Albert Oehlen

Speaks About

Martin Kippenberger

"The important thing about Kippenberger is that his attentions are two lines, parallel lines. The one thing is that he is trying to entertain people and trying to shock people, all his work is that. He wants to really invent and with every piece to make something new and to be real avant-garde. All day long and with all of his heart he really does believe in nothing else but in art. He doesn't define it, his father was an artist, he is an artist and his friends are artists. I think he never asked himself why because he has no choice, he is an artist. He's very, I wouldn't say naive, but it's absolutely clear, there's no question about it. Other artists maybe ask themselves if art is finished or they are finished. He never asks himself that. As a motive for modem art he thought that social life could be motive enough. And this can show up as banality or however we find it. And if you look at the subjects he uses you start asking yourself what's behind it, how does he choose this thing, how does he select this subject then you find behind that a moral attitude a judgment.

"He doesn't think that life is art and everything he puts out is good. He really works on it but he works so extremely much that it looks like everything is art. His selection process is 100 times greater than other people's. He can do it because that's what he's doing all day long, he's collecting all day long."

"He loves art like nobody else. He really likes to have it and he likes to make it, I think that's why he makes 90 many exhibitions because he wants to work every minute."

"Very often, Kippenberger makes an exhibition just as a reason to make an invitation card or poster."

"Kippenberger is never in danger of looking for a theory about his doings. He never thinks about what he's doing there — he's thinking about how to do it better or stronger or more."

"He's an extremely good businessman but his business is making art. He doesn't make it as business, business for him is to make as much as possible. And money as much as possible too, but it doesn't have the logic of making money it has the logic of making art. This logic is making more is better than making less."

"He'd go on a trip for four days and what he wanted to do during those four days is water colors. So he comes back with 800 of them and all 800 are signed but then he's forgotten and has signed them on the front and on the back and another time and sometimes they have three signatures."

(As told to Judy Cantor and printed in the Spanish art mag. "Arena")