10 Questions with Thomas Behling

Thomas Behling is a German artist, born in Hanover in 1979.
Modeled on found historical (authentic) objects, the objects by Thomas Behling pave the way for insight into the deception and transfiguration of appearances. In them, the viewer is confronted with the socio-historical memory and through specific filters and amplifiers with their private and subjective memory.

www.thomas-behling.de

ARTIST STATEMENT

We repress history, yet its imprints have a stronger and more lasting effect on us than we are willing to admit. From the constructs of history come great narratives that are often more powerful than the material bases of existence. What is forgotten is lived through in vain. We would have been better off - would we not have disposed of things that have now ended up on the rubbish dump of history. History as well consists of unrealized projects.

In Behling's artworks, behind the seemingly nostalgic familiarity, in motion are deception, fraud, and alienation. Supposed remnants of a historical past lead straight into crises and conflict zones of the present. Via the confrontation with the whirlpool of appearances, the viewer goes through his own inner process of disillusionment.

Global warming is about to reach a point where several tipping points will be irreversibly exceeded, whereupon the climate will henceforth collapse in a dramatic, self-accelerating manner. Global warming is "only" part of a global environmental crisis, accompanied by a fundamental cultural crisis. Behling sees his task as an artist to create works that contribute to a reflection of this situation.

In order to be able to reflect on the situation we are in and grasp its extent, we need a vantage point: a perspective from a greater distance. This we need not simply to see the situation with more clarity, but to bear the feelings that come with it. After all, humanity is expecting something that will feel like the end of the world - unless we actually manage a comprehensive social, cultural, and economic transformation in time. At present, however, we are vehemently resisting the latter; it is too difficult for us to give up the ways of life we have come to love. Behling believes that it is important as such to historicize the present already in the now and to see the now embedded in a historical process that actually began a long time ago and in which we are, whether we like it or not, right in the middle of it.

INTERVIEW

What kind of education or training helped you develop your skillset?

As a child and teenager, I was in intense contact with the artist Ursula Greve in my home village. Her house was shaped by several generations of artists and stacks of works from late impressionism and post-war modernism. Eventually, I even earned some pocket money as her assistant. Later, I went on to study fine arts with Hermanus Westendorp in Ottersberg, which was a very fruitful time for me. However, after a while, I transferred to the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen, where I studied with Yuji Takeoka in the class for experimental plastics and finished it with a postgraduate degree "Meisterschüler".

How did you start making art? And how would you define yourself as an artist?

As a child, I was a great garden enthusiast. Then, when I was ten years old, I came upon a children's book, Linnea in Monet's Garden. This was truly transformative for me: I became an ardent Monet lover. Being fascinated by the way, he could create such grandiose paintings with just dabs and blobs. I emulated him a lot. Eventually, after school, I went out into the fields myself with my portable easel and painted straw bales and dirt roads in different light settings. Of course, since then, my questions have deepened. Today, I can't imagine not pursuing artistic work. It feels almost as necessary as eating or drinking. It is a commitment to myself and to the world.

What is your creative process like? Do you ever experience creative blocks?

Essentially, an artwork develops from the work process that preceded it. Sometimes a found object is an initial source of an idea for my new work. But more often, I have an idea and look for the materials for it. If I were unable to work for a prolonged period of time, I would lose the thread of my creative process. Then I look for it anew. What is, however, more crucial to me is the state of the world itself. I work for a spiritual world [geistige Welt] that assumes an eternity. We, people, are destroying our planet at a rapid pace. This robs art of its meaning and, as such, affects my artistic work. I can only work if I am convinced that I can, in some way, counteract this senselessness with my work. Art is not a feel-good exercise, and it does not serve as an escape from reality. 

You work with found objects. How do you incorporate them into your work? And what messages would you like to convey with this practice?

Actually, I use less found material than it appears at first glance. Rather, I like to make the entire work look as if it had already been there for some time. I work with the ideas and memories of images. I believe there are notions and convictions inscribed onto our collective memory and hiding behind symbols of past imagery; they shape us much more than we are aware of or comfortable with. I also want to historicize the present and incorporate it on a wider horizon of time. What we do today is already situated in a historical context; it results from past history and has consequences far into the future.

What role does the artist have in society, in your opinion?

Josef Beuys made a terribly misunderstood statement: "every person is an artist," by which he most certainly did not mean that everyone should at once start painting or sculpting, etc. We all shape our world and we bear responsibility for it. 
If we do not ask ourselves again and again what are the ideas and reason behind our actions, then the shape of our actions will fail. We are destroying our planet. This is hardly inspiring. Nonetheless, my job as an artist is to create spiritual nourishment.

What do you see as the strengths of your project, visually or conceptually?

I use preexisting visual languages that have written themselves into the collective consciousness. In a viewer, as I observe, this sets in motion fairly reliable processes, regardless of how erudite the viewer is in matters of art.
Still, it can also generate uncertainty within a beholder, for example, when an artwork provokes an intended contradiction.
While working on my picture-objects, I always simultaneously focus on the object character and its pictorial layer.
Further, I try to play with the entanglement of the fictional visual space and the real space, which is objectively impossible but still happens in mind. I use a lot of sources like visual languages and practices that have existed for a long time that I didn't have to invent.

Where do you find inspiration? And how do you engage with your network?

I find it in life as in art and cultural history. It's all interrelated. My art contacts tend to follow my inspiration rather than giving me guidelines. I, of course, have a personal network with whom I discuss my work, which gives me new insights that naturally influence my practice.

As a mid-career artist, what do you think of the art market? And what would you expect from it?

I sell my works from time to time but independently of the market. My customers are collectors who are interested in buying something regardless of the current trend. I believe that good works of art will prevail in the long-run, and that is my expectation from the art market.

Did you see any change or improvements in the market and art community over the past couple of years, since the starting of the pandemic?

There are all these short-term changes, of course, because exhibitions or fairs could not take place, or artists were provided with opportunities for financial aid. In its absence, quite a few people have craved cultural life. However, I cannot extrapolate a fundamental change from these developments that could impact us in the long-term. For example, even though people clapped their hands at their windows, little has changed for the notoriously underpaid and overworked hospital nursing staff. 
The real question is how this pandemic will develop in the next few years. Then, perhaps, changes will really begin to emerge.

What are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about?

I am developing a secret aesthetic weapon. With it, I intend to destroy the world's demise just moments before its completion; and establish a dictatorship of the spirit [Geist]. All people will need to subject themselves to ethical beauty.