SELF DECLARED N E W BERLIN PAINTER, MEET PAUL VOGELER

To contact us Click HERE

Paul Vogeler, Good Friday, 2012 Oil on panel, 150 x 150 cmImage courtesy of the artist

New Berlin Painters is an exhibition that was facilitated byNadja Sayej and first opened in Berlin earlier in 2012. The exhibition caused abit of a stir, first for reason of its outspoken, flamboyant organizer andsecond, for the declaration that the show chose to make by title alone: NewBerlin Painters. Asmany know Berlin has been on the rise as a new art capital for quite sometime.  There are a large number ofboth emergent and established artists based in the historic city. While the arteconomy still isn’t the best in the world, artists have congregated and formeda community that has appealed to many on a global level. My first contact withartist Paul Vogeler was via a Facebook interaction.  He made a negative comment about the art scene and contemporarymarket in New York, and I responded in defense of the city and said that thecomment probably came from someone unable to “make it” in the fast pacedcity.  He replied by calling meMiss New York and making a snide remark about my graduate degree from New YorkUniversity. Hmmmpf. Somehow, all of this has not only blown over but broughtthe two of us together in dialogue. Isn’t the art world great?
Katy Diamond Hamer: Hi Paul. So the last and only time we’ve seen each otherin person was randomly on a street in Mitte, right after I went to see MikeNelson, Space That Saw (Platform for performance in two parts) exhibition at Neugerriemschneider Galerie. It was nice to put a face to a name within the literal, non-virtual realm.Paul Vogeler: Likewise.  Ilove those little urban accidental meetings, especially on bicycle, it is sodelightfully European, and Berlin. Das Fahrradlebens.  Yesactually the space where we met was a space being run by the MMXcollective.  One of the artistsfrom this collective, James Bullough, I know and respect very much.  He and his crew do great things herefor Berlin.
KDH: Since you are a non-German based in Germany, why don’t we start there,how did you end up making art in Berlin?PV:  To put it simply, afterfive long (but fulfilling) years in NYC, I decided to pack up and leave.  I was supposed to only stay in Berlinfor 2 months, but now it has been over 2 years!  I love New York, and it was a learning experience andstruggle that I do not need to do again. I got an education there in life and in art, but honestly, I felt I hadhit a ceiling. I found the art scene tired and everyone too caught up in thecelebrity and politics of the academics and art world, and clamoring at allcosts to get to the top, or at least the middle.  The art seemed to be at the sidelines of the socialladder.  That is to say, I feltpeople were more worried about their careers than dedicating their lives tomaking great art.  I had realizedtoo soon what it would take to, as you say “make it” in New York.  But the cost would be my integrity, myperson and my soul, hence my art. I refuse to sacrifice personal values for “success”.  I saw Berlin as an escape from allthat, as well as a new start as an artist.  There is great painting going on in this country, especiallyin Berlin and Leipzig.  I feel mypaintings fit better here than in New York. 
KDH:  Berlin is really amagical city. It carries such an extensive, heavy political history and yet ishome to numerous artists from all over the world. Do you think the content ofyour paintings, which is very gray, visually melancholic and atmospheric, hasbeen influenced by your time spent in Berlin?PV:  Berlin is human.  It has a dark past and also a greatone.  Like a survivor of a terribleevent, it emerges.  Reminders ofits past are everywhere, from the dejected citizens of a once DDR, to the SecondWorld War shrapnel holes and cuts in the buildings, to memorials to massmurders and the Berlin Wall. I like that energy, albeit dark, because it ishonest.  I like a city thatconfronts its past and moves forward. I have a lot of respect for Berliners.  I definitely don’t think I could make these paintingsanywhere else on the globe.  I amreally influenced by the light here, a statement maybe only other artists andpainters can understand.  SometimesI find myself out in the rainy parks with my French easel trying to capture thelight and feeling of the space.  Ithink it is impossible for a painter to not be influenced by hisenvironment.   
KDH: Your painting seems to be very surface based. Is this a consciouschoice that you strive for (keeping the work within a certain visual plane) ordo you struggle with the amount of depth that you want the viewer toexperience?PV:  Yes the surfaces of mycanvases are very flat.  It has todo with the way I am using paint. I mix all my colors from about 3-4 colors.  I use a tremendous amount of turpentine, which often annoysmy studio neighbors; but the turpentine thins out this paint until it bleedsinto and onto the canvas. Extremely thin layers are layered on top of each other.  Things are painted in and out; wipedaway, smoothed, blurred, and then sharpened and blurred again.  It’s a dirty smelly process that Ilove! But a very challenging way to paint. I personally see a lot of depth inthe space, but am also consciously playing with flatness and perceived depthand perspective.  I have an ideawhere the painting should end up, but I never know until I am there.  Is that old school? As far as scalegoes, I want the viewer to feel they can be inside the painting and to relate 1on 1 with the scale of the figures or trees.   

Paul Vogeler, Sommer in Tiergarten, 2011
 Oil on panel,  200 x 200 cm
Image courtesy of the artist

KDH: What has your experience been like since being included in the NewBerlin Painters first exhibition. Have you felt any pressure in falling underthis title? Do you believe you are one of the new painters in Berlin for thoseout there to take note of?PV:  Moritz Hoffmann and Icreated New Berlin Painters to form a new group of painters with a commontheoretical basis.  Nadja has beenour biggest supporter, always there helping us.  Like our Gertrude Stein or Peggy Guggenheim.  We received mixed reviews about themanifesto: a lot of anger and some support.  One German Galleriest whose name I will not mention (she ispretty famous) wrote us a really nasty message and of course the endlesscomments from Jerry Saltz and crew. Being in this group is stressful, but fulfilling—it’s a good stress,keeps us on our toes, motivated, and making work for upcoming exhibitions.  We want to have several exhibitions ayear.  However, we are stilldeveloping our ideas, deciding how to move forward.  We meet almost weekly. I admit, New Berlin Painters is a big name, but what else should we have called it? Ican’t think of anything else.  Weare New becausewe reject a tired paradigm of Art, and we are ready for a new theoreticalapproach to art and painting in the 21^st Century.  We felt we have addressed aproblem.  We are Berlin because we live in and love thiscity, and choose it as our new adopted home.  We are New Berlin, because we are part of a group of new immigrants andcreative people changing the very make up and energy of the city on a dailybasis, helping to reestablish Berlin as the thriving creative metropolis itonce was and should be.  Remember,Berlin has only been reunited for 20 years; it was 2 countries.  We are Painters because that it what we do and onlywhat we do.  Painters in thetraditional sense: canvas, charcoal, oil, oil sticks, and turpentine.  No stupid subversive questions of whata painting can be, just good old fashioned new school painting! 
I don’t know if anyone should take note of us, or if we aregood or terrible painters.  That’snot for us to decide.  In fact Ithink most people don’t like us. But, we are painters, our manifesto is the structure of our ideas, ourstatement, and if you want to join us, come on! We are reaching out to otherpainters globally who feel the same way, albeit the name, and will use thegroup as a platform to introduce new painters and paintings to Berlin.  Moritz and I will always be theoriginal New Berlin Painters, but I think there is room to grow.  As far as a stylistic coherence withinthe group? I can’t see one yet, but maybe we’ll see it years from now.   

Paul Vogeler, Ash Wednesday II  2011
 Oil on panel, 25 x 25 cm
Image courtesy of the artist

KDH: Who are other artists that you look at and admire, either contemporaryor historic?PV:  To name quickly Peter Doig,Neo Rauch, Otto Dix, George Grosz and Neue Sachlichkeit, Ruprecht von Kaufmann,Brian Montourri, Dean Monogenis. Francis Bacon, G. Richter, Baselitz, Cezanne, I mean the list is endlessreally.  Of course the AmericanAbstract Expressionists as well.  Acouple of these contemporary painters have also been my mentors.
KDH: How did you meet Nadja Sayej? Have you enjoyed working with her?PV:  Craigslist, hahah.  I was looking for a DJ for a bar I usedto work at.  I had seen herArtStars* episodes and thought “Man, I need to meet this chick.”  I love how she playfully harasses andinterviews these rock star artists. Nadja has been a gift really and so supportive of the two of us. 
KDH: What is the next step for your art? I feel like your work could alsolend itself to 3-Dimensional experience, have you ever thought of buildingsculpture into your practice?PV:  Well the sculpture mightcome later in life when I feel I have said everything I need to say withpainting.  But for now I keeppainting, and working on this new body of work about the element of humannature that continuously engages in conflict.  I would like to pursue a Meisterschüler here in Germany, Ijust need to find the right professor-painter to study with.  But before that, I want to see wherethis group goes; I want to see where my art goes.
KDH: Talking once again about Berlin, as a city, an entity, an individual,do you see the city as a gender? Some languages automatically assign gender toa city (in Italian all cities are feminine).PV:  Well the word for City inGerman “Die Stadt,” is feminine.  I see Berlin as a person without gender.  Sometimes it’s a friend and sometimes a monster.  The winters are harsh but the Springand Summer full of life and light, even when it rains.  We are a nice community of artistshere, there is an opening to go to every night of the week, I can promisethat.  We cycle around with ourbike lights on, have beers on the sidewalk, see museums on the opening nightsuntil 1 in the morning for free. There is a life here worth living really.  There is space. There is opportunity for those of us not born with a trust fund.  A union and health care system just forartists!  There is something niceabout a city where everyone gets a chance to show their work.  There’s a lot of crap, but that is thesame in NYC and London.  Wir werdensehen, was in Berlin passierien wird! 
KDH: Thanks for taking the time to chat! I look forward to seeing theevolution of your work and since I’m spending more time in Berlin lately andhave a feeling we will cross paths again soon. 

This interview was originally posted in the New Berlin Papers and distributed in Berlin. The second part of the New Berlin Painters exhibition, opens in Berlin, November 30th, 2012.  


More soon!
xo