back

CARL AIGNER

German / English

"(...) CA: Why does it make sense today to work with photography as a medium, and why does it still make sense, from an artist's point of view, to create pictures?

LR: Since photography has been invented, people have been working with it. My predecessors were painting photographs, and I photograph paintings. I prefer the new media, since they are one step closer to digital capitalism than the traditional ones.

CA: In contemporary Austrian art your œuvre is unequalled in complexity, as for its themes on the one hand, as for pictorial thought on the other. Could you outline some of the features you consider essential, mainly as regards the nucleus from which basically everything, namely the theme of the studio, unfolds?

LR: The central thread for me is to point out how infinitely far man is fanned out. The studio, which you call my nucleus, is nearest to me, it's my natural environment. It offers me space and a range of action, but also the superstructure of art, if you will. In the studio every mistake is interesting, or ridiculous in the worst case, in a kitchen or an office the same situation would be problematic. The studio is only the background to all my themes, though.

CA: The studio isn't only the room where an artist works. Since the 18th century, the studio's autonomy has been increasing because it's the place, so to say, where a work of art sees the light of day. People have been discussing this aspect over and over again from romanticism on, and it has been thematized particularly often in the 20th-century fine arts. What exactly does the studio as a place mean to you?

LR: The studio is everywhere, and this is the central statement of my work. In my interior sculpture the concept of the studio is humorously defined. I don't accept any more responsability for this present anachronism. (...)"