Kunstsammlung NRW
Wiebke Siem, Foto: Wilfried Meyer

"People always ask whether they can touch my sculptures."

Wiebke Siem discusses her first work that allows the beholder to become an artist.

There are rows of shoe trees, walking sticks, and wooden spoons, onto which fingers, made from clothespins, are mounted, and vases and bowls in the most beautiful shapes. All of these utilitarian objects, which the sculptor Wiebke Siem has brought together in the Laboratory of the K20, are made of wood. Over the past six months, she has developed a participatory installation for the Kunstsammlung. Visitors are invited to assemble figures from the individual parts, thereby themselves making artistic decisions. Nor is it preordained that all of the figures must consist of a head, torso, two arms, and two legs. Entirely different constellations are conceivable – all made possible by hooks and eyes mounted on the sides of these elements, which allow them to interlock with one another in a flexible manner.
 
During the installation, Wiebke Siem allowed us to watch over her shoulder during the initial figural "tryouts." An interview for #32 with Alissa Krusch

 

 

#32: My dear Wiebke Siem, here in the laboratory, we see marvelously sanded-down wooden utensils. Over a period of months, you collected these diverse objects, some originally painted, from flea markets and on the Internet. What did they look like before?
 
WS: Many were old, not ancient, but old. Bowls from the 1960s, for example, ordinary household objects. I sanded them down and stained them, and bleached some as well. I gave the surfaces of all objects the same "unpainted" state. Everything has a workshop character, it's not supposed to look finished, but nor should it look rough. And it remains an open question, what it might become.
 
#32: What impact do these objects have now, having been assigned a completely different function?
 
WS: People always ask why I don't leave the objects the way they are. But then, the sculptural character would not emerge. Everything is supposed to grow together.
 
#32: When the Kunstsammlung asked you to realize an installation with a participatory character, you began by throwing up your hands in despair. What impelled you to take on this project nonetheless?
 
WS: Yes, this is the first time I've done something like this. Of course, I've already done a performance. And in 1996, at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, I displayed my live-in studio in an exhibition. But this is something different. At the start, I found it unnerving – "Oh no, a participatory work, of all things …" [laughs]. I worked out diverse variants, items of clothing people could wear, made from fabric or felt, even paper. In the end, I turned back to something close at hand. The work emerged from the experience that people who visit my exhibitions always ask me whether they can touch the sculptures. This time, the answer is: "By all means!"
 

#32: Over the next circa five months, this work will change constantly, without your having any influence on the process. What you imagine will happen during that time?
 
WS: I really don't know what is going to happen. People are very different.
Maybe they will just stand there and look, out of respect for the artist. Perhaps someone will come along and take things very seriously, give it a lot of thought, perhaps even someone is familiar with Wiebke Siem. Another may approach things quite flippantly, producing completely different constellations... I really don't know, but it's bound to be interesting!
 
#32: Many of your works hang from the ceiling. Over the past few days, visitors to the permanent collection at the K20 have awaited our latest acquisition for the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen: your sculpture "o.T." (untitled; 2007), a large eye made from a fabric that is reminiscent of a man's suit. Fabric plays a role in many of your works…
 
WS: … Yes, a preoccupation with fabric returns again and again. Now, I've worked for a long time with wood, but it's always back and forth, after a period of time, I'll work again with textiles.
 
#32: What are you working on currently?
 
WS: My most recent project is a "Kunst am Bau" (public art) project for a collector in Nuremberg. I'm planning a large hanging sculpture there, perhaps in copper, we'll have to see. Earlier, I submitted applications more frequently, I'm interested in this theme. But competitions aren't really my thing. This is a direct commission, which I'm pleased about. I'm also preparing a solo show for TRAFO in Szczecin in Poland.
 
#32: And finally: visible from the Laboratory are parts of our collection of classical modernism, which is to say: your work is directly integrated into the collection. Is there a work in our collection that you like in particular, one with which you have a special connection (although at the K20, we show primarily paintings, and only a few sculptures)?
 
WS: I have to confess [laughs], I don't know exactly where which pieces are hanging. But yes, there are paintings by Magritte and by Max Ernst, and sculptures as well, that are important sources of inspiration for me. Wonderful connections could result from this. At times, my sculptures are reminiscent of early modernism, with regard to the choice of materials as well. For example of marionettes by Sophie Taeuber-Arp, or the Bauhaus theater. These artists were always important for me, but all the same, I'm making art in a different time, when things are no longer so self-evident – the art scene has become much bigger. In art as well, a form of globalization is taking place. What interests me as well is non-European art. I also collect a bit, sculptures from Africa, for example. I'm interested in their canon of forms – and also in their usability.
 
The exhibition "Der Traum der Dinge" (The Dream of Things) by Wiebke Siem will be on view until June 19, 2016. Those who wish to know more about the work of this artist, who received the prestigious Kaiserring in Goslar in 2014, might want to have a look at recent publications, among them the catalogue published jointly by the Mönchehaus Museum in Goslar and the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg. Illustrated in that volume are a number of her lesser-known drawings, which were exhibited most recently by the artist just before Christmas 2015 at Lothar Schirmer in Munich.