The Art of Recycling and the Recycling of Art



I think Seneca the Younger knew what he was talking about when he said that the artist finds a greater pleasure in painting than in having completed the picture. Not only do I agree with him, but I have had the good fortune to be able to recycle this pleasure again and again in several series of prints, paintings, drawings and collages.

In my book Deutsche Gedichte (Rainer Verlag, Berlin 1986) I made 70 "Lichtskulpturen" (light-sculptures) to accompany the poems. To create these images, I took sheets of paper and attacked them with an X-acto-knife - slash, slash, slash - in random fashion. Then I placed the slashed papers in a copy machine - top open - and pushed the starter button. The light of the machine "drew" through the slash marks. Voila: 70 black and white shadowy line drawings the likes of which I had never seen before, begging the artist to identify them and give them a title. In any case, untitled they blended nicely with the spirit of the poems. On the opposite page are a few samples.

(to be continued)