Die Geduld des Papiers at PAPER – interview with Axel Obiger

Jo Manby

At the beginning of August, PAPER in collaboration with independent record label No Such Thing, presented A Modest Evening with Ruby Tingle, a night of art, music and drink at SOUP Manchester from artist/musicians Ruby Tingle, Left Winter and Dirty Freud, to welcome Berlin gallery, Axel Obiger to Manchester, as they prepared to curate their exhibition (part of A Modest Show) at PAPER. Mid-August, Axel Obiger’s collaborative exhibition ‘Die Geduld des Papiers’ finally opened to the public after delays due to the pandemic.

Axel Obiger is an artist-run contemporary gallery in Berlin Mitte. The name originates in an anagram of Galerie Box, which the space was known as previously, and carries with it an aura of wealthiness. Axel Obiger is a fictional art dealer, as the interview below reveals. ‘Die Geduld des Papiers’, which roughly translates as ‘the patience of paper’, focuses on work on paper with a range of paintings, drawings, photos, papier-mâché sculpture, and collage. The exhibition runs until 17 September 2022. Following is a conversation with Axel Obiger, featuring Gabriele Künne, Nathalie Grenzhaeuser and Enrico Niemann, the three members of the collective assigned to bring ‘Die Geduld des Papiers’ to Manchester.

Jo Manby: How do you regulate your collaboration, as nine individual artists with quite different practices? I wondered what mechanism you use to ensure smooth democratic running of the space and the programme?

Gabriele Künne: We meet at least once a month and discuss all the work that needs to be done (at that time). At least five of us have to be present and when we vote for something, it must be the absolute majority, otherwise the proposal is rejected. Normally we make an exhibition and event plan one year in advance, also to get support and financial assistance. We organise the Dialogue-shows (one member of Axel Obiger invites an artist who is not Axel Obiger), curated shows, group shows and events, and exchanges and collaborations with other artist-run-spaces, such as PAPER Gallery Manchester, TigerStrikesAsteroid Los Angeles, Durden&Ray Los Angeles. In line with organising and preparing these shows we build smaller responsible work groups, such as me, Nathalie and Enrico for Manchester. We try to alternate, so that everyone of us has enough to do.

JM: Have you as individual artists found that, as a member of Axel Obiger, you have become far more productive or prolific?

Gabriele Künne: Maybe, yes. Because as an Axel Obiger member, you have a dialogue show every 18 months, and in between there are always group shows or other possibilities to show at least one new work (e.g., at the “Obiger Galaxis” in March/April 2022). We also produce printed portfolios for each Axel Obiger Artist, so you have to reflect on the representation of the ongoing development of your work. And we have a core audience which follows our enhancements. But there are also breaks and new developments, for instance when we have to transport work to the UK or the US - they have to be light, low volume, but in the exhibition potentially big. So, in this context I started to work with papier-mâché again, which I quit 10 years ago. For the work in LA I even developed a hanging structure which was easy to transport. New ideas, new combinations, and a lot of inspiration for subsequent works are generated by these seeming limitations.

Nathalie Grenzhaeuser: In my artistic practice, I have had the same experience and found it interesting that these apparent limitations often also led to more resource-efficient realisations, an aspect that is becoming increasingly relevant in art more generally. In the L.A. exhibition, for example, I assembled a large print from several pieces, a practice I often use abroad, as it is also easy to transport. I would finally add, that working in a collective highlights/changes another aspect of one's work. The fact that one enters into an aesthetic or thematic dialogue with others can be a very inspiring and productive process. Of course, this is not easy, especially when, as in our case, so many different art genres and approaches come together. You have to leave your own point of view/working idea behind in order to develop interesting aspects of a common exhibition concept. In my case, for example, in addition to the thematic aspects of duration and materiality associated with the exhibition title [Die Geduld des Papiers / The Patience of Paper] led to a selection of more "abstract" works such as the Black Ice series which drew its own, formal links to the other works.

JM: Gabriele Künne’s work with obsolete remnants of defunct industry, such as colourful, thought-provoking interpretations of pylon ceramics, makes me think of how the relics of capital, empire and industry can be reprocessed through art to raise critical issues in a meaningful way. Is this kind of critical repositioning part of the wider remit of Axel Obiger?

Gabriele Künne: I don’t think that refers to all Axel Obiger members. My work deals with that, also to some extend Nathalie Grenzhaeuser´s, Maja Rohwetter´s and Matthias Moravek´s work, as they partly include the role of nature in our time. In the very wide remit we have, it is maybe a critical repositioning part of each of us, as we are aware of the situation we are in (relics of industry, climate change, nature’s destruction…), but it’s not explicitly part of the Axel Obiger Programme.

JM: Looking at Nathalie Grenzhaeuser’s exquisite body of work relating to the Arctic, represented in ‘Die Geduld des Papiers’ by examples of the ‘Black Ice’ series, as well as the collaborative exchange between Axel Obiger and PAPER, to what extent does international travel play an important part in the Axel Obiger programme?

Gabriele Künne: As I tried to exemplify in the second question, I think I find a lot of inspiration from traveling with artwork and traveling to do shows. I am also always taking many photographs, which operate like sketches and first ideas to be transformed later. Also, the difficulties of packaging, weight and volume became more and more interesting to cope with. I will have a new work in my upcoming show in Berlin, hanging from the ceiling, which I wouldn’t have developed without having had these limitations of transport for LA in spring ´22.

Nathalie Grenzhaeuser: I fully agree with Gabriele, and I think all AO members support this and we generally want to intensify cooperation with other project spaces abroad. In terms of my own work, travel has always played the biggest role in one way or another. Almost all of my work has been made in remote and ecologically fragile areas and is informed by our relationship with nature. In recent years I have mainly worked with scientists at climate and marine research stations in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic. This is also how the Black Ice series came about. The process of thinking and developing work in a collaborative interdisciplinary and foreign context is not only inspiring, but also an initial spark to better understand one's own perspective, as it creates a critical distance. 

JM: I was interested to read that Enrico Niemann studied at the Bauhaus. Particularly since Niemann’s work seems to reflect the way Bauhaus practitioners worked their materials (thinking of Paul Klee mixing wallpaper glue and watercolour, layering paint onto hessian backed plaster, or oil on distemper on jute). How does the immense cultural significance of such institutions as that impact on the output and work ethic of the Axel Obiger community?

Gabriele Künne: In fact, Enrico studied at the Bauhaus University, which is the succession institution of the Bauhaus (as the original was closed in 1933 by the Nazis). In the GDR it was a university for applied sciences (Architecture) and even not called Bauhaus. In 1996, the Bauhaus University was founded with a reference to the original Bauhaus, including Architecture, Design and Fine Arts. But I am sure Enrico can tell you more about that.

Enrico Niemann: I think that for my artistic work, the experimental approach, as it was also practised at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, had a lasting influence. But this has hardly had any effect on the group work with Axel Obiger. Here, the cultural environment in Berlin is more important.

JM: How does Axel Obiger sit within the contemporary art scene in Berlin, and further afield, in Germany more widely?

Gabriele Künne: Axel Obiger was founded in 2009 and was awarded in 2018 the prize for artist-run-spaces in Berlin (Senat für Kultur und Europa Berlin), many smaller grants like support for flights, and in 2020-2022 we got the Basisförderung (base support), also from the Berlin Senate (to cover costs like rent, electricity and fees). But irrespective of that, we are now really well-known in the Berlin Art scene, I maintain that everybody who is active in the Berlin art scene knows what we are doing. In other German cities we are known as well, but that depends on whether we or one of us had a show there. And as we showed three times in LA already, we are known there – at least in the project space context.

JM: Thinking of your monthly rotation of exhibitions and accompanying programme of lectures, performances and screenings, do you maintain a physical archive, or does the sheer quantity of work that Axel Obiger produces mean that it has to be digital?

Gabriele Künne: We have nearly no storage space. The archive is digital, but we keep some work or additional work from the current shows in the tiny back office. 

Nathalie Grenzhaeuser: I would like to add that usually between each show and event we calculate several days for mounting/dismounting the shows, which regulates the storage problem and then has each member her/his own possibilities to store the own works either in their studio or at home.

JM: How do you maintain independence as an artist-led space while at the same time being part state-funded? Or is this not an issue? 

Gabriele Künne: Not really. We are totally independent and only sometimes state funded. Most of the time we finance the space on our own, which means that everyone has to pay a monthly fee. Even when we are partly state funded, we only have to deliver the programme we already decided and submitted before. 

Nathalie Grenzhaeuser: Well, I see that it could become an issue, if we would work in a generally system-critical way and would get constant big funding from the state, then this would be certainly questionable. But this is for the independent art scene surely not the case, as there is not much cultural funding available.

JM: If money were no object, what would be your greatest ambition for Axel Obiger? Would it be to encompass a greater number of artist members and collaborators, or to intensify the work that you do in your current configuration?

Gabriele Künne: We just included one more artist and will include more artists in the future. We want to expand our national and international network and keep contact with all the artists we already collaborated with. But - money is an object, of course. Running a project space with an ambitious programme does not mean we can’t sell work. But this seems to be very hard so far. Of course, we want to show experimental and innovative work independent from market mechanisms. But the work is not unsaleable.

Nathalie Grenzhaeuser: That is right, and I totally agree to what Gabriele said, but would like to add that the low number of sales also derives from not having enough capacity and time to push this further, as usually each member has already enough to work on with those aspects Gabriele mentioned.

JM: Tell me some more about the concept of Axel Obiger as a fictional art dealer. It’s a fascinating idea. How does this work in practice, as exemplified through your exhibition programme?

Gabriele Künne: The fictional art dealer was installed to have a high level of freedom and independence. We want to show experimental work, independent from market strategies and selling pressure. All members are Axel Obiger, so the decision of the group becomes seemingly the decision of him. We curated for instance a show called “Axel´s private collection” where we showed artwork every one of us collects privately. Or we play with the art market mechanisms when everyone of us does an artwork which he or she would normally never do (just for fun, or to try something, or…), then show this work under an invented artist’s name. The names of all Axels had to be very international, a Chinese name, a Swedish, a Russian, an American, a Spanish. At the opening we hired drama students to play these characters and talk about their works. Many visitors of course didn’t realise it was all a fake and the actors were sometimes exaggerating an artist-like behaviour, but many visitors adjusted their reactions, not to appear astonished. In the end we clarified the situation, also because it became more and more strange and funny.

JM: What has been the most inspiring / satisfying / encouraging aspect of your collaboration with PAPER?

Gabriele Künne: It was very satisfying to install the show after two years of planning, postponing and changing. The original collaboration start was planned for April 2020. We finally built the PAPER space in its original dimensions out of cardboard and installed the show on it. The cardboard model fitted into the Axel Obiger space, and we also made a video of the construction process, which was shown on the PAPER website in 2020 and the Axel Obiger website. So, it was nice to see the space in reality – and be there in reality. And to meet David, of course, install the show together, see many other shows in Manchester, get to know the Manchester Art scene a bit. I also loved the welcome party, performances by Ruby Tingle, Left Winter and Dirty Freud. It was interesting to see their show at PAPER, as it was still running when we arrived. I liked the idea of combining art and music at the PAPER Gallery a lot. Hope to maybe continue with that in Berlin, with David. Encouraging to see that a small space like PAPER is known and attracts quite a few people in Manchester. Nice to meet so many other artists there, to get a lot of interest and many reactions to our work. And I am very curious what kind of work David is going to bring to Berlin in April 2023.

(Read the review of A Modest Evening here)