wanderlust

If I Was a Sculptor

With talent out the wazoo and a new exhibition with Gallery Villa Köppe coming up at Preview Berlin Art Fair at Tempelhof, brilliant young sculptor Julius Dörner seems to have the art world at his feet. However, as he tells berlin-artparasites in an exclusive interview, he explains how his career and his art are both children of fate, never planned for and constantly evolving in ways he himself does not always realize. Get a closer look at the artist who you can meet for yourself (and view his lovely sculpture work) at Preview Berlin next Thursday, September 13th!

BAPS: What made you want to become an artist?

JD: I never really wanted to become an artist in the first place. After school I wanted to be a photographer or work as a creative, designer or at least as something where the chances are higher to earn money. After applying at the schools in Hamburg and figuring out that my pictures weren’t so good after all, I came back to painting. I worked in my small room in Hamburg, which became more difficult the moment I started to work three dimensionally and in plaster. My room was about 16m² and started to be filled by figurative sculptures from plaster and large self-portraits.

BAPS: So you didn’t always intend to study at the Universität der Künste (UDK)?

JD: I applied at HFBK Hamburg and UDK Berlin and ended up moving to Berlin to study at the UDK. I never regret that decision because all of a sudden I had workshops, a studio-space and was surrounded by others having similar interests. The materials changed and I started to be more precise in my formal decisions. 

BAPS: Who or what has been the biggest influence on your work?

JD: There has never really be only one person who influenced me because I think there are many great artists and people to learn from. Quite often you don’t even notice how big the influence was until you’ve reached a certain distance. But I can name one, Dieter Roth. He was one of the most inspiring artist I’ve focused on. 

BAPS: What sort of materials do you normally work with?

JD: The materials I use are mostly found, collected, or bought from flea markets and antique-stores. Material always tell stories, lies, or even the truth, or they are charged with emotions and memories. Since I focus more on the individual, the designing and decorative aspects of living in a personal space, I try to show the way we change the material and how they themselves have been changed by us. Viewers often tell me stories about the personal experience they had looking at my work.

BAPS: What made you decide to work with these materials?

JD: To be honest, I didn’t know which media to use. But I know that right now it is most joyful to work with wood and with those found objects since they need very individual treatment. There is never the right or perfect solution to place and arrange different materials. It is an exciting game to compose and connect things in a specific hierarchy to create an emotional moment. Choosing the media is like the decision for a certain language. You have to learn how to talk and write properly and once your vocabulary gets bigger you become more precise in your expressions. 

  Tempelhof Airport Preview Berlin Art Fair. September 13th – 16th 2012: 1-8pm.

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