Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Urs Fischer

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Urs Fischer is a contemporary artist renowned for his experimental and highly unpredictable practice of sculpture, installation, painting, and photography. He often uses unconventional materials, such as wax, bread, and everyday objects, which he employs to explore themes of transformation, impermanence, and creative destruction, allowing his works to transform or decay over time. Fischer’s work, influenced by movements like Surrealism and Pop Art, is marked by a dynamic interplay between construction and deconstruction, permanence and ephemerality, inviting audiences to reconsider the boundaries of art and the fleeting nature of existence. Fischer has held major solo exhibitions at institutions such as Kunsthaus Zürich, the New Museum in New York, Palazzo Grassi in Venice, MOCA in Los Angeles, and galleries including Sadie Coles HQ in London and Gagosian locations worldwide—most recently at Gagosian Gstaad in Switzerland. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: LMNT Electrolytes https://drinklmnt.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Athletic Nicotine https://www.athleticnicotine.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Squarespace https://squarespace.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Sign up to receive Tetragrammaton Transmissions https://www.tetragrammaton.com/join-newsletter

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music Where does art come from? Where does anything come from? Why do I have a thought after I had, after the next part, after the next part? Why does it move in one direction? Why do you want to make another thing and another thing? Where does that come from that comes to you? And some of it becomes more mysterious and other things become like to take on a kind of form that I understand better. Like I think recently a lot about vectors. So first of all, I was working with this kid and we use a lot about vectors.

First of all, I was working with this kid and we use a lot of vectors into design stuff. And if you have a vector, it never makes an abrupt move. If you pull it here, it goes there. There is something to a vector. It's like a wave. And I even feel that at the moment, like breathing or whatever, or tension in the body, you feel this and you're like how there is a, and what I kind of like about the vector at the moment is there is a linear direction of movement to this, you know, that I often think when you make stuff that it is on a, not on a line, but more on a moving thing.

It's like rolling through? I think it's more like on a wave or on something, but it's the same in your mind. Like what makes your mind want to have the next thought after you've just, it keeps going. Or even the first thought, where does it come from? I know in my case, sometimes there'll be a trigger. It'll be in reaction to something,

but I don't know what the nature of that reaction is. You know, I'll hear something, an idea will pop into my head in reaction to something, but they might not be related at all. And I don't see the connection. But I know without that trigger, I wouldn't have had the thought. Oh, absolutely.

With some of the making, like, what's so interesting about what keeps work interesting to me is that you never know. Because there are things when you express yourself with your hands that are not clear where they come from, they're just kind of out of a knowledge of a hand. I'm sure it's the same with instruments, it's just another part of your body you can use and like how all these parts of your body can play together. And then I get obsessed. Once I'm like on something, I'm like, I become like driven to the point where

when I go to bed, I've dream about this stuff, then I know I need to slow down. Yeah. Do you think of yourself as a researcher in that way? I always absorb any kind of information I find. then I know I need to slow down. Yeah, do you think of yourself as a researcher in that way? I always absorb any kind of information I find. Do you research things online? How do you do your- Anything, I buy a lot of books, almost every day or every couple days I buy books.

What would be the range of subjects? Books primarily, art books with pictures in them. I never read text that just look at the images like image, image, image, image. What about like engineering books or mechanical things? I buy books about plants. I buy books, like for example, I bought a book about pines. That was kind of interesting because there was actually

a pine cone, you know, these pines here, two different ones, but there is one here that only opens in a fire. I didn't know that. So the sap closes the pine cone so nobody can steal the seeds. And they pop open in a fire. And then afterwards the brush is cleared and they have fertile ground and that's how they're, they think is their biggest way of And then afterwards the brush is cleared and they have fertile ground.

And that's how they think is their biggest way of success is starting there, you know, things like that. I was researching pine cones this week also. I can tell you this book about pine. It's really good. It's actually once you get hooked on those, it's about every kind of plant. There is one I have about roses. One of my favorite thing is grass. I love grass, you know, because grass is like leaves, you know. They all look different.

They're all the same, you know, but they all have that little individual something, you know, they express themselves in different ways. Yeah, and when you look close, there's a lot going on in grass. Yeah. There's a lot of life happening. And it's beautiful.

Yeah, very beautiful. Palms are grass, you know that? I didn't know that. Yeah, they're grass, so that's why they grow a thing, and so the coconuts must, in this case? I didn't know that. Yeah, they're grass. So that's why they grow a thing and they have that sort of coconuts must in this case be seeds, not nuts. And coconuts, for example, like that's the kind of research. So coconut, in a way I have to coconut the beaches

because the coconut is a self-contained thing. It has all its nutrients and everything. It floats on the ocean and then gets washed up and it can sprout while it floats on the ocean for then gets washed up and it can sprout while it floats on the ocean for three, four months and it can sprout there and start to grow. It's like its own little island that then gets washed ashore in a storm weather

and it gets why you have coconut trees on the beach. I mean, it's totally, once you start looking at that stuff, you're like, wow. Yeah. I think recognizing those patterns are really helpful if you're making things. Just knowing how some things work is helpful. And nature works.

I mean, I'm just in awe, lifelong, forever awe. Is all art essentially a conversation with what came before? I think it's a conversation with what's before and it's a, it's a passing on. The way I always understood it is you get something. I mean, basically when I was a teenager, I realized at some point you can jump in to art. You know, so there was somewhere with a good library and I went there and you can say you can just hop on that train, you know, and then it starts expanding very fast. Like any new field

you get in at that age, but you're like, wow, you just see the whole line, and you're part of anything that was ever made, you can become part of that. And in that, I believe that it's basically, you just pass on, and by passing it on, you pass it through you. So it's more about passing on than about the past in a way, because nothing lives if it's not remembered. Yeah.

And the idea that it's going by whether you participate or not. You choose to get involved, but if you don't, it's going. It's going anyway. You know, it's going. Yeah. Was there a library that first caught your attention? I think the first library caught my attention is my grandparents had art books from a series, maybe a subscription, you get one a month for like Caravaggio, the D, the D, the D. Because they were not the good books, they were like low, you know, they were like on

the bottom shelf. And you could reach them. You could reach them and you look at all these pictures and you don't know anything makes any sense. And mainly in there, there was always this Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch. These two, these images, when you look at them as a kid, they go a little deep. Do you remember looking at the images

and not knowing what they meant or not understanding them? I know there was one painting that had, actually my grandparents, they had a print reproduction of one painting, of I think a Bruegel painting, and they had, there were people that were sitting in some kind of taverna restaurant on some benches, and they were wearing hats, and then they had dishes, plates, and there was one plate was with something red on it,

and some were with something white on it. And I was always thinking of like you don't know what it is the food, but you don't even think how it tastes. It's just there is something in the dress is red and this white place. Maybe it was a formal thing or maybe it meant something, but you just like you get fascinated or hung up with weird stuff. You didn't know why it was. Why weren't they all the same? Yeah, no, or why they were two. I mean, it's the way it's kind of similar to, you know, how the brain goes to places like you don't know why for a month you think about a particular place 30 years back, a particular time, and there is no real connect that it's not, oh, you had a revelation or saw something interesting. If you just were waiting somewhere or like, you know, and how you go to that other place

in your brain. Yeah. And it's like, what are you? Yeah, what's happening? Yeah. Yeah, so much of it is both out of our control, but even out of our understanding, it's dreamlike. Yeah. I mean, I don't even know about understanding anymore. Do you try to understand or no? Sure.

I mean, we try to make sense, but that's also like you're... Actually continuous the conversation I had with this boxing coach, he was saying, you know, like when you stop fighting life, your life is good. Yeah. Which I thought is a very interesting thing coming from an old boxer, you know. Yeah. Tell me in your view, the evolution of art over time. I'm not sure there is one. I don't think art got better.

If that makes sense, you know, I don't, I couldn't really say there is something like, I was just trying to think like an analogy to music. And when I thought of music from the medieval times, I used to have a Hildegard from being in a CD. You can listen, it's beautiful, but you don't really know how to integrate that so much in your daily life and things that,

I think music allowed a lot of stuff in the ways to celebrate life. And I'm not sure art really, like visual art, if you frame it like that, narrowly, added that much more to it, you know. I mean, maybe did. I like old stuff. Me too. And I like new stuff too, but it's kind of, you know, if you think of your work in images, and one analogy, the way I always look at it as if you drive, whatever comes at you is new.

That's the new. New is always about new. And it's instantaneous and you try to understand or sort it. And then there is the blind spot, the thing that's not new. It's not a threat. You don't need to sort it out. So it becomes kind of uninteresting and you stop seeing it, you know? And then there is the rear view mirror

and in the rear view mirror, things get compacted and they become an image. And once you have the image, it's like you're free to just look at it because it's not coming at you. So then you can kind of just be in this image. Like for example, here, when we look at this John Chamberlain, it's the guy's not alive anymore.

In the analogy of driving and what's coming towards you, are you saying that the things that you notice are the things that are new? In other words, if you drove the same route every day, a lot of what you see would become background wallpaper and you wouldn't notice it anymore. Yeah. But if there's something that's not there every day, that's the new thing. That's the new thing or it's a threat. I mean, new is also fear.

You got to make sure you survive. So like, let's say I was just on the freeway and I didn't see that big sheet of metal getting under our car, but it's like, then it's there very quickly. But if you see that, then that maybe doesn't happen. Like, you always, you know? Yeah. Did you say that you notice things in everyday life and they work their way into your work or not necessarily?

Everything. I'm an omnivore. Yeah. Like, I'm not, I don't have a practice. Like my practice is just doing things. Yeah, just making things or doing things? Both. Like making things, thinking about things, doing things.

I just like, I just love it. Calms me down. Gives me something to do or... I don't have a big plan. How would you say sculpture works different than other forms if it does? I don't know, all I learned is you compete with reality or you're partaking like reality in a way of a spatial

and an image has usually, I think, why images have frames or borders are because it's like you enter it and it's not a real thing. It's like an image. And then in an image everything is possible. But when you make a sculpture, it's you're kind of bound by the physical world if there's one approach to understand it. I don't know, it just needs to communicate with the physical world, in a different way than an image does. An image is also scalable more like,

let's say you can look at an image in a photograph, and this image is more in the mind. And I haven't not figured it out, but I do like that challenge. look at an image in a photograph, you know, images more in the mind. I haven't figured it out, but I do like that challenge. With sculpture, do you always make it knowing where it's going to be or no? No. I try to always make it that it can be anywhere where it wants to be, that it's independent. Everything is synergy and often unbeknownst to us, like the extent of what synergy does, what you find, what you give yourself permission to engage in or something.

So, like let's say the simplest way to explain it, when I work with somebody, their psyche limits what I do and their psyche expands what I do or my understanding of their psyche. I don't know exactly like how to quantify that, but with certain people you take certain risks with certain people in maybe there is a moment in your life and the moment in their life where things make sense. Like I think the best way I ever experienced that was I made a show with Gavin Brown. I don't know who created it. So I was in a phase I wanted to make a show where I show less than there was there before. Yes. And I started to remove in my mind a little bit of the space. And then I just thought I'd take the slab out of the floor.

And then I thought why stop there? Let's just keep digging in my mind. So I thought like we'd take as much as we can out. And at the same time, Gavin was open, but he's also three months earlier of his mother passed. So I think we were both for two different reasons in an emotional state where that kind of made sense. I would not think about doing a show like this with all the people I work with, you know, just because it's not there, you know. And that's more something in hindsight I realize, oh, this or this person is kind of careful and very business oriented.

And so you kind of meet your act up somehow, you know, it's like, you don't realize how it is. Now I pay more attention like out of the gate if it doesn't feel right. Or you can use that as an interesting adventure to work with somebody as long as you have your boundaries in the right place, that's okay, you know. ["The Last Supper"] L-M-N-T. Element Electrolytes. Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun? Do you want to maximize your endurance and feel your best? Add Element Electrolytes to your daily routine.

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Element electrolytes are sugar-free, keto-friendly, and great tasting. Minerals are the stuff of life. So visit drinklmnt.com slash tetra. And stay salty with Element Electrolyte. Tell me more about the digging. That's a really interesting idea. It starts with an idea and do you necessarily know what's going to happen? It's not an idea. it's more a feeling. The feeling is I've made so many shows,

I didn't wanna show some. And also at the time it felt so like the whole art thing, that was before, a year before the 2008 crash, but it felt so kind of heated up. Yeah. The feeling was more, you wanna do the opposite. Yeah, you said take away. Take away, show nothing,

but can you show nothing and show something? Yeah, yeah. Or show less? And do you think you were digging up or looking for what was underneath? Digging could mean a lot of things, you know? Yeah, for me what it was, Digging could mean a lot of things, you know? Yeah, for me what it was,

it was more about like something, for lack of better words, about like something soul, and something that's in deeper, you know? It's not like something. Going inside. Going inside, like digging deeper in a good and a bad way, you know? Like not needing to quantify that,

but just like wanting to know more or needing more or whatever it is, just like going in. Just in a practical way, you couldn't do it on the third floor of a museum. No. It only works on the ground floor. It works on the ground floor, yeah. Yeah, without a basement.

Yeah, without a basement. Yeah. And was it dirt underneath? It was just dirt. I think that part of the West Village is landfill or Greenwich Village. I don't know what exactly it is. Where did it happen? Bottom of West Village was Greenwich and Leroy.

Like somewhere there in Manhattan. Yeah, downtown. And then, cause this fantasy, like buildings totally disappear. Like a gallery would not be there anymore. And a few years later, I walked by that same gallery where I made the show and they tore it down to build it. It's too bad you could have put your name on it if you only knew. Exactly. They do it for you. It's amazing. Does it ever happen that way where conditions come together seemingly on their own?

Yes. If it works out, I mean, who knows? But like if it feels right, it feels right. And then you don't, they all sink up somehow. Yeah. Do you have a name for the paintings with the fruit or vegetables over the faces? Yeah, they're problem paintings is what I call them. Problem paintings.

Well, I don't really know. I mean, I later, I was not so much aware of that when I started with it. I mean, it has a few different origins in some ways. What was the very first one? The very first one was, there were some kind of Frankenstein monsters. And I just, I love this image of this Frankenstein. The whole body or the portrait? It was a portrait, there was some kind of, some of them torso. And I just always liked that character, you know.

Yeah. Somehow. So it started with that. But the images I collected is I had, there was this teenage boy that was the cousin or the nephew of my girlfriend at the time. And I got him some kind of, you know, one of these skater figurines. There was a hand with an eye in it or something like that.

And I made a package for him, like a, you know, gift wrapping. And I wanted to make it cooler and I kind of just printed out these monsters because of the monster to make as a gift wrapping paper. And then I started working with these images. I didn't know what to do with them until I put some kind of metal things on them first. But there is a lot of origins for me. Like I once had a friend or somebody I didn't keep contact and he took some drugs and I think he was psychotic.

And he, when he left the house, one day started to have a tiny little colored dot smack in the middle wherever he looked. And over a month, that dot expanded to a size where he couldn't function anymore because he couldn't see a door handle or a car. And on the beginning. What started as a dot of color expanded to take over his field of vision.

Yeah, so slowly every day it expanded more so till he couldn't function anymore. Yeah. And then I don't know, I think he went to some place to get help, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in a way, that's something I always felt, this obstruction of,

like any form of obstruction between you and this. And then later on I realized, oh, I saw that all my life. There is this Magritte painting that work like this. I'm like, oh, that's probably plays a huge part in it. But at that point, I was already kind of having my own fun with it. So yeah, and I'm okay with, you know, I think it's something else if you look at something and you copy it, like, or you just land in the same place or subconsciously maybe you're influenced.

I think that's all fair game. For sure. Then I just thought in some way, I grew up in the 70s as a kid, and there were still a lot of black and white movies on the TV, and there were still these kind of older movie stars, and they were interesting to me, not because they were interesting,

they were just interesting because they were like perfect. They were these self-contained things, you know what I mean? Yeah. You think because you only saw them in black and white? Maybe that's a big thing. I think there's a lot of reasons that only black and white, I think it's from a different time,

or before counterculture in this way, or where you see how people look in photographs. And they're just kind of perfected. I think it's the way the whole, like a lot of things worked at that time, like this maybe smoothing over some cracks in the whole thing. But in some way, the way they were photographed, they look empty, but they look like so much.

But it's not them, it's never them. It's just like this thing that has some form of expression or beauty, almost like a Greek statue in a way. I mean, there is a link if you look at horse, be horse photography or like this kind of idealization or this light and whatever, like it's kind of like this. It's just these things where they don't get in the way. So I realized when you use images like that,

they don't interfere because it's not a person or it's like, like they don't need anything. They're made to not need. They're made for you to project on. And, you know, I always liked still life. I like to look at stuff up close. And then I realized like, for example, that a fruit is much more timeless than these people.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Like I asked my 16 year old daughter about four years ago when she was 12, she and her friends were there. Somehow, does anybody know who Marilyn Monroe is? One said, yes, I heard about her. And then Elvis, the same girl said, yes,

the other one, no clue, you know? This is like the idea of iconography and like how popular culture. Short-lived. Very short-lived. Now with all the YouTube, like how these references are like just like out the window. If the first one was Frankenstein,

what ended up on top of Frankenstein? Metal, one was some kind of galvanized pipe, like a plumbing pipe, you know. And then the other one was a bent spoon. Maybe it was inspired by a kid, Uri Geller. Exactly. Like a bent spoon. And then one was another piece of metal conduit kind of thing. And did it turn into a format? Are they in a series where the size is similar? Yeah, it became like that.

And then I still sometimes get back into it and I have fun doing like two, three and then I'm... Do you have other series like that? I've seen like the metal boxes. They were all done at the same time, the metal boxes. That's different. That's one period of time. Yeah, no, that's... I don't really have, do I? There's some paintings I make on the iPad, like things that come out of like, you know, just out of living with certain devices or toys, you know, like whatever you have. Then there are some other things where it's more serial.

I think you don't even have to worry about it because you're so limited as a human being, you will always in the end make exactly what you do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Would you say a lot of decision goes into what you make or is it more, it just happens? I try to be somewhat disciplined, but within each thing. And I believe in that, not in a shinta way,

but the thing has somewhat its own life and logic and wants to go where it goes. And you can guide, you can follow, and you can make it grow, but you cannot force. And then when I realized like there are two things that play, then I try to shave one of them out. Like often there is, you come from, you do something and then there was actually two, three things that are there and you just try to somewhat. So you focus it? Focus it or let it be one thing, not three things at once.

And then that sometimes leads to something boring and sometimes it's more exciting, but it's like you let it do its own thing. It's some form of editing, but I think it's a pre-editing. It's not that you edit at the end, you kind of edit as you go or before or long. Yeah. Typically when you have an idea for an edit

and you do the edit, are you ever surprised by what happens? Sometimes, sometimes in a positive way. And sometimes more with the sculpture stuff, it's in a pretty, um, kind of. Not disappointment, but sobering. Like from your high, when you think this is great, then you have to think and it's like kind of, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That doesn't look right.

Yeah, and does that just mean time to keep working on it or does it mean discard it and make a new thing? Usually I put it aside. Yeah. Do you put things aside and come back around to them later, see into them anew later on? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, sometimes you're also just not at peace piece with I don't know what it is. Sometimes you're not a piece with anything you do and you or I for me then I I don't like it. I mean, it's the same when I make a book or a show or whatever. I'm really excited. Most of the way through with some dips. And when it's all coming together, I usually cannot walk into that show again. I have a really complicated relationship with that. And then in hindsight, like the more time passes back to this rear view mirror thing,

it's like the more I can also embrace that and actually sometimes even think, that's cool, wow. You know, like, but it takes me a really long time to find some connection, you know? Yeah. When you're making it, you're probably too close to it. Yeah.

But with time, you can see it like a spectator. More so. More so. Do you ever see something new years later in a piece that you didn't realize why you liked something and then years later you come to like, now I understand. Oh a lot, yeah. That's kind of, that's uh, some of it is also like who was the guy that made this, like that's the other encounter I have. It could feel totally foreign. It feels foreign or you kind of have a...

I kind of know where I was at somewhat, but you're not really there anymore and you don't really know or you see it maybe a little more forgiving with that guy that once was. And so you can see that that guy tried to do this and then that lets you look up the thing, you know, somehow. Every other way where it's like, wow, that guy was great. I wish I could do what he does.

Oh, there's a lot of stuff I could never do again that I wish I, I don't know, not in a way of like, lose any sleep over it, but it's more like, there's sometimes like an innocence or a cluelessness or like a freshness or a lightness, not even light, just like on way down or... Yeah. Now you know a lot more than you did then. And that can either be helpful or it can completely undermine that.

That can do everything. Yeah. Well, I'll take that over the other thing. Any second. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't think there was ever a day in my life where I wanted to go a day back. Yeah.

And it's weird how that just happens. Like I think most people feel somewhat this way and you just, how you would never want to trade back. I mean, sure, so the body and stuff like that's kind of not so fun. But even then, you know. In a world of artificial highs and harsh stimulants, there is something different, something clean, something precise. Athletic nicotine, not the primitive products found behind convenience store counters, not the aggressive buzz that leaves you jittery, but a careful calibration of clean energy and focused clarity. Athletic nicotine, the lowest dose tobacco-free nicotine available, made

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Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Would you say all the work in some way is biographical? I think it's inevitable, personally. That's my opinion. There's a lot of different thoughts from different people, but I think biographical energy plays into anything you do. It's maybe self-synergy or whatever. But you know, it's like, there is not just you doing the thing, there is you doing the thing, you know?

not just you doing the thing, there is you doing the thing, you know? And I do like a practice where you just do whatever comes your way. Then I have friends that have this practice where they do this thing, they do, and they do this thing for decades. And if I envision myself like you do this thing, you go in there for 10 hours a day and you do this thing, what is that thing? But maybe within that there is a lot of room. Yeah. For also biographical little things. It's just maybe it's not as loud.

It's maybe not as screaming. It's not like as raw. Maybe it's, I don't know what it is, but it's fascinating to me. And that's also, I think you see that more with people that have an image, so to speak, you know, like, you know what they do, the stance. It's like a, it's a clear representation

of one thing, you know, when you think about art, one thing I'm fascinated about it is, like I like oeuvres, I don't like individual art works much, but I like what somebody did in their entire life. That's interesting. The body of work. The whole body of work with their bad ears, the good ears, the whole package,

I think is where the real power lays for me in art. It's a kind of a package I find not so clearly in other arts. And in that, there is this thing where, there is always this idea of authenticity. Somebody can be very greedy and corrupt and just makes things for money, but that's authentic. You have a very authentic person trying to make a little step into a commercial thing

and they lose everything they have. Because it's not authentic to them. You see that in a, this is just one fragment you see, if you look at somebody's entire life of everything they do. When it comes to an image, you see, like, one of my best or closest experience I have, like, where I, with art, where it's really positive because I'm not always liking it, is I go into a beautiful retrospective show somewhere, and I walk out and I see things differently. Do you see the world differently after experiencing that?

Yes, yes. So it adds something to how I see or how what you pay attention to or what you, just how you experience things, you know? It'd be like reading someone's biography. The equivalent to that would be going to their show, seeing their life's work. And you're getting a sense of how they see the world.

Yeah. And it's in a more visual, like nonverbal way. Yeah. And that's something I'm always drawn logically as a, I mean, I just like shapes and colors, you know, for whatever reason we have different preferences as people. It just, somebody saw it for you and then helps you see it in a way. Yeah, you see a new possibility maybe. Yeah, or you just, you understand them, you know, and that's more of an image,

And that's more of an image. That makes sense. Yes. I often think if you're more all over the place, what is your image here? Yeah. You know? Remember the first time you had the experience of seeing a retrospective of an artist

and feeling changed by it? Yeah, yeah, totally. What was the first one? As a semi grown up, like about 17 or 18, I saw Bruce Nauman show and I didn't know who that is. And I walked in there and there were this clown screaming and some shit moving. And you're like, I really felt that.

I was like, what the fuck is this? You know, like you see things in a way you've never experienced them before. Do you say you had no context for it? Zero, very little. It just walked in and you're like. Yeah. Well, there's no context that could go either way.

Like it could be the coolest thing you've ever seen or the first instinct could be, I don't know what this is, I don't like it. Well, that's two feelings. I mean, a lot of things you don't like, they're kind of the same as the things you like. Yeah. They have some charge that you're reacting to.

When you were describing the energy before, there's a peace in the room and there's energy. Is the energy in the peace or is the energy in you reacting to the piece? There is a, I remember when I was a little older, I was maybe like 18 or 19, I was in the National Gallery in London and there is this first room you come in with all these impressionist paintings like Van Gogh's Sunflowers, Azurov, Bavar from whatever, you know. And you can stand there and you watch everybody that most people that came in had a reaction to a recording

of some pigment and binder on canvas that has been placed in a specific place. Yep. And logically, it's just molecules and whatever. But everybody had a reaction. So that would make it a perpetual mobility of sorts. Because everybody can take energy out and only once energy has been put in. Yeah. And it doesn't stop giving the energy. And I think that's probably something that has to do with the ability.

I mean, you're way more knowledgeable, but anything you can record has that chance of being encountered again and again and again. So in what is it? It's in the recording, in this case when it's molecules, I mean, I have no idea. But I do, I mean, I do know that some things feel good, for example, but it's not just a visual experience. Some things feel good, some things look good, some things smell good. And that's definitely like stuff that is in there or tastes good, you know.

You think it all relates back to nature? I don't know. Is nature our blueprint for what looks good and tastes good or not necessarily? I think, I mean like beauty. Yeah. I'm fascinated with nature. I have so many different plants.

I'm like, I. I have so many different plants. I'm like, I get new plants every week. My garden is like full of plants. And I'm fascinated because it grows out of very little, like even airplanes, I have airplanes, that like grows out of nothing, little light, little, I don airplanes that grow out of nothing, a little light, a little, I don't know, a little water.

And they leave more behind than they take. They sort it out with each other. They always figure it out who grows what, but it seems, and then some of them have blossoms. And where you have the blossoms, then you attract insects and you attract birds, some little hummingbirds, whatever, you know? And then the blossoms communicate. And the blossom is like, I don't know the history of the blossom, I've once reading up about it,

like macanolias and this. So it became a way of means of transport or procreation in a way. And flowers, even in nature, they stand out. I mean, to us and to any insect, you can just watch. They go, they all know how they smell. And when you watch an animal, usually their gait is so graceful, their coats, I mean, it's just divine, you know? And they don't make mistakes really or something. They're not confused.

Like you just see them doing their thing. It's hard to imagine that beauty is not the part of all of it, or that it's just our perception. In my feeling, it is, I thought, you know, like let's say you look at an iPhone, that's kind of the best we can do, you know? And it's really like amazing what they managed to put in there, I mean, like in so many ways.

But you look at, I like to look at leaves a lot, you know? Yeah. And just how that all works and it makes it all out of nothing and then it disappears and how everything works together and then from whatever microbes and really like all the crazy stuff we don't even understand, but like how smart

that design is. And then how clumsy everything else feels like that we, our achievements, you know, a toilet bowl or like whatever, you know, it has the right water flow to flush or like, you know, it's like, I made this. It's totally barbaric in comparison. Exactly. To every little bug is like, I like, I made this. It's totally barbaric in comparison. Exactly, to every little bug is like, I mean, I watch ants. Miraculous.

I mean, the ants, then I see the ants carrying some stuff. Yeah, big stuff, little ants carrying big things. And then you see them communicating, like, all around. And then you see people trying to communicate, you know? It's difficult. It's very difficult.

Yeah, I don't think words do justice to the experience. No, as a human you're born early. Explain. I think because from somebody told me, my sister told me, who studied biology and zoology and whatever. Because we walk upright, we come out a little early for the size of mammal we are. But we can afford that to rear our children slowly. And then if you think it takes 18 years to be able to go out into the world kind of, you know? Until you learn all these complicated social norms

and all that. And I was recently at the dentist and I had this video playing of this octopus. You know, it's just one of these underwater films, and it's just like this thing was so freaking smart and beautiful and how it moved. And I was thinking about me raising my two daughters and how complicated it gets.

The attitude from a teenager and all this, you're like, what good does that do, actually? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like, there's a level of complication to everything and our interactions. Like, what is it? It starts with us deciding we know the right way to do it, which is a real question mark.

You know, who knows? Yeah. I mean, that's just a feeling. When you think you're right, that's usually a feeling, no? Yeah. Who knows? And what's right for you and what's right for me might not be the same, and what's right for us

might not be right for someone on the other side of the world. It's impossible to know. Like, there's too many conditions that dictate everything. Or what you think is right for you is actually wrong for you. Yeah. And we know many of our friends are like this. Oh, I'm like this. Or the fact that if we were alive 200 years ago,

it would be a whole different set of rules. Yeah. Not even that long ago. Yeah, less. I always remember that my parents said it was difficult to rent an apartment because they were not married. Yeah. Like, and then you're thinking, what the fuck? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What do you care? Yeah. And in other parts of the world, the rules could be completely different. How many places have you lived in the world? Just Europe and here. So in Europe, the differences are kind of there, but it's not like...

Closer than everywhere else. Yeah, I think I never lived in Latin countries in Europe, so it's like that's a different culture, I think. I lived in... I grew up in Switzerland, then I lived in England, which was more different than at some point I ended up in Berlin a bit. And then I lived in Amsterdam. I mean, I was 19, I moved there. So the first place I moved to, because I thought it's kind of smaller, I can manage. So Amsterdam was the first place you moved.

Yeah, I didn't speak any English. So I had, my English was from liner notes, with a dictionary. So kind of, it was not. Was Amsterdam a good experience? I had a really good time. And it's, it's, you know, it was a sweet size of a city. When you're kind of alone and you go out

and you're, you don't really know what you want. Did you already know you were gonna do art or no? Yeah, I just like doing things. So I did like photography and some art stuff before and I worked, well, the theater was interesting to me. Like I worked with that a bit. And then when I went to Amsterdam, yeah, I thought I'm doing art.

When I bumped into some guy, told me there is a school that gives you money and the studio. And then I went to that school and knocked on the door and I had some drawings I made. So I put the drawings in a box and the night before I walked back, a woman walked by and it was heavily perfumed and I just thought that's kind of a good way to get attention. So I put all this perfume on my application, you know, so you have a little factory thing. So that's what, you know.

And then they called, you know, on the phone, home, and like they called, said, yeah, you can come in. And then I went there and they said somebody just left because they had like 10 people a year. It was like some postgraduate program. And I know it was not postgraduate. I was 19 and just didn't really finish anything before. And then that was kind of my introduction.

Then I first time dealt with people that were educated through art schools and so on. Was that good or bad? That was very enlightening. Yeah. And I'm glad I didn't start there. Yes. For me, it felt like a shock. So you see there were some dudes that were totally back then. I think there was just the tail end of Julian Schnabel being like a dominating figure in painting and perception for younger people.

And there were these few older dudes that were kind of like fighting to be like this kind of very masculine large canvas guys and then there were some people that had some conceptual things and some painted some figuration. Each had their little pocket and they knew exactly what they do and they had an idea of a career path and a gallery or a museum like was all educated. And if you come in through the side door, you can just look at it. You're not like in it. Yeah. And I'm really glad I did.

Would you say you've always felt like an outsider? I don't know, never thought about it this way. But I think of it a little bit the other way around. I think this is a lot of this education and this stuff is kind of alien. I see. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, you're saying. I think it's to celebrate your life. And I don't understand in various forms.

I don't understand this need to quantify that. Yeah. As a lot of education in the arts does. I mean... It's not as free as you see the possibilities. Is that a way to say it? Yeah, I mean, it's very narrow. Like some of it is extremely narrow.

I don't know why one would wanna engage in that. Yeah, I guess if you believe that's what it is, if you learn that early enough, you think that's what it is. You're saying that you have the advantage of not having the blinders put on you early. Yeah, totally. I think, you know, if you're just surrounded by people that say things and think they are part of it. I mean, it's always belonging to, you know, like the way I understand it, there's a lot of fear and you want to do the right thing and you want to be kind of like your peers in some way

and you want to be part. And I don't totally understand, but I do know I don't understand art education. You think it can be taught? Back to synergy, you know, I think there are always pockets, as we all know, like in any kind of creative or artistic or even business or whatever, there is always pockets of people. It's hardly ever you meet the solitaire, you know, you always, there's little things and what leads to this situation to be fertile,

so many factors, we don't know, but it's like, then things develop. And it is probably like one way of how you can facilitate a chance that you have. I mean, you always have an experience, but that this experience could be really kind of cross-pollinating and do more. But sure, you know, better than most people,

you cannot force magic. You can't force anything. Yeah, I'm sure like people come to you and they want some magic, give you some magic. And like, you know, like, good luck, you know, can't help you there. What was your first tattoo? A little dot here.

A dot? Well, this little dot, you know, when you just take a fountain pen. And then I had the, there's also some lion here, some heraldic lion and something. I was totally dumb. I'm like, I'm not. How old were you when you got the dot?

The first the dot? The first... The dot? I have probably, I don't know, 12 or something. I've totally forget that I have the tooth. I have to tell you, I literally forget. So much of today's life happens on the web. Squarespace is your home base for building your dream presence in an online world. Designing a website is easy, using one of Squarespace's best in class templates.

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Whether you're just starting out or already managing a successful brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create and customize a beautiful website. Visit squarespace.com slash tetra and get started today. and get started today. How was living in New York different than living in Europe? It was more welcoming as a non-native person. I think that in general about living in North America is my experience as not being from here is such that there are many people that are not from here or there's different histories and nobody's really from anywhere.

Some people think they are, you know, but like it leaves more room. And if I live, where I try to live somewhere in Europe, not just like to visit or spend some time of the year, once you go somewhere and you're younger and you realize so you will never be English, you will never be Dutch, you will never be whatever French, Italian, like you will never be that. And that's usually after two years whenever I started to leave.

And in New York, I did not have that experience. I thought I actually become more part of it. The longer I was there, almost to the point where you're like, it's good to get out. Yeah. I had this fear at first when I moved there, You know, like in Zurich, where I grew up, the people that went to New York in the 80s or early 90s, a lot of them were very ambitious.

And some of them were kind of a little bit of assholes, you know. And I always imagined that city must be a hub for people with too much ambition and this and that. So I never had a fantasy to move there. So my fantasy was always to move to California and coming from a medieval city, you know, I liked the idea that this is the end of Western civilization, not the old, old baked in version.

So that it's kind of, but then once I moved to New York, it's kind of similar, it felt similar than when I first got into art where you see all these things, you know, all these, where you can hop in and you see books and other sources of information, things in real or people where you realize you can be part of something. And it felt to me still like there is a lot of history.

Yeah. And going in there, it felt like you're not just a bunch of kids doing something, you're part of a long history. And that was really great to be part of, or to feel that you partake in that somewhat. You feel like there's an artistic community there? Now?

Yeah. I'm sure, yeah, there are communities. Ongoing. Ongoing, but we also have people that are 80 that once did something, people 70, 60, 50, like you have all from all in different dimensions, directions, and they're all kind of there, you know, and it's a very rich network of

histories and also of self-mythologizing creatures on top of each other. It gives what you do context and makes you feel what you do has a purpose. Yeah. If that's true or not, it doesn't matter. But it's a feeling of you're not just like in somewhere, middle of nowhere doing something and then maybe get sent out and you're like, what is that? Yeah.

And the California experience, how's that been for you? Oh, I just love being outdoors. Yeah. I'm outdoor even in the Oh, I just love being outdoors. Yeah. I'm outdoor, even in the winter, I have puffy jackets and blankets and heaters. Yeah. In this part of my life, that makes more sense to be closer to nature,

but still be in an urban place than to be in a lot of noise. Have you experimented at all with technology? Always, yeah. I mean, what kind of technology? I guess we'll say digital because I guess there's physical technology too. Yeah, most things I do go through a computer at some point in various ways, either in conception or in production. You know, I made some kind of robotic chairs a few years back. I don't know when that was, maybe 2018, 19,

so there's some free roaming. I don't know if you ever thought of it. I've never seen them. They're chairs that move around? They're chairs, they're office chairs. I mean, it's totally crazy technology. They make no sound when they move and the battery, they go and charge themselves.

But they're all just one office chair. They have different colors and they're free-roaming robots and they're programmed to have different, and they have about nine centers built in. I spend a townhouse on those, you know, like, holy dumb. But they have different personalities, the way they react to people. Do you think of them like pets?

No, it was more like that. It started with the idea of humans and patterns, like how we are working in patterns. So say you approach somebody and they're very nice. The next time you approach them and you expect, you always read what to expect, you know. And some people have a personality where that's kind of shifting, you know, and they mess up a lot of things, you know? And so I wanted to make this nine officers and they move around. I wanted them like build expectation. And also like in a way as a human,

like have your expectation project. Oh, I know how this works. You approach it, it goes away. You approach it, it goes away. You approach it, it stands still. You approach it again, it goes away. Then you think it's a glitch. You approach it again and then it approaches you.

You have a very hard time reading what's going on. You know, very quickly you can create some confusion. So that didn't totally work out because at the time we had a little bit of a lag, just a little bit too long for people that went, because what happens, people go first slow, then they go think it doesn't work, then they go fast, then they go slow, and then the chair reacts, and then you're with a little tiny time lag, you're already kind of not in sync with the people's reaction. So it didn't totally function on this level. And then they did some choreographies together. And I can show you. You want to see that? Yeah, please. So I have two videos.

It's great. That's so funny. And they're very ordinary looking chairs. They look like the chairs you'd see in any office. Yeah, but there is two motors per wheel. There is a chip that we have some import problems because it can use it to guide a rocket. There is like all the technology is inside these chairs like hidden and they don't make a sound. And then the seat cushion is actually a battery that we have made. And there is a robotic thing where they go drive in and charge themselves. And they all know where they are.

They know where the people are. I mean, by now we could probably do much better than this, but. It's so cool. So then we assigned like micro movements. They can go 30 miles an hour. Wow. So if you have one glitch, they could be dangerous, yeah, yeah. Could be dangerous. Yeah. So that's all remade.

Like this is not the real chair. This is all remade. So cool looking. Then they do choreographies together. When there is a room, soon they see room, they find each other, then they do choreographies. It's a funny idea to think about, like when the office closes and everybody leaves,

that this is what happens, you know? See, when somebody goes slow, you can actually do that with them. But with the time lag they get confused. If you're confused, you know, and then they have affinities to each other or not. And it's like, it's like, it's pretty complex. And the title is play.

And I always thought it's interesting because it's, you can watch animals play. Yeah. You don't need to be a human to play. Yeah, yeah. So from the inception, tell me the process of getting from the idea to getting to that.

I had some idea like some years earlier for that. There was a table that just moves around. Like whenever you go in a space the table it will go away it will come to you and this and that because I saw like some cars you know when you back up you have these little sensors that's easy to do and it wasn't and then I forgot about it and and on some point I was thinking about it again and I called a friend of mine who has nothing to do with robotics, but he's very smart. And then we did this in one and a half years, the whole production and everything.

Are the ideas ever based on a new technology you see and then you see an application or is it always the dream of what it could be first and then figuring out how to technically make it happen? It's more like you try, you're kind of informed what you see in the real world, maybe in this way but you don't know how it works and but you think it should be possible to push that and apply that in a different context, you know, like just backing up cars and cameras and sensors. Why can't we put that in something else? And then the other thing is a vocabulary. I mean, things you have done before, like let me do a lot of things now, or you scan stuff or any kind of

how you go about or work with data, you have a vocabulary of what you know is possible. you have a vocabulary of what you know is possible. Yeah. And that informs the way you think about, for example, I often with a work, I just lay around and then I think about something or it comes from wherever, it's just there. And then I go through the whole process of how it's made

one step by step. So I pre-make the entire thing in my mind with all the technical complications and everything. And so then it's kind of finished in this way and then you make it. And then when you make it, it logically doesn't turn out exactly like how you imagined it and then you deal with that part. Does that whole process happen before you ever say, write it down or draw something?

That's a funny question because I mean, it's the same when people say they write their diaries and they do it by hand. How do the facts you're thinking and what you write and how it's part of your life? Like when you write, the fact that you're thinking is much faster than you writing that sentence. It's kind of a good thing sometimes. But then what I don't like personally about writing is that it has to somewhat make sense. Like you start with a sentence and it goes to the next sentence and then you're like, you kind of put yourself a bit into a corner. And then how we get out of there.

So the other thing is more, it's also more for three dimensional things where you have to the production or the whole like how it comes into life, where you need to fold that in early, you know. For a sculpture, is there a point where you build a small model? Hardly ever, no. It's, I mean, it's the same with like notes. I make a lot of notes, but my notes are really messy.

They're not like accurate drawings. But you know what they mean, or they the same with like notes. I make a lot of notes, but my notes are really messy. They're not like accurate drawings. But you know what they mean or they help you remember things. I used to make lots of them and I plaster my walls with them. And then I thought of it as a three-dimensional model of ideas and how they interconnect and so on. But then I realized I never look at them again, never.

And then I had boxes full of that stuff and then I stopped doing them and now recently the last year I got back into it but I never look at that stuff again. Do you think art is meant to be seen next to other art? You mean physically? It can, I mean, I don't mind it. Does it change anything? Does it?

Context changes everything, yeah, always. I mean, it's even like in your brain, when you look at something, you think you already bring context into everything, you know? Yeah. And some stuff looks way better when you combine it. Has your work ever been censored? Has it?

Oh, the last time I got some slack was we put up this big sculpture in the center of Moscow and like, you know, huge, huge outdoor sculpture, I don't know, 45 feet or whatever in the center of the city. And it got singled out by some more right parts singled out by some more right parts in politics as a weird thing. It obstructs the basileysk of the thing or whatever liberal turn or now this comes to our say, you know, whatever. But it's not my work. It's like, it's ridiculous. I mean, there is, there's a lot of problems there and it's definitely not in a piece of metal.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you made pieces that are wax and they're candles essentially? Yeah, they work like a candle. It wasn't in the beginning. I mean, it started like, you know, I kind of always like when they light a candle for something or somebody, it's like a flame or like, I think a lot of us think about flames as like some other flame of life or like a soul or like there's something to fire that,

I don't know what it is, but I always see fire as something alive. So I just put in some sculptures, I just put a regular household candle just to kind of because I thought it maybe it needs to be alive. So you put that there and then over sudden the thing becomes alive. If you think you have your office chair there and you put a candle on that, then the chair becomes like something else, you know. So it's a way. And then it shifted from there. So why not make a whole thing out of it as a candle?

The beginning I carved these female figures like in a more traditional, I had no clue what I was doing, more traditional kind of art idea, you know, like of a, like it felt like a new somewhat figure is like the most simplest figure that doesn't need to be like somebody, you know? And some years later, there was this guy, Peter Brandt, I don't know if you know who he is, he's a collector and he's married with Stephanie Seymour and they have, they commissioned various artists to make portraits of her.

One is Maurizio Cattelandi, Julian did a portrait of different people. And I offered, I have a portrait in mind and it was a portrait of Peter, and this is just when the scanning technology for people, like to scan human bodies was somewhat mobile enough that we could work with this technology. And it was a portrait of Peter standing behind this chair,

and the chair was empty. And that was my portrait of her because all the other artists made a portrait of her. And I thought there is something, he's also in there, and I wanted to call the piece, Stephanie. And I made a show with the Brand Foundation at their family foundation in Connecticut. And that piece was a part with the Brandt Foundation at their family foundation in Connecticut. And that piece was a part of the works in there.

But they separated in that time. I thought I couldn't call the piece Stephanie anymore. I thought that would just feel bad. So then it was just Peter and out of that came these portraits. And then the next thing at the time I shared a studio with Rudy Stingle. And then I wanted to make a portrait of him. And then I wanted to make a portrait of him. And then I thought, because he grew up in Italy, in northern Italy, like all the history,

this European history, so then I thought he should be with a big sculpture, like of a pressing old European art history kind of big thing, you know, and so that got out of hands, that thing became very big, and then I wanted to put something else that's totally not thinking this way, the thing's ergonomic. There is an office chair, actually the same one I use for the robots, because it has an ergonomic design that this doesn't go by the same aesthetic principle. So I just had that to occupy like some space around it. So that's kind of how that came about.

And then I got into it whenever I met somebody that I felt has like the resting position pretty much, you know, carries an image. Adam McEwan, a good friend of mine, Andy. But he's kind of tall and he often looks down, so he's a bit more like a shoegazer. He feels some kind of the thought, the weight of thought always in his posture. And it's not that it's about him being this way, it's more like an image of that. And he just shows them very well. I made this portrait of Julian Schnabel and he sits on this crate and that was my image of Julian in a way. It's like this, on one side it's like a boy sitting by a pier fishing, but then if you look from underneath it's also like a pedestal, you're kind of on there. It's great. So that's kind of just these images of people. So all these portraits are basically candles. That's what I meant.

So from putting a candle on top of it to putting... Making it out of a candle. Yeah, out of wax or a candle. So make the sculpture as the candle instead of putting a topper on it. Now, do you do that by sculpting into the wax or do you melt the wax and pour it into a form? You make a negative and you brush in the surface, all the different colors into the halves or multi-parts.

Then that gets faking up combined and then we turn it upside down and fill it with the wax. I see. So the color is actually in the wax. Yeah, it's brushed into like into the mold. Yeah. When you take the mold away, then it's like, it's basically like in there.

It's part of the body. It's not applied after, you know. Do you ever make more than one candle out of the same mold? Yeah you can. Well it lasts about five six runs a mold. Pretty cool. Yeah it's good and you know the good thing is you can burn it down. Yes. And then you can make a new one. Yeah. So it doesn't age. It doesn't have the problem of aging, which everything in the physical world has the problem of aging. Yeah. Do any of them live not burned? Like, yeah, mostly it's cost a fortune to recast them. That's a expensive hobby to light that thing up.

I read a story somewhere that you had a plan to build a bed for a show, but it ended up becoming a horse. Does that sound familiar? A horse? It's a horse bed. I don't know if that doesn't sound familiar, but what it was, it was like a horse and carriage. I was thinking about this feeling of stuff that goes through you where you're defenseless, like that hurt you. Not the feeling of that you can let things pass through you and it feels fine, like where you kind of feel overwhelmed and that can be sounds or whatever, or you try push a kid on a stroller in Manhattan in the winter and the cars, they're on the car level and just like the honking, the anger and the anxiety that comes at you and like just this kind of feeling of overwhelm and how everything passes through you.

You know, like you are the sum of all this. You're only part you and you're a lot of other parts. So I wanted to make a sculpture that embodies this as a thing. So I had the first idea was I have a horse with a carriage as something that I need the protagonist and it's a bit technical. I wanted the protagonist that implies movement and not object. So it's a horse. And I like the horse and the carriage because it was very light. It's not like a heavy object that sits on the ground because it's kind of, it's not like a heavy object that sits on the ground because it's kind of it's lifted up into the air. The horse in the carriage would have

been pierced by about 30 things. And so these 30 things, the biggest one was a hospital bed. And that came from, you know, because I spent next to somebody that was laying in a hospital bed, so like 10 days, you know, not really sleeping, just making sure they're okay. And you look at this kind of weird thing that a lot of people come in and out of the world on this kind of strange machine that massages and weighs and folds. And I don't know what it does. But I thought that's definitely needs to be part of it. Then I wanted to make the things, we scanned all these objects, carriages, this and it became just too big and too expensive to do.

And then I started, I just took the horse and the hospital bed and I combined them. And they looked like they want to belong together. And it's all one body. You see, it's like made out of, I mean, it's multiple parts. It's all milled aluminum. So it's a carving. Yeah. So they become one. How do you make something like this? You scan everything and then you have to texture it and then...

When you're scanning it, are you scanning it from images? Three-dimensional things. I bought a bed like this. We take it apart, we scan, laser scan. You scan the physical object and then you put it together digitally. And then you reproduce it. And then you reproduce it. And then you reproduce it. This, we need an engineer for all the leverage and weight. And this is milled out of an aluminum

that this doesn't oxidize. So that's like a special type of alloy. And then I didn't want any seams. So they're just little hairlines and some parts are pretty insane too. And then it bugged me that I didn't make that carriage thing, but I didn't want to use the horse. And then I made a version where it's not one thing, just back to what you asked earlier, if you come back to an idea where you have multiple

objects, so where you have more that whole experience of all these things that look, they fly, like nothing touches the ground. But it's a trick with the gravity, but it stands on the run. It's almost like a series of arrows sticking out of an animal. Yeah, it's like a sense of fashion. One's a laptop and one's a chair. One's a big printer. It's just like a selection of random shit.

When you're digitally composing it, do you move the objects around? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a little here, a little there, till I think it looks good. Yeah, you can move around it when you're building it. Oh yeah, yeah. 3D rendering. Yeah, yeah.

So it seems like technically you get to learn about a lot of materials and how to make stuff. There's a lot that goes into this beyond this is a cool looking object. It's pretty intense technically. And there is even a level where I don't understand much about with engineers of how you crane that up and how you interlock all that stuff. Does the fact that it's difficult to build, is that ever daunting or does it ever get in the way of execution? It does, but it also gets in the way of being economical about it all because I have a hard time. If it costs too much, you can't even. I try to do it.

Yeah, you find a way. I find a way. And usually it works out, but it's like, you know, it's not it's not an economical way of going about anything. It's really kind of somewhat bit extremist, you know. Or obsessive or whatever. Do you think that the place impacts your work? Either the place you live or the place you are

when you're making something? Guaranteed, yeah. I wouldn't know how. Yeah. Well, in some of it, you know how. And some of it, you don't. I couldn't totally understand how. No, place matters so much, no.

And also who you work with. And one place I think that matters almost most is what kind of feedback you get on what you do. And that can be a dialogue with a friend. That can be a, a bit more, a bigger excitement. Like you feel people are excited by something that don't even, like my dream is always to make things where you don't have to know the artists.

It's just people encounter something weird and or something that stimulates them, whatever form. And the work does the job. Yeah. the work does the job. Yeah. That can feel good when you have a moment like that. Just working in a vacuum and not knowing where things go is something I cannot do. I always work for a show, a purpose, a place.

Otherwise I don't see the reason to make it. a show, a purpose, a place. Otherwise I don't see the reason to make it. So the things right now, what are you working on right now? Furniture. And what's the purpose of it specifically? What is the purpose of anything? I don't know. The purpose is, I was asked if I wanna make a furniture show and I love furniture.

And will it be used as furniture? Yeah, yeah, totally. And just like it's an interesting endeavor because when you're not from a place, like let's say, I think if I understand it right, in architecture design, they have so much history and how it's made and this and that. And then, so they think this way, if you just do something, you're kind of pretty free.

And it doesn't need to make sense. It needs to, you know, it comes more from the fact that the physical object, there is only one place on earth, like the pen you have in your hand. There is only one. This space that's occupied by that pen is occupied by that pen or whatever that tree. And if you think of sculptures, they kind of clutter places in some way, which is some part I really don't like about the field of work. I mean, that we use up a lot of space. Yeah, it takes up space.

Yeah, instead of an idea or an image or a song, there is no space to it, which is beautiful, you know. So in that, I just thought, like, let's say I have a whole bunch of sculptures. They're all in storage, not my own work, other people's, mostly in storage because my house is kind of small and I don't want to expand it and I don't see no purpose having it in the house. But I do love furniture and if it's comfortable and if it's fun. Yeah, it's functional, it'll work in your life and you get to be around it. Yeah, it looks cool. Like some of it looks cool. For example, one is this human figure. It was more under archeness.

Now it became a more female figure. So this thing, just the little context that that's about 80 something inches. That's a little taller than a human. And it's all out of foam. This will be coated, covered, but this is the foam. So you can actually sit on the arm. I see. You can sit on the figure.

You can sit on all parts. So it's a sculpture that works as a piece of furniture. Yeah, this one. Then other ones are sometimes more conservative. That's really cool. How was your work first noticed? I studied some photography stuff, like more in an arts and crafts type school.

And I always got really into the project. And then we had some people teaching there or like, you know, somehow that gave me some feedback. You see the people react or whatever. And then usually with, let's say I went to the school in Amsterdam and there was other artists there and you do something and they look for dialogue and you see like, you get some feedback. It's a very small notice, but it's kind of, it gives you some thing. And it usually all came through other artists primarily in the beginning. Was there a breakthrough moment?

Was there a time where it's like now it's different than it was before? Yeah, that was one moment. I did my, I was maybe 21 or something. I did my first show in a gallery. This in Amsterdam? No, that was in Zurich. The show was in Zurich. And after I had that show, I was not the same as the other kids I hung out with

because you're the one that has a little success. So that's the biggest thing. The biggest change I noticed ever was you're the kind of now one of those. Was it how they looked at you or how you looked at yourself that changed? How I felt being looked at. I mean, what do I know? It's assumptions of who they are, you know, but how I felt, I'm looked at or seen, you stop being a little bit you

and you're perceived a little bit as the somebody who makes something. Would you say it gave you more confidence or not necessarily? No, it made me insecure for a while. All right, I really didn't know how to, felt alienating. I mean, you also kind of,

sometimes you are just you and in some contexts, you are you as the person who makes XYZ. I'm a total piece with both of that by now. It's not conflicting. I'm a total piece with both of that by now, yeah. It's not conflicting. Yeah. When does a piece of work go from an experiment to a finished piece?

At what point in the process? On a good day. Yeah. Yeah. On a good day is when you don't know what to add anymore. Yeah. And on a bad day, it's just... Give up? You kind of give up a bit on it a bad day, it's just... Give up.

You kind of give up a bit on it. Just like, I'm sorry, kind of. You know? That's as good as you get, you know? Yeah. I don't have it in me today and I don't want to continue tomorrow. Tell me how the art business works.

I mean, I have a lot of experiences. I'm not capable of telling you how it works, but one thing is why does one need to own something? You know, why do you want to own this or that. And there are people that I met few where I really understood what collecting means. And that's not buying stuff to put in your house. Like some people can be very obsessive. They have thousands of things and they know everything about each piece and each context and they're like so knowledgeable and they basically tell the story. That's really the audience essentially.

No, that's not the audience. That's just part of I think what created this art market I see. Is these people, you know, like they tell a story. I don't know, for example, there's different people, but like somebody like Bruno Bishopberger, who was the guy that was always on the cover or back cover of the arts forum,

or, you know, like the person that's been around from the sixties to now, and I was older man, old man, the sixties to now, and I was an older man, old man, but they collected so many things, 10,000s of things. And every conversation I have with him, he just tells me all these stories about whatever, like from some folk art in some 17th century to whatever. And he knows everything. I used to clopidic and he puts it together and he started with a from some folk art in some 17th century to whatever. And he knows everything, he's the clopidic. And he puts it together and he started with a lot of things that then later became very desirable or collected.

He started so many things early, you know? And I mean, the whole conversation is just this thing, this and then he did only this and then that artist. And it's like, it's a bizarre amount of information and knowledge. And I sometimes help hanging shows. And there was one collector, he collects only things that happened in New York. And he does that since the mid sixties. So basically he is like a, I always think of him as a fisherman that goes to the shore

and you just see a little ripple and you think, okay, I go there. And some other things can be very loud, you know, that's just noise, because he has so much discipline and experience and a real passion. So he hang works, obviously, okay, I put one work here and a real passion. So we hang works. Obviously, okay, I put one work here and one work there says,

well, in 1987, this work was hanging next to that thing. And that's how it was first shown by the art like, like a really in depth knowledge. So how that matters with the art market, I think there were always people that had a kind of a knowledge and a kind of a search, and the way I imagine it, you see these things in somebody's house and it's kind of awesome. I said, I want that too, you know, and the prices of some of these things is absurd. You know, it makes no sense because you don't actually get a physical value for any, you know, it's like, what is it? Mongo painting wharf, it's to get like a little bit of wood,

some really old canvas and like you get nothing. So it is just what somebody is willing to pay for it. Basically. And the fact that there's a market around it. And there's a market around it. And in a way that these figures in this market or whatever, like something like back to Van Gogh, everybody knows what that is.

So you put it in your house, it's also you have a Van Gogh in your house. And historically you did well with these kind of, if you bought one 40 years ago, you did a good deal. So you don't lose anything, you have something to look at. Yeah. So it's an investment that holds its value and- Potentially.

Yeah. How these prices came in the last 20 years or 30 years, or maybe starting in the eighties or something. I'm not totally knowledgeable in that. It is not old stuff. It's new stuff that is made to say, this is gonna be a potential future artifact of value. It's a bet.

But then I had a phase where I collected. So I was hooked. Tell me about that. How did it start? What was the first piece you bought? Well, first I traded with friends of mine always, and then you hang it in your house. And then I started buying the galleries that I worked with. And you go into some office and see this thing and that thing, and you have one.

And then you want more of that same artist. And then you want the ones that same artist and then you want the ones you got and then the other ones will be better. So you think you need to have those two and from there on it goes. And then you have hundreds of things and you're like, I don't know what to do with it. Yeah. You know, one way what I felt at that time was I'm a high end hoarder. Yeah.

You're a hoarder of interesting, valuable things, but you're still nonetheless, you're a hoarder. I read that you once had a gallery lower the ceiling for your show. Sounds like a poopy pause, I don't remember. I got kind of out of that vibe. But what would be the reason for it? Tell me the thinking, whether you would do it or not now,

is less the point. It's all about making the work look good. And that's always in context. I mean, if you put a thing in the right context, it can actually unfold and be itself. It can become something. And like, let's say a wall is very tall and you have a smaller thing.

In front of it. Hanging on it. I see. It will just flat, like it will feel lost. The work will be dwarfed by the height of the wall. Yeah. You know, that's another thing. Like it's totally bizarre. Like, okay.

In my field of work, the galleries are ginormous. Yeah. But people's homes are not as big as the galleries. No. And people started, some of our studios are ginormous and then they make like me included ginormous things. But what's the freaking point here? You know, it's just the context. I mean, because if you make a show somewhere, this is the way it looks right or feels right.

But then what are you going to do with it after? It's like, I don't totally clock the whole thing. Tell me the feeling that when you've worked on something in a rendering, and let's say you know the final version is going to be 40 feet tall. Yeah. What's it like the first time you see the 40 foot version? I only see mistakes in the... Yeah, you only see what's wrong.

Yeah. Because your breath is never taken away with the, wow, look at that. It happened a few times, but on average it's... What's wrong? My God. Yeah. And the things that you're seeing

and saying, my God, about that are wrong, probably no one else would notice. No. Oh, I would notice even on somebody else's. Yes. exactly. But I always think like if something is unfinished or there is a mistake, if somebody really wants to find a mistake, let them have one.

Yes. It's kind of, we got to reward the people that need to find a mistake. Yeah. And that's kind of how I trick myself into getting over it. Yeah. Who's to say what's a mistake, you know? You can tell an insecurity in something. Yeah.

I mean, this is a mistake. No, but what one would call a mistake, it's just, you know, there's sometimes, oh, this was a shortcut. They're like, not, didn't go all the way. Are you always working? Yes. But to me, it makes no difference. I can bake a cake or I can,

I just always need to do something. You're making something. Yeah. Yeah. Have you done any multimedia work? Very little. Ever film? I made a film when I was like 20, 21 or something. Was that a good experience?

I liked it. I was just broke after because I financed it myself. I was broke for like half a year after that. And then I had that film and I didn't know what to do with it. That was interesting, like, you know, the whole process. But I'm not a moving image person, I believe. I think moving image is one thing I could do that. I don't like narratives.

I mean, I like them, okay. Yeah. It's not your thing. Yeah, no. I mean, even to watch, I have the longer, the more harder time watching TV or movies or something. What are the things that you find comfort in watching? Really mindless can be okay.

Like that's almost a form of meditation to me. You know you empty your brain, it's not you sit there depressed. It's just really mini-series, five episodes on Netflix, written by one of the main actors. And it's not fun to watch, but each episode is filmed, so you have a story of this one act by one son in a family, adolescent, and how it affects the family. And it's like first you're like one day after or a few hours after that thing. It's always real time. So the whole episode is filmed in one shot. So it's like a play and you go in a car and you go there. So they rehearsed and then the emotions go up and down. You go in it. And so then you're three days after, then you are like three months after, then you are whatever year after and a year and a half after. So that was really smart. Like you're watching and you're like, I didn't read what it is. Yeah. And then he realized this shot never ends. That's the more technical thing, but just the emotions, the range.

And it was really felt like a substantial like experience and that somebody can put that as an entertainment, like this kind of thing. A lot of respect for that. What's the most beautiful place you've ever been? It's by or at the sea or ocean, that I know, but then I have a lot of- Many choices. Yeah.

Name a couple that you like. I had really beautiful times in Greece, the water or the sun setting by the water, or like this, these kind of colors are very different and smells are different than you have here. Sometimes in the Caribbean there is a kind of a place of being, this smoothness to the water and the wind and also the light, the temperature kind of not fluctuating much. And I mean, that works for me, you know? Yeah.

And some islands when the anxiety is far away. Yeah. And tell me something that you believe now that you didn't believe when you were young. That life is way crazier than anything somebody can imagine, like in where everything goes since I'm a kid, you know. And the other thing, peace, that you can find some form of peace within yourself or love, you know, like how that feels.

Was there a time when you were young where you doubted you would ever feel those? See, I grew up with a lot of anxiety, not only my own, but like everybody around me. And, or in my case, I definitely mistook anxiety for love because that's kind of what you grow up with. And it's not that you can have both for somebody, but it's like when it comes in a fused package, it kind of...

Confusing. It's confusing to extract the anxiety and then just have the love and to kind of let that be. Yeah. Pretty cool. Yeah. What cool. Yeah. What are your parents like? They're very nice people, you know.

I don't think they were good parents, but they were very nice people, you know. And they're still around. I mean, my dad is now Alzheimer's and it's going, you know, like that kind of stuff. But two people that didn't have easy lives, you know, a lot of family dramas and stuff, hard times. They kind of carried all that with them into their young relationship and they stayed together all their life.

They're still together, you know, 50 whatever years, 80 years, something like that. When's the last time you were in Zurich? About a month and a half ago to visit them. Has it changed a lot since you were growing up? Yeah. In what ways? Like most cities, it just cleans up somehow and a lot of the kind of funky interesting stuff fades away or gets replaced or everything needs to make enough money. There's no crappy old cafes anymore. They're all kind of new and look the same than any other. Like that kind of part I miss. I miss old rotten facades and buildings and like a little. You would love New York in the 70s.

Yeah. It's not like that anymore. No, it's crazy. That place really changed so much. Unbelievable, man. Tetragrammaton is a podcast. Tetragrammaton is a website. Tetragrammaton is a whole world of knowledge. What may fall within the sphere of Tetragrammaton? Counterculture? Tetragrammaton. Sacred geometry?

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