Money Is Time - Juan Xu in Dialogue with Dirk Baumanns:
Juan Xu: Walter Benjamin once said: “One can behold in capitalism a religion, that is to say, capitalism essentially satisfy the same worries, anguish, and disquiet formerly answered by so-called religion. You did some bank-related performance before the Capital @art show. It was about capitalism criticism. How did you come to those works? Because you haven seen the religion in capitalism as well?
Baumanns：It somehow becomes naturely, when you are living in a city that is so busy in the financial sector. Above in the skyscrapers the rich and powerful and in the streets the poor and homeless showing. Big contrasts that give impressions to my art every day. Besides the wealthy houses and glamour shops you also have a strong anticapitalistic autonomy scene in Frankfurt and dynamic art scene.
Juan Xu: Your artworks on the Capital @art. International have been shown international have seemed a little more subtle than before. As I know, your previous works like your performance “Banker” and others are much more directly than yours on this show. It makes me thinking of the work of Josef Beuys “Das Kapital Raum”. It is a blackboard installation, 3 Blackboards about money 1980. It refers to the work of art as capital- not in terms of its monetary value but rather in relation to the intellectual capacity. The blackboards are symbols of invitation into intellectual discussions. Are you possibly influenced by Beuys? If yes, how is process of changing?
Baumanns: There are many artists that impressed and inspired me. But yes, especially the work of beuys. The theories he invented in art. The way he described a new view on artistic work. But also his work in different media and with things you normally would describe as trash. I am also an artist that can create art out of everything and in various media. I think it has also something to do if you are a poor or rich artist. When you are a poor artist, your existence is often in danger. If you have to fight with the back against the wall, you take every material you find to not stop expressing yourself. Or in distress you find the best ideas. Like Beuys, who was in the beginning very much troubled? Financially and also about his artistic work. But out of this depressing and fundamental situation he could find and create a new vision for his art and rised from there like a star. There are many examples by greatest artists we know so far. That distress creates the best ideas and most impressing artworks. Van Gogh, Picasso, etc. It is also sign for very good art, that it is not directley accepted by the public or fitting into existing art markets throughout history. Many people think they know so much about art, but in fact they know just what exists and what functions. They close their eyes before what is truly different, because they search for the functions of the market. In this case provocative art is also not easy to sell. And Beuys and me, we like very much to do provocative art. But when you were able to reach a wider audience, everybody admires that you stayed true to yourself and did not change for the market. It’s repeating cycle in art, filled with pain, hard work, not giving up, luck and just life. I think you don’t choose to be an artist. It’ s an inner kind of illness that you are born with and it develops by how you are raised, in which situation, and latter what decisions you take in life. I dont think Beuys just "creates" himself to the artistic profile that is shown to us. Before he was meant to create "something". There was no other way around. Like for me. My family history and how I am raised, the things that happened to in life... They formed my character and how I think. And this not an easy thing to handle I can tell. That’s why I am also talking about this like an illness. A kind of Autism. And this I can also read in the work the expressions like Beuys, Van Gogh, Picasso, Abramovic, Emin. It’s this emotional experience that makes the best art. And if its combined with wide and deep thinking， its the Olympus of art. Beuys so far is one of the greatest examples for that... Yes!
I am also thinking about to work with blackboards from school next year at a performance festival in Istanbul. And I also have already done some work that could be described as a tribute to Beuys. Combined with my own new vision and ideas.
Juan Xu. “ Pay me what you owe me, don’t act like you forgot” - the text of the song “NNHMM” symbolizes the unpaid debt and the impossibility of escaping the circularity of the moral economy. One knows the saying: Time is money. Why is the work called "Money is Time"? Do it means if you have money, you could even buy time by paying people for sell their body or mental resources?
Baumanns: By being an artist you are not paid by hour. Although you need a lot of time to produce art. So time gets a bigger meaning when you need money to get it.
4. Your installation “Consuming Hitler” looked very impressive and unique, especially with Li Xinmo’s artificial intelligence work “Daydream” on the ground, the space installation “Consuming Hitler” produces a three-dimensional and surreal intrusive body experience with mind, with a bit Humor and impact. You wouldn’t recognize it as Hilter at once. Is this a performance photo or Happings? What is the background?
Baumanns: It is one of my performance photos, which I ‘ve created with masks, body painting and special backgrounds. I am taking photos of myself in my studio with a remote control. Most of the time I cannot breathe, see anything or have strange fluids and other stuff in my mouth. Like this the photo shooting gets a kind of performance itself only without an audience. You can feel it in the picture. For this very special one I had some gold glitter glued with honey on my teeth. Also I tried to look as insane as I could. (Laughs)
Juan Xu: If one talks about Frankfurt, people think at once of the Frankfurt Airport or EZB. Well, Frankfurt is indeed the finance center of Germany, even in Europe (maybe after Brexit). But Frankfurt has over 20 important museums and the center of publishing houses with FAZ and “Frankfurter Rundschau” and biggest book faire of the world. There are also a lot of start –up design shops and so on. Frankfurt hat complicated relationship between art and capital. Is Frankfurt more of a banking finance city or a city of creativity?
Baumanns: Definitely more of a banking city. That’s why it is hard for an artist to survive with the high prices to rent a flat or buying food. You have to be very radical and irrefutable in fighting for your art. Especially when you are not just producing for the art market.
Juan Xu: Well, what we may forget is that Frankfurt used to be center of Street –Fighting of 68 movements. Frankfurt is also the home of the "Frankfurter Schule." On the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's criticism is still up-to-date, or rather, the anger on capitalism is present again.
Baumanns: I thing that the theories of Marx are still up to date and maybe need just some adaptions to the present time. Also some corrections by the mistakes that can be seen in communist systems today. In Frankfurt there are many intelligent students at the universities doing poetry slams and discussion about this theme. So the "Frankfurt School" is still alive.
31.03.2019
Baumanns：It somehow becomes naturely, when you are living in a city that is so busy in the financial sector. Above in the skyscrapers the rich and powerful and in the streets the poor and homeless showing. Big contrasts that give impressions to my art every day. Besides the wealthy houses and glamour shops you also have a strong anticapitalistic autonomy scene in Frankfurt and dynamic art scene.
Juan Xu: Your artworks on the Capital @art. International have been shown international have seemed a little more subtle than before. As I know, your previous works like your performance “Banker” and others are much more directly than yours on this show. It makes me thinking of the work of Josef Beuys “Das Kapital Raum”. It is a blackboard installation, 3 Blackboards about money 1980. It refers to the work of art as capital- not in terms of its monetary value but rather in relation to the intellectual capacity. The blackboards are symbols of invitation into intellectual discussions. Are you possibly influenced by Beuys? If yes, how is process of changing?
Baumanns: There are many artists that impressed and inspired me. But yes, especially the work of beuys. The theories he invented in art. The way he described a new view on artistic work. But also his work in different media and with things you normally would describe as trash. I am also an artist that can create art out of everything and in various media. I think it has also something to do if you are a poor or rich artist. When you are a poor artist, your existence is often in danger. If you have to fight with the back against the wall, you take every material you find to not stop expressing yourself. Or in distress you find the best ideas. Like Beuys, who was in the beginning very much troubled? Financially and also about his artistic work. But out of this depressing and fundamental situation he could find and create a new vision for his art and rised from there like a star. There are many examples by greatest artists we know so far. That distress creates the best ideas and most impressing artworks. Van Gogh, Picasso, etc. It is also sign for very good art, that it is not directley accepted by the public or fitting into existing art markets throughout history. Many people think they know so much about art, but in fact they know just what exists and what functions. They close their eyes before what is truly different, because they search for the functions of the market. In this case provocative art is also not easy to sell. And Beuys and me, we like very much to do provocative art. But when you were able to reach a wider audience, everybody admires that you stayed true to yourself and did not change for the market. It’s repeating cycle in art, filled with pain, hard work, not giving up, luck and just life. I think you don’t choose to be an artist. It’ s an inner kind of illness that you are born with and it develops by how you are raised, in which situation, and latter what decisions you take in life. I dont think Beuys just "creates" himself to the artistic profile that is shown to us. Before he was meant to create "something". There was no other way around. Like for me. My family history and how I am raised, the things that happened to in life... They formed my character and how I think. And this not an easy thing to handle I can tell. That’s why I am also talking about this like an illness. A kind of Autism. And this I can also read in the work the expressions like Beuys, Van Gogh, Picasso, Abramovic, Emin. It’s this emotional experience that makes the best art. And if its combined with wide and deep thinking， its the Olympus of art. Beuys so far is one of the greatest examples for that... Yes!
I am also thinking about to work with blackboards from school next year at a performance festival in Istanbul. And I also have already done some work that could be described as a tribute to Beuys. Combined with my own new vision and ideas.
Juan Xu. “ Pay me what you owe me, don’t act like you forgot” - the text of the song “NNHMM” symbolizes the unpaid debt and the impossibility of escaping the circularity of the moral economy. One knows the saying: Time is money. Why is the work called "Money is Time"? Do it means if you have money, you could even buy time by paying people for sell their body or mental resources?
Baumanns: By being an artist you are not paid by hour. Although you need a lot of time to produce art. So time gets a bigger meaning when you need money to get it.
4. Your installation “Consuming Hitler” looked very impressive and unique, especially with Li Xinmo’s artificial intelligence work “Daydream” on the ground, the space installation “Consuming Hitler” produces a three-dimensional and surreal intrusive body experience with mind, with a bit Humor and impact. You wouldn’t recognize it as Hilter at once. Is this a performance photo or Happings? What is the background?
Baumanns: It is one of my performance photos, which I ‘ve created with masks, body painting and special backgrounds. I am taking photos of myself in my studio with a remote control. Most of the time I cannot breathe, see anything or have strange fluids and other stuff in my mouth. Like this the photo shooting gets a kind of performance itself only without an audience. You can feel it in the picture. For this very special one I had some gold glitter glued with honey on my teeth. Also I tried to look as insane as I could. (Laughs)
Juan Xu: If one talks about Frankfurt, people think at once of the Frankfurt Airport or EZB. Well, Frankfurt is indeed the finance center of Germany, even in Europe (maybe after Brexit). But Frankfurt has over 20 important museums and the center of publishing houses with FAZ and “Frankfurter Rundschau” and biggest book faire of the world. There are also a lot of start –up design shops and so on. Frankfurt hat complicated relationship between art and capital. Is Frankfurt more of a banking finance city or a city of creativity?
Baumanns: Definitely more of a banking city. That’s why it is hard for an artist to survive with the high prices to rent a flat or buying food. You have to be very radical and irrefutable in fighting for your art. Especially when you are not just producing for the art market.
Juan Xu: Well, what we may forget is that Frankfurt used to be center of Street –Fighting of 68 movements. Frankfurt is also the home of the "Frankfurter Schule." On the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's criticism is still up-to-date, or rather, the anger on capitalism is present again.
Baumanns: I thing that the theories of Marx are still up to date and maybe need just some adaptions to the present time. Also some corrections by the mistakes that can be seen in communist systems today. In Frankfurt there are many intelligent students at the universities doing poetry slams and discussion about this theme. So the "Frankfurt School" is still alive.
31.03.2019