Introducing East Village Boy’s newest I-Boy, Diego
Where do you live, and how old are you?
I’m 19 and living in downtown Los Angeles.
Who took these photos?
I took them all. I love self-portraiture. You’re playing two roles, the photographer and the model. It’s a point of view that really is all your own.
What’s your story? Raised in the humdrum existence of Hawaii and thrust into LA at 15, where I would very shortly lose my virginity, fall in love, and consequently get hurt. Then finished high school, got a job at Dolce & Gabbana, moved out, and traveled the world. And all the while drawing and dancing. What do you like about LA?
How easy it is to have sex with complete strangers.
What’s your favorite foreign city and why? Barcelona or Paris for sure! The hottest boys in the world. Oh yeah, and the history.
What’s your favorite fuck song? “Beat On/Beat Off” by The Presets is a hot fuck song. But if I’m stoned and having sex, anything off of Radiohead’s Hail To the Thief is mind-blowing.
If you could listen to only one band for the rest of your life, who would it be?
YELLE!
What do you shave besides your face?
I have to shave my balls and ass. I’m half Spaniard and half Italian, so hair growth can get out of hand if not shaved regularly. It’s funny because I’m not hairy anywhere else on my body.
Is your body a temple or a dumpster?
It’s somewhere in-between. I take care of my body and try to be as healthy as possible, but I also take part in a lot of destructive activities.
As a fashion whore, have you ever whored for fashion? What are your favorite labels?
I ONLY whore for fashion! My absolute favorite designer is Brian Lichtenberg, but I love April 77, Horace, Preen, and of course American Apparel.
You have 1,663 MySpace friends. How many of them do you know personally?
About a hundred. The rest just like my pictures.
Your MySpace page says “My life is one adventure after the next. When I’m not chasing the next party, or searching for the next altered state of reality…” What was your last adventure, last party, and last altered state of reality?
My last adventure was being in the front row at the Yelle concert last week. I went bar-hopping last night, so I guess that kind of counts as my last party. My last altered state of reality came a couple days ago when I ate two weed cookies, and listened to Kate Bush’s “The Dreaming” on repeat, and then watching the French film Fantastic Planet. INCREDIBLE.
Your magic wand can make any one man gay - who would it be and why? I just met this straight guy named Chris. I know he has a big dick, but he also has a sense of humor which makes him a thousand times more hot.
Are you usually the hunter or the prey?
Four out of five times, I’m the prey.
Do you get an erection when you see your reflection?
No, but when I look through naked photos of myself, I do.
Would you date yourself?
Why not? I’m a great fuck and I’m funny. It would be fun for a while.
What’s your fetish?
I go crazy for a nice ass. And underwear! I have a huge underwear fetish - jock straps, tighty whities, boxer briefs - it makes me so hard.
What do you like to be called during sex?
I love when guys tell me how hot they think I am, or how good my ass is when they’re fucking me.
Toys or no toys?
Mmmmm, the double dildo.
Public sex - yes or no?
Yes, yes, yes, yes. So hot! I love public sex. I’m all for public masturbation too.
What’s your hot spot?
There’s a dance club I go to every monday here in downtown called Mustache Mondays. It’s good music, hot indie boys, strong drinks and no pretense.
What would you literally KILL for?
Art. Who wants to die for it!
How many pairs of underwear do you own?
Not enough - like two weeks worth.
What’s your single most valuable possession?
My MacBook. It’s my escape to a world outside of LA.
What’s the best thing you’ve ever stolen?
I’m so not good at stealing. I get really paranoid and end up putting everything back, haha.
If you could have anyone, alive or dead, at your next party, who would your top five be?
Julie Budet of Yelle, Kate Bush (circa 1979), Madonna (circa 1983), French DJ Yuksek, and I bet Divine would have some good drugs.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
A starving artist living in the East Village.
At one point in the new Broadway play 33 Variations (starring Jane Fonda!), a character says, “I don’t know what I’m listening to, but it sure sounds like classical music.” That’s the feeling I have too whenever I hear Mozart, or Debussy, or anything on WNYC. The haze of notes is always compelling, but I have no idea what they mean.
Fortunately Nico Muhly isn’t all haughty like most classical-music types. The tall 27-year-old composer is unfailingly charming, and when I interviewed him at his New York Chinatown pad on Valentine’s Day, several floors above a sweatshop and a mahjong parlor, we talked at length about the way he’s made his genre more accessible. (A Metropolitan Opera commission about an online teenage homerotic love triangle? Whaaaat?) He was preparing for performances of his work later that week at Lincoln Center and at Los Angeles’s Disney Hall (the same day as the Oscars, actually, where the film he scored, The Reader, was up for several awards); he was also finishing the arrangements for his friend Ed Droste’s band Grizzly Bear, who were to play with the Brooklyn Philharmonic a few weeks later. Muhly’s sexy red lips, only slightly color-corrected, adorned the cover of his last album, Mothertongue, and it got me thinking. Guys of a certain sensibility (like me) have always wanted to get with rocker guys. But now I’m starting to think that composer guys are more to my liking… Alas, this one’s taken.
Sean Kennedy: How did you end up in Chinatown?
Nico Muhly: I’ve always loved loved loved Chinatown. It’s so crazy. I had this illegal sublet on 116th Street with this roommate and two years ago, we got evicted basically. I was away, in Iceland or something like that, and I was like, “Just go down to Chinatown and see what you find.” So she came down here and saw a bunch of places and they were all kind of hideous shitholes, and then she found this place and sent me a cell-phone picture. We ended up here really by accident, but I’ve never been happier. It’s so good. SK: It’s so crazy down here - does that influence your work at all?
NM: It does play off of it more. You can have a chaotic day naturally: If you want to go buy three things, it’s like an adventure. When I was living on the Upper West Side, you could have this very bougie morning and here, no. There’s an elementary school right there [pointing out the window] and you hear their morning announcements at eight o’ clock over this megaphone, like “Britney Fong, you left your backpack in the nurse’s office!” You see those handprints on the window? [Points to the window behind his workspace.] Chinese children play there! That’s their day care! It’s a big pain in the ass actually. For two years I’m like, I’m going to buy a fucking curtain! Or a storm door! Obviously you can see I have expensive gear, and all that it would take to take it is just opening the window from the outside. I’m actually amazed that people haven’t come in here and taken my shit. SK: It reminds me of that new Microsoft ad, with the four-year-old Chinese-American girl Photoshopping a picture!
NM: They should not advertise that! It’s a dumb thing because it’s like two degrees away from “hey little girl, send me pictures of yourself.” I miss seeing ads - that’s the one cultural thing I miss not having a TV. I saw one for toilet paper that was the most outrageous thing. This advertisement was making really explicit reference to poo, and shitting.
SK: On that note, let’s move on! When I was talking to the EVB boys about interviewing you, they were like, “Do you know anything about classical music?” And I said, “Not really.” And they were like, “Ok, you’re perfect!”
NM: [Laughs.]
SK: So I wanted to start there. How would you describe classical music to a lay person?
NM: Music that’s been around since the beginning of time, and then certain people wrote it down. That was classical music, from 1200 until today. It’s notated music, it’s - I don’t know, it’s hard to define. It has to do with the environment in which you see it, number one. None of these things are actual rules. In general, if you’ve paid for a seat and you go and sit down and there’s quietness between movements of things, you’re probably witnessing classical music. [Laughs.] Then again, you can say a string quartet playing at Le Poisson Rouge is classical music.
SK: Is that one of the places you like to hang out?
NM: Yeah, I do. I’m still a little mystified by it.
SK: Why? I haven’t been yet.
NM: Go, it’s fun. The only thing that’s confusing about it is the wine: a couple of cheap things and then a lot of really expensive bottles of red. Who would buy a $300 bottle? It’s in a basement, there’s not even a view! [Laughs.]
SK: It’s a recession, everybody’s trying to make a buck.
NM: I know, you can totally get tables now in places downtown, it’s so good.
SK: How would you describe what you’re doing in the vernacular of classical music?
NM: Well, the bread and butter of what I do in terms of how I make money is commissions. A really straight up one-to-one ratio between someone paying me x amount of money to write x number of minutes for x number of instruments. It’s very simple actually. On the other hand I have a real interest in working in the studio, just to see what happens in it. Classical music is put together through an elaborate series of financial pathways involving many, many people, and the way that it’s performed - it’s very complicated. Whereas working in the studio, you can keep it kind of among friends. It’s an easier way to work. And in that department, I have many projects, in which I use everything I know from the classical tradition, but it’s being applied in a not necessarily traditionally structured way. I can get away with doing that because I spend so much of my time writing the movement I’m told to write.
SK: Yeah, you’re very prolific. Are you a workaholic?
NM: I am, yes.
SK: How many things are you working on right now, in various stages of development?
NM: Uncountable. Various stages of development - that’s exactly the way. There’s a thing I have to go through and edit where the dynamic markings are. Then I’m making revisions to the Grizzly Bear arrangements - I’m thinking of things I’m going to do after you leave - and then I’m writing a two-minute revision to an older piece that a friend’s trying to play in this other concert. And if I have time I’ll write a scene of this opera that I’m writing for a million years.
SK: And then you have performances of your work, like your show at Lincoln Center this week.
NM: I have rehearsals for that tomorrow. And that’s fun because that’s older stuff and some new things.
SK: And then you’re in LA this weekend, right?
NM: The Los Angeles Master Chorale is doing a piece of mine from 2003 at Disney Hall on Sunday. And the movie I scored is up for Best Picture at the Oscars, so I have to deal with that. When they announce the movie, the orchestra has to play the thing - oh [looks at new text message]. Ed, jesus…
SK: Is that Ed Droste?
NM: Yeah, he wants his arrangements. But he gonna have to wait! Anyway, they have to play a scene from the thing and so I have to choose what that is and arrange it for them.
SK: All these simultaneous projects would make me anxious, but they seem to be integrated seamlessly into your life.
NM: Yeah, it’s pretty integrated. I mean, it’s funny, people ask me, like my boyfriend, “What are you doing today?” I dunno, I’m sititing in front of my work and shaking my body at until it’s done, until dinner time. [Laughs.] There’s no real plan.
SK: You may quibble with the phrase “it boy,” but that’s what you’ve become, in New York especially, as a classical-music composer. It’s like you’re popularizing classical music for a generation that would otherwise be listening to indie rock or hip hop.
NM: I try to be as good an ambassador for the stuff that I like. I’m sort of aware of it on a very interpersonal level with my friends. Like, I know I have friends that I’ll lure into coming to these concerts and then they’ll develop their own relationship with the music that continues outside of my curation.
SK: But the notion of being an ambassador…
NM: Doing classical music is weird enough that people always have questions about it. And outside of the world of classical music, one tends not to know too many classical musicians. Anyway, because I’m involved in so many things I meet a lot of people who don’t necessarily have access to classical music and I guess I’m enthusiastic about it and it’s infectious. I guess?
SK: On your website you blog about music you’re listening to and that you think other people should be listening to too.
NM: Well, I think it should be the same thing as if you go over to someone’s house and they have interesting music on.
SK: Speaking of which, friends of mine or guys that I’m dating have had on your music. NM: No shit! That’s awesome. That always makes me really happy to know that strangers can get it. I’ve had the weirdest experiences. I was in 88 Orchard, that coffee shop, like two months ago, and some scruffy indie kid comes up to me and he’s like, “Hey, I got your music in my iPod right now!” [Laughs.] It’s amazing when that happens. I’ve been trying, through the website, to make music not necessarily available to listen to, but just available to be talked about the way we talk about stuff. Not so you have to talk about it in this elevated discourse of reviews - not taking it too seriously almost.
SK: Are you on Twitter?
NM: I just started Twittering last week. I was scared of it for awhile. Now I’m okay.
SK: Why were you scared?
NM: For me the point of Twitter is the language has to be funny. I don’t think you’re actually meant to say what you’re doing, like I’m at the store, I’m at the this.
SK: I think it’s a little bit of both. You obviously want to entertain.
NM: It wants to entertain and it wants to almost be like the most genius thing you can think of about your situation right now. And when I go on and see the aggregate of everyone’s, that to me is overwhelming. The person I think who’s best at it is the boy who designed my website, Nick. His Twitter is hysterical because all he does is write down really funny sentences. No matter what he’s saying, the sentence itelf is really well-crafted.
SK: What’s yours?
NM: Just @nicomuhly. I had a really good moment recently. I was in the DMV and a million Chinese people were there, all the employees were black, and there was a CD player that had “Kung Fu Fighting” on repeat. Literally, it was on for the first 20 minutes I was there. If I blogged it then what I would have to do is - there’s this crazy dissertation on the origins of the Asian riff. So you have to go there, cite examples, and just talk about the nature of race baiting. On Twitter you’re just like, “I was at the DMV and there were mad Chinese people there and they were playing “Kung Fu Fighting”! Thank you. [Laughs.]
SK: As much as you’re widely acclaimed, one of the knocks against you, as it were, is that your work often has a surfeit of prettiness to it. And you’ve responded that beauty is something you think about it all the time!
NM: [Laughs.] SK: So I wanted to ask you: What’s the most beautiful experience you’ve ever had?
NM: Um, there’s a class of experience: If you’re having a dinner party, a bunch of people you know are all together, if everyone’s outside. My birthday in Vermont a couple years ago this happened in the most genius way. Everyone was outside and talking and it was just the right temperature, a little chill in the air but still summer, and I just walked away, up a hill. If you look down you see this cluster of people, and you’re alone. You can kind of make out words that people are saying and you can see stars and - I think that’s what it probably feels like to be dead. That, to me, is the best thing.
SK: Incredible answer. I have no idea what I would’ve come up with so quickly.
NM: There’s a specific class of experience like that.
We asked Nico to give us a peek at his current high-rotation playlist…
The Butcher - Final Fantasy / Turn Me On (Kevin Lyttle cover) - CocoRosie / Mit Fried Und Freud Ich Fahr Dahin - Collegium Vocale/Orchestra Anima Eterna and The Royal Consort, dir. Jos van Immerseel(that just rolls off the tongue) / My Name is Daiel Pearl (I’m a Jewish-American from Encino California) - Steve Reich / Hungarian Rock - György Ligeti / Coloana - György Ligeti / The Singer - Teitur / Eyes of a Cloud Catcher - Agent Fresco
SK: So what’s the status of the opera you’re doing for the Met?
NM: The status is they’re over there [points to work area]. I have some scenes written.
SK: When will people be able to see it?
NM: 2012.
SK: From what I’ve read it’s about a true-crime story in which a 14-year-old British boy uses chat rooms to lure another boy to meet him, only to kill him.
NM: He doesn’t actually die.
SK: Well that’s good! How did you arrive at this subject matter?
NM: I read some articles about it and filed it away. There was a big thing in Vanity Fair, a bunch of stuff on the BBC. It was really interesting, and it was a contemporary story to my own life. Those people were my age basically - they’re a little bit younger. They got the internet in their houses the same time I did, when I was 15, and it was like, woah, what’s this? Mischief is to be had on this! Are you like 20?
SK: I’m 31.
NM: You would’ve been out of high school by the time it got into your house, right?
SK: Nooooo. We were an early-adopter family. I had internet when I was 14. And I remember very specifically going online and chatting. It was like my sexual awakening.
NM: Yeah, exactly. People of this generation started having relationships with people online, even non-sexual ones. Like my roommate who moved out, she and I were really good friends online, as a separate entity from the fact that we were also friends in real life. It was the ’90s, and a lot of people at high school were using instant messenger, where you sorta talked to people you wouldn’t normally talk to - and then you’d see them in the hall and you wouldn’t. I thought that was really interesting as a thing. And then this story is the most amazing example of that being taken to extreme.
SK: So you were interested in the online-culture piece.
NM: Yeah, and also it’s so operatic. An opera loves disguise, deceit, mistaken identity. If you think about the classic operas, like Mozart operas, there’s always that: the countess is actually the shepherdess in disguise.
SK: So it had built-in requirements.
NM: Plus it’s a love story, crime story, crime of passion - it’s totally an opera.
SK: And did these guys even have sex?
NM: Just a little bit. [Laughs.] What happened was, the younger one invented this girl, Rachel, and Rachel was online girlfriends with the older boy - they had cybersex or whatever. The younger boy then becomes jealous of the relationship of the older boy and the person he invented, a.k.a. him, so he kills her off. He invents a whole other set of characters who break into her house and rape her and kill her. This violent, violent rape. And then when the older boy asks why he didn’t read about it in the papers, he invents a police woman who tells the older boy that it was kept hush hush. So the older boy is devastated that his girlfriend is dead. And then the younger boy goes over to the older boy’s house pretending to be the dead girl’s brother and offers him solace and possibly something more, but it’s unclear. I can’t wait to write it.
SK: It seems edgy for the opera world, but I guess it’s a sign of the times.
NM: For me it doesn’t seem edgy. It’s less edgy than SVU.
SK: But when you look at the whole narrative…
NM: No, it’s crazy. But Don Giovanni’s pretty crazy too: it starts out with him being like, “I’ve got all these bitches!” Opera has enough incest and rape and murder. The reason people are titillated by this is because it takes place online. And for me the challenge, of course, is to not make That Gay Online Opera. So the way I’m avoiding that is by not using any electronic instruments - it’s never going to be the sound of Tron when they go online [he simulates cliché high-pitched computer noises]. I’m keeping it very acoustic, and it’s going to be very sensual. The way I’m conceiving of it is that the internet is going to be a masked ball almost, with a glamour and a formality to it, rather than it being beeps and blips.
SK: It must feel amazing to work on it.
NM: Yeah, I guess. It just feels like a lot of work at this point. The thing about cool commissions is that it’s cool for about two seconds and then you have to write the fucking thing. [Laughs.]
SK: I have to ask you about some of the major talents you’ve collaborated with over the years, starting with Philip Glass, for whom you worked for years. What’s he like? He’s an icon of modern music!
NM: He is so not iconic in person. He’s completely down to earth, a chilled-out old Buddhist. He’s completely zen: He’s really hard to get worked-up. He and I worked on a lot of films, and films are very high stress, and he’s a machine. He gets up a zero in the morning and just turns it out. It’s really admirable. It’s a job for him. He doesn’t talk about it.
SK: And Antony, of course, who’s so of-the-moment right now with his new album. How’d you guys meet?
NM: Through Philip, actually. Philip and Laurie Anderson had to do some show together in 2002 and they were each asked to play 20 minutes, So they each asked a younger person of their acquaintance to do ten minutes, to share it with them. She asked him and he asked me.
SK: And you’ve been friends ever since. What’s he like?
NM: He’s great. I don’t know how to put it into words. He’s a very sensitive musician. He comes out of that downtown performance scene, so he’s kind of outrageous. He’s fun to work with.
SK: You did some of the arrangements on The Crying Light.
NM: Yeah, his songs, on the last album and the album before that, are very simple, in terms of just chord progressions and the like, where the new one exists in this more landscape-y thing. It’s very odd and very brave, especially because his voice does the thing that it does very well when it’s super simple. I love seeing these complexities just to see how it’ll fall. I’m spoiled because I worked on it,
SK: And what about Ed?
NM: We met through a friend of a friend, who said, “You’d love this guy Ed.” So we had a drink and were like, yeah, this is really fun! [Laughs.] It’s good to have someone in your life that you can call up at 4:30 and say, “Wanna go get some oysters?” And he to I and I to him fall under that. One of the things I have huge anxiety about is that I don’t have a nine-to-five job, so I’m like really motivated about when I work and structuring the day so that I don’t feel like this scroll of misery. Even having one appointment in a day is really useful. For instance, you were coming over today, and then this and that and that. So what’s great about someone like Ed is that he also has all the time in the world and little appointments scattered around the week, and we can sort of take advantage of each other’s schedule’s in that way and, impromptu, go eat fish. [Laughs.] SK: And then there’s Björk! You have a long association with her and you’ve spent so much time in Iceland that you’re practically an honorary citizen.
NM: I’ve actually never worked with her there. Every time I’ve worked with her it’s been here.
SK: How did you get connected?
NM: Through a friend of hers. She needed something real specific for Medulla, this one song. She was like, I need someone who can play really fast and also do this exploding thing. There were probably like two people who had that exact expertise and were available that afternoon.
SK: Aside from the great thermal baths, what is it that appeals to you about Iceland?
NM: The community is organized in such a way that, to me, is really satisfying. It’s a bunch of things kind of together. I love what they do with children: Everyone has a lot of kids and you bring them places - there’s no preciousness about it. It just seems like how you want your community to function.
SK: Like a utopia?
NM: I hate to use that word because it romanticizes it - it’s not perfect, obviously, but it’s incredibly conducive to being an artist. You can count on people to care about what you’re trying to do, to not give you a hard time. There’s not a sense of “what’s your real job?” if you’re a musician. And even if you do have a real job, there’s not that shame. It’s just structured very differently. It’s a total pleasure to work there.
SK: I heard you can speak Icelandic.
NM: I’m okay.
SK: Can you say something now?
NM: No, I’m not going to. [Laughs.]
SK: Come on, say something!
NM: [Something Icelandic-sounding.] It’s too hard, I’m too awful.
SK: Did you just say something?
NM: Yeah.
SK: What?
NM: “What do you want me to say?” [Laughs.]
SK: [Laughs.] Okay, I think we’re done here. What are you and the boyfriend doing for Valentine’s Day?
NM: We’re going to get troutlings at the Harrison! They have these possibly illegal baby trout that they just deep-fat fry whole. I’m really into them.
Photographs of Nico (relaxing in LA) shot for EVB by Christopher Dibble
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Ecstasy and loss. Adolescence and Vulnerability. Beauty and decadence. That is how 30 year-old Christian Schoeler has described his work. Devastatingly beautiful, intimate watercolor or oil paintings that share as much with contemporary fashion photography as they do with pre-photography portraiture. A “style” and approach that is perhaps unfashionable relative to the contemporary art ’scene’, but arguably timelessly fashionable. He even eschews the über-scene of Berlin for his hometown of Düsseldorf.
Seen up close, the rich rendering of the surfaces of his models skin is second only to the rich surfaces of the paintings themselves. It’s hard not to get lost in what he describes as the boundary between what is on the inside and what is on the outside.
All of the oil paintings reproduced here have just been completed for this interview, and have never been published or shown anywhere.
Weston Bingham: Tell us a little about your life, where did you grow up?
Christian Schoeler: I grew up in a rural area outside of Düsseldorf. I was skinny and androgynous and up until I was 17 I kind of looked like a girl. At some point I decided to shave my head and play soccer, but to be honest, it didn’t really work. Growing up in a German village at the end of the 90s was neither easy nor funny.
WB: Describe yourself in five words
CS: I am a bird now.
WB: OK, on to your artwork. How do you find your models?
CS: Some portraits are based on photos that I find somewhere along the way, but I definitely prefer portraying people that I know on a personal level, and I would say that meeting them is pretty much a regular process. I usually know them for quite some time before I actually paint them.
WB: What are you looking for in them?
CS: I need to see something unsure or disquieting about them, maybe in the way they move, for example. It could also be a peculiar way their face reacts to light or I might find myself observing a certain situation, which I then try to capture. Taking photos helps a lot in those situations. The people I portray are often in the process of finding out who they are and what they want to do. I can’t say that I look for something particular - It’s more of a feeling thing.
WB: Do you usually paint from photographs or a formal ’sitting’?
CS: Painting from photos isn’t bad at all, but ideally I try to combine the two.
WB: Many painters might find the term “beautiful” insulting , limiting, superficial or even condescending if applied to their work. How do you react to that critique of your work?
CS: Keep smiling!
WB: On the other hand, “beauty” is often considered a key attribute in photography. Do you feel an affinity with photography?
CS: Yes, sure. My work enters into a pretty direct dialogue with photography. For the Volta show I experimented with silkcreen as a medium. It’s one of the few methods that combines aspects of both photography and painting. While the form follows photography, the way of applying the colors is connected to the process of painting.
WB: Since photography was “invented”, painted portraits have suffered a quick decline. What are you bringing back to portraiture that photography has perhaps forgotten?
CS: In the time of absolute rulers, the portrait of a monarch was intended as an object of worship. The portrayal as such would therefore not necessarily depict a realistic image of the model but an idealized image of a person worthy of worship. In a way I also idealize the models in my paintings - I am referring to what used to be called the Antlitz. The difference, however, lies in my treatment of the original object. I don’t really focus on the actual appearance, but try to capture my own impression of it. The process of idealization inherent in my work is therefore not governed by conventions, but is a manifestation of my individual point of view. I guess you could say that I infuse the portrait with a part of myself. WB: So is your work in some way self-portraiture?
CS: The reality of my paintings connects my personal experiences with utopian longings and my quest for self-assertion. I guess I have developed a very pronounced awareness of my own vulnerability and the transience of my body due to my experiences in the past.
WB: Are you pursuing perfection?
CS: Yes, that’s what painting is all about to my mind. Simply because perfection is unattainable, the ideas surrounding it are the most interesting. It may be inevitable to fail in the name of perfection, but I guess you fail successfully.
WB: Are you re-presenting the perfection of the models, or is it your paintings that are attempting to perfect them?
CS: I paint the boys as I perceive them. Ideally I interact with them and the portrait stands like a mirror between the model and my emotions. If in the end I have to ask myself whether I am looking at the painting or the painting, indeed, is looking at me, I guess I did a good job. WB: Beyond the formal concepts of beauty and idealization, what other ideas are you exploring?
CS: I don’t think of beauty in terms of ideals communicated by the media or by physical appearance. These concepts simply don’t interest me very much when painting. After all, it’s about beautiful paintings and not about beautiful boys. In the end I could even paint beautiful paintings of cars or trees. The subject you decide on is closely connected to your approach to painting.
The boys all have this craving desire - a longing for corporal integrity that manifests itself in very specific ideas of fragile beauty. They are aware of the glances they get and openly join the game in the way they move, the way they seek closeness to their own body, however, to my mind it’s more of a sign of their longing for physical integrity and a sound soul rather than expression and seduction. If I could I would have them as miniatures for an alternative reality.
WB: Aside from the sheer beauty of your paintings, and the intimacy of the renderings, is there anything particularly “gay” about your work?
CS: Yes, I think there is something like a ‘gay’ perspective. The homosexual body is particularly sensualized and carries different connotations than the heterosexual body. Also, I’m quite positive that my view on the male body is different from heterosexual perspectives - after all it’s queer, isn’t it? WB: You don’t seem to be concerned with social or political commentary or subject-matter, as many contemporary artists are. where do you place yourself in the contemporary art “scene”?
CS: All I am interested in is realizing my ideas of beautiful, maybe even innocent paintings. I don’t want to provoke or hurt people with what I do. That would mean questioning my own innocence and leading to a concept of art that I don’t share. I’m not a ‘modern’ artist and I don’t want to position myself within a specific scene. I guess my paintings are more of a private obsession than a statement on our society.
I know and love the works of Collier Schorr, Hernan Bas, Andrew Mania, Nick Mauss and Elizabeth Peyton and if I had to associate myself with a specific scene, I would surely choose theirs. I don’t have contacts in that direction, but I don’t think that this is due to where I live. Whether it’s Düsseldorf, Berlin or any other city is of minor importance to me because I also don’t feel connected to any scene in terms of location.
WB: Speaking of Berlin, artists and musicians are constantly making pilgrimages to Berlin to find inspiration. You continue to live and work in Düsseldorf. What is it that keeps you there?
CS: Berlin? I am too weak for that city… WB: Your work actually seems to have a lot in common with late 19th Century American painters. Any particular reason for this, or is this just a superficial observation?
CS: No, in fact this is a very accurate observation. I am very much interested in the forms of abstraction and the color tones that are found in those paintings. Every element of my work passes through the filter of those somewhat detached yet soulful times, but I don’t really see this as a regressive element in my work. I understand it as an effort to identify the contemporary as a rewording of that which has always been there, though I’m running the risk of sounding sentimental and pompous.
WB: Do you see your work as timeless?
CS: I can’t really use that tag for my own work. Only time will tell what is timeless and what is not. Time, as such, plays a different role in the arts. Lucien Freud for example is timeless but simultaneously a relatively young painter. I’m a nobody.
WB: Your first solo exhibition was in Munich just a short while ago in 2008. What has developed in your work between that first exhibit and your show at Volta in New York two weeks ago?
Most of all the presence of the male single figures has changed. To me they seem more self-sufficient and encapsulated than before. Also, my narrative style has changed. My own self-perception has also gained significance in terms of entering the painting as a kind of third person that blends with the first person perspective - the paintings have grown more and more subjective and narcissistic. WB: I don’t mean this as a negative, but do you you think your work is self-indulgent?
CS: I simply don’t try to be ironic or funny when painting and maybe a lot of us aren’t used to plain sincerity anymore. So, I guess yes, my work might seem self-indulgent to some.
WB: Your watercolors are much lighter in color and mood than your oils. Is it simply a function of the medium or is is a choice driven by a larger idea?
CS: It’s a mixture of both. On the one hand, this is due to the qualities of the materials, and on the other it’s the result of the process of painting itself. A watercolor needs only minutes to complete, whereas an oil painting needs days, maybe even weeks. Also, with watercolors the light comes from the paper as I progress from lighter tones into dark colors. When painting with oil, however, I have to apply the light afterwards and I kind of work from darkness into the light. These are two very different approaches to painting. Working with watercolors is fast, comparable to breathing, and sometimes I manage up to 30 paintings in a day. An oil painting requires excessive planning and is more of a conscious process.
While I personally don’t like using materials against their specific qualities, Elizabeth Peyton is very good at it. Her oils have the lightness of watercolors, however, I prefer highlighting the formal qualities of the materials I use. WB: Your work is so focused on the surface of the models, their skin, and the surface of the paper. Is it important that we see your subjects below the skin?
CS: I spend a great deal of my time looking at pictures in the widest sense - it doesn’t make a difference whether I am looking at a painting by Velázquez or at a fashion magazine. The surface of a picture to me is never empty or dead, rather, I understand it as sensitive and even reactive. It answers according to how you treat it. However, I don’t think that my understanding of the ‘surface’ keeps me from questioning things or looking for something deeper.
The depth I am looking for is not metaphysical and it doesn’t ultimately lead to a ‘last truth’ or something like that. Rather, it is the depth of a body that is of interest to me. I want to explore what happens between the eye and the brain before an object is designated and consequently judged. Surfaces are boundaries and at the same time areas of contact between what is on the inside and what is on the outside. There is a difference between a surface and something superficial.
WB: Is it important that we see you below the skin? Is it important that your viewers understand anything about you personally?
CS: I think that would be asking too much, but generally I don’t have any presuppositions about that.
CS: I’d love to come to New York! Actually, if one of your readers would like to invite me over, tell him to send a nude picture of himself to you guys! We’ll get in touch and see what happens, ok? Above portrait of Christian and all artwork courtesy Schuebbe Projects
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Watch Out! East Village Boys is coming to London for the month of April. Yes, there goes the neighborhood…
That’s right, we’re heading across the pond and opening up a temporary office in East London. We want to meet, interview, play and most importantly shoot you for the site. If you are keen to show the world what London has to offer, while playing an important role in building on that good ole “special relationship” that exists between London and New York (we love you too Paris and Berlin. And Barcelona. And Tokyo. All of you really), then send your suggestions about people we should meet, events we should attend, features we should write, places we should hang, and most importantly send us your pics and stats so we can check out your Boy of the Week potential!
From posh west side boys, to east end council lads, to hackney hipsters - we love you London, all of you! BRILLIANT!
Oh yeah, we’re going to need some photographers to photograph all those boys, so if you’d like to shoot for us let us know and send us some of your work.
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