticut, he was recently the subject of a one-man show at the Housatonic Museum of Art in 2006. In November, he will have his second US solo show at the Venezuelan Embassy in Manhattan. Already an artist of renown in Germany, it seems the American public is finally poised to discover Alfen. Judy Kim, curator of exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, and Alfen sat down recently to talk about his work.

Judy Kim: You come from a family of photographers-your grandfather, mother, father, and brother. In some ways photographs and sculptures couldn't be more different in terms of physicality, the immediacy of the medium. How do you think that affected or influenced your practice, if at all?                                                                                                             Matthias Alfen: Being around my father in his photo studio as a young child, we talked about lighting or specific visual aspects of photographs. Even though photography and sculpture are so different, the act of seeing is the same in both disciplines.

JK: What do you think made you want to make objects rather than capture images of objects?                                                                           MA: I grew up in a relatively undeveloped area, some new constructions of houses among large fields of apple orchards and woods. One day, I found several man-made limestones near a construction site that I carved into heads. The act of shaping these pieces felt like a revelation.

JK: Can you tell me about your training in Germany?                               MA: After High School, I worked with clay and stone during a two-year internship at a local stone masonry school. At the Academy of Fine Art in Berlin, I completed my B.A. and my M.F.A. in Sculpture.

JK: And, when and how did you come to the decision to move to the US and establish your practice here?                                                         MA: Initially I came to America because I received a Jackson Pollock-Lee Krasner grant based in New York City. Being in close proximity to New York, which remains the true global center of the arts, was another factor.

JK: You seem very interested in science and medicine. How does your interest in those disciplines inform your work?                                           MA: Successful scientists or medical doctors come upon advances in their field often by chance, use of the imagination, and daring to test the boundaries of what is presumed possible. Think about the first facial transplant in France in 2006. Good art as well as science extends past the well-established boundaries into new territory.

JK: Could you speak more about the relationship between sciences and the arts?                                                                                                 MA: Art and science seem to be interlinked; advances in both fields coincide – Einstein’s relativity theory and cubism; Chuck Close’s pixilated images and digitalization. My friend, the mathematician Howard Anton, drew parallels between my figures that describe simultaneity of events and String Theory.

JK: What is String Theory?                                                                         MA: It is a mathematical theory that describes the world as being constructed of oscillating vibrating strings. The theory has not been fully verified by experiments yet represents the Holy Grail of Physics. Its mathematical property called supersymmetry as well as the multiple dimensions of space-time are expressed in my sculptures.

JK: I think the idea of leading the boundaries of what’s presumed to be possible very much akin to what artists do whether it’s experimenting within one medium or exploring new media. You have created a set of characteristics that are very distinctive and unique to your work – the concave/convex forms of your sculptures, for example, which indeed, very much seem to reflect the ideas of supersymmetry and multiple dimensions of time and space. Are such characteristics the result of conscious desire to find new ways of expression?                                     MA: It is sometimes difficult to pinpoint what makes artists choose their path. Certainly the characteristics of my work are influenced by my belief that contemporary figurative sculpture is pointless without true autonomy and authenticity. The concave/convex forms represent another more philosophical layer. Is the reality of our existence better represented by describing the space that we occupy or by the actual physicality of ourselves?

JK: Speaking of physicality your sculptures even the smallest ones have a certain gravitas and monumentality. Yet, at the same time, the finish on the surface gives them a smooth softness, it’s like an imposing figure that comforts you once you’re within its reach. How are the sculptures finished? Are they all treated the same way?           MA: The dichotomy of my work is a big element that is consistent in most pieces. Since the sculptures transform within themselves from negative imprint to actual physicality the smoothness makes the transition effortless.

JK: Many artists use new technologies in creating and producing their work these days. Do you?                                                                             MA: Initially I work with traditional materials like clay and plaster, but I have used computers for scanning and enlarging. If useful, I have no problem with the application of new technologies.

JK: By enlarging do you mean enlarging an image or using the computer as a tool to scale your model into the final scale of the finished sculpture?                                                                                     MA: Some of my model-size sculptures had been scanned into a computer then with the help of robotics they were carved into a rough larger version of themselves. I believe Ron Mueck uses the same method to create the foundation for his large pieces.

JK: Your early works were geometric, abstract. Then you made what seemed like a radical break, and now your work is figurative. Could you speak about this break, the transformation?                                                                                                                                                               MA: The most exciting part of being an artist is to explore new roots. Taking risks as you change your form is pivotal. I could have continued with my old body of work, sacrificing the chance to find something new.

JK: Following that thinking, one could assume that you'd make another shift in your work. In what direction do you foresee your work heading? For instance, you have also made mixed media work such as MenschenfossiI­ Untitled #19, which is a relief with painted ground rather than a freestanding sculpture. Do you think you may one-day switch to painting?                                                                                         MA: The Menschenfossils were the precursors of the free standing Janus sculptures. Sculpture and painting are vehicles for ideas. If a certain concept needs the "Gestalt" of painting, I'll use it.

JK: When most people look at sculpture, they look at it from the front and depending on how it's installed, they'll walk around it. Some of your sculptures are displayed as an installation, as they were at your solo show at the Housatonic Museum of Art. You're creating environments and not just individual sculptures. Do you think your work is moving more towards installations?                                               MA: Amazingly, sometimes a very small drawing can convey a complex set of ideas. To me, installation represents sculpture that you can move around in. The viewer entering an installation becomes a participant, rather than just an observer I think I will continue both. The lines between the installations and individual pieces are blurry. Think about the Barnes Foundation collection in Marion, PA where a controversy arose whether to maintain the collection as a conceptual installation or as a total of individual pieces of art.

JK: Because of the large scale of some of your work, with certain pieces when a viewer walks close to your sculpture, he or she is interacting with the piece in a very physical way. The viewer enters into the space energized by the sculpture. One might also say that the viewer is forced to face and confront the work...                                       MA: Figures in art make us conscious of our own body. Their proportions and shapes further subjectify them. The large head in the Housatonic Museum of Art show was positioned in a relatively tight space. You had to pass by it closely to move through the room. It forced you to somehow come closer than you might have wanted to. The size of the individual sculptures in the installation and their placement actually bridges over to my abstract earlier works. It manipulates perspectives and space dynamics, just another dimension and tool to work with. Art that is complex and multifaceted has always appealed to me.

JK: You've talked in the past about how seeing a cicada one night in your studio was an important impetus for the break from the geometric to the figurative. When cicada eggs hatch, the newborn nymphs drop to the ground, where they burrow for years before they break the ground and surface and shed their skins to finally emerge as fully formed adult creatures. Do you think of your geometric works and figurative works as two different bodies of work or do you think the geometric work is analogous to the borrowed nymph of a cicada?         MA: I like your analogy and I think the abstract oeuvre is not truly a different body of work, but a foundation for my new works.

JK: The cicada is an important emblem for you. One of the characteristics of your sculptures is the merging of the negative and positive space­ imprints of parts of the body or the face. During a complete life cycle, a cicada will leave a skin that's almost like a cast of its fully developed body. I have speculated in the past that the negative/positive relationship within your sculpture is akin to a mobius strip. I think that in some works, it can also be read as a narrative device-unfolding of time. What about you? Am I close or is it something else?                                                                                       MA: During our lifetimes, our perspectives are in constant flux. If the artistic expression stays completely the same for decades, it runs the risk of becoming an empty gesture.

JK: You’ve told me before and, I am paraphrasing – that not taking advantage of the great artists who have come before you would be foolish. What are some artists with whom you feel you share common concepts and who are some you are reacting against?                             MA: Isaac Newton, when asked about his great scientific discovery, replied “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” The works of Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, and Umberto Boccioni serve as points of departure for me. Artists seem to have a limitation when it comes to competently judging and evaluating other artists. Being completely involved with your own work, the way you see everything including other art is highly subjective. Artists tend to be drawn towards work that relates to their own oeuvre. You, as a curator, have a much more objective view.

JK: Donald Kuspit wrote an essay f or a recent catalogue of your solo exhibition and mentioned the agony that he sees expressed in your work. Indeed, many of your sculptures are not merely decorative or without intensity in the emotions they evoke. What messages do you want to convey through your work?                                                           MA: Life is a struggle Why should contemporary sculpture not reflect all aspects of the human condition? Look around you.

WESTON Magazine. ISSUE 33. 2007