Conversation with Karoline Schreiber
Barbara Zürcher
Was there an initial spark that ignited your desire
to become an artist?
Karoline Schreiber
I can recall being given my first box of Caran
d’Ache colored pencils at the age of four and then, to my mother’s
great astonishment, spending the next few weeks deep in concentration
drawing innumerable stripe pictures rather than the stick
figures that one might have expected. I painstakingly applied
every single color in the limited palette to the paper. Surrounded
by images and colors I was in a state of bliss and aesthetically
much closer to color field painting than classic children’s drawings.
Perhaps this was the moment in which I first discovered the
importance of allowing a picture to emerge over a longer period
and also perceived this as an approach to which I should aspire.
As a child I had no real idea of what it means to be an artist. But
what I do know is that I’ve always enjoyed thinking about the
external appearance of things and also about their inner meaning.
And this brings to mind another experience from my childhood
that, from today’s perspective, I see as symptomatic of this interest.
I found two fascinating wooden objects by the side of a swimming
pool: a howling wolf and a sitting pig—for me, at least, they were
unmistakably these two animals and I took them immediately back
to where we were sitting to ensure that no one could take them
away from me. It was only much later that I realized that these two
little roots had simply been lying there by chance and that no
one else had recognized their obvious figurative qualities and, hence,
their beauty as a result of which no one else wanted to possess
them at all costs. Incidentally, these two sculptural “Arte Povera
ready-mades” still exist—they stand on my mother’s mantelpiece
on an equal footing with the other artistic objects around them.
Zürcher
For this exhibition you’ve arranged a collection of erasers
from fellow artists. Is there a connection with these objets trouvés
such as the sitting pig and the howling wolf?
Schreiber
The abandoned, the unsightly, the used and the unspectacular
really do attract me. In a big clean-up that I organized
when I had yet again failed to find a pencil or an eraser anywhere I
I had yet again failed to find a pencil or an eraser anywhere I
searched the entire house for these objects and then gathered my
discoveries together. I was struck by the sculptural potential
and the diversity of these everyday items and found myself asking
which erasers were being used by others in their studios. This
marked the beginning of the adventure of Karoline Schreiber’s
Eraser Collection, a work that allowed me to
spend a year communicating with a wide range of artists whom I
also asked to donate a signed, used eraser. However, this completed
collection is much more than a random accumulation of
used erasers. Rather, these are testimonies to artistic failure that
include a guarantee of authenticity in the form of a signature.
Zürcher
Who or what inspired you?
Schreiber
In my childhood I was surrounded by picture books that I
was repeatedly looking at; I loved escaping to the worlds of Maurice
Sendak, Ali Mitgutsch, Richard Scarry, Wilhelm Busch, Tomi Ungerer,
and Heinrich Hoffmann.
As an older child I discovered Paul Klee, Markus Raetz, Franz
Gertsch, and Adolf Wölfli in the museum and also the sleeves from
my brother’s LP collection—I absorbed these images, they were
important discoveries for me.
As an adolescent I was enraptured by Surrealism and Expressionism
and, as a young adult, I discovered the comics of Robert Crumb,
Charles Burns, and Art Spiegelman at the same time as seeing my
first David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino films. This milieu constituted
the ideal echo chamber for my understanding of culture.
Zürcher
What can painting do?
Schreiber
That’s a really difficult if not, indeed, terrifying question.
Because it’s formulated so generally and also resonates with a
sense of polite skepticism. Somehow your question is much more
about what painting can’t do or about what it’s able to do at all.
Zürcher So what is it able to do?
Schreiber
Painting can do what painting can do. It can open up
parallel worlds, portray human problems and fears, devote itself to
pure colors, demonstrate dimensions, cause a stir, use painterly
methods to think about painting, and, in doing all of this, it’s
always unique; it has the extraordinary characteristic of being an
original, a quality that is, after all, remarkable in the digitalized
world. For me, however, the most interesting thing about painting
is that, in the end, it’s an abstract medium, regardless of whether
it seeks to express itself figuratively or otherwise. Painting usually
takes place in the second dimension. Even if it is a manifestation
of the three-dimensional it always, essentially, refers to time and
time again, to surfaces and it is this that underpins its capacity for
abstraction and, hence, for imagination.
Zürcher
This brings to mind the work Pimp my Painting.
What did this action “want to do”?
Schreiber
Pimp my Painting was artistic action, exhibition, and
appropriation, all rolled into one. I realized it together with
Julia Sheppard in Esther Eppstein’s legendary message salon on
Langstrasse in Zurich in 2013. In the run-up to the project we
invited around fourty artists to present us with an unfinished,
flawed, or otherwise problematic painting that we could finish,
improve, or fix in some other way. Most of the invitees agreed
to take part and were happy to hand over their “problem children.”
It was quite clear to us that there were many ways in which we
could intervene in order to bring about an improvement in or
the completion of the work. For example, we simply changed one
title and rotated another painting through 180 degrees. Most
works were subject to a small artistic intervention whereas others
were overpainted to the point of unrecognizability. In the subsequent
exhibition the reworked paintings were hung alongside
photographs that showed them in their original state; of course,
these pictures made a clear reference to the before-and-after
pictures associated with a successful diet but could also be interpreted
as a pair of images in the spirit of a “find the ten differences”
puzzle. At the same time, this form of presentation offered the
public an excellent starting point for discussing whether “after”
really is better “before”.
The response to the exhibition was overwhelming—partly, I believe,
due to the fact that, while using painterly means to address
the subject of failure, we weren’t satisfied with the discouraging
conclusion that painting really is a difficult exercise. Rather, we
went on to demonstrate that one simply doesn’t have to accept
the unsuccessful, however much sympathy one may have for the act
of failure itself.
Zürcher
What is the meaning of the act of drawing, of the drawing
itself, for you?
Schreiber
Without drawing I’d probably be an unhappier person.
But drawing is also, from time to time, a nightmare. It’s terrible
when a drawing goes wrong or somehow never even gets going
at all, when it doesn’t behave like I want it to and simply remains
unsatisfactory and I have to take the decision to condemn it to
the wastepaper basket.
Zürcher
Should your series Karoline Schreiber muss schneller werden
also be seen as a finger exercise?
Schreiber
That is what is suggested by the title, an instruction to
myself to become faster. The title challenges me in front of an
imaginary public to finally move forward. It leaves me free to think
about the way in which I choose to achieve this and how I can
visualize this tempo. A whole field of experimentation was thus
opened up to me and, after testing a wide range of materials, I
ended up with spraying, a technique that I had previously considered
as taboo in terms of my own work, as a technique that
was reserved for the street. This process taught me the raw power
of this tool and showed me how a sheet of paper really can be
completed within a very short time in a pictorial language that
records both the speed and the method of its creation.
Zürcher
You have produced more than fifty sketchbooks —are these a collection of intimate works and fragments of textthat could later lead to large-scale works?
Schreiber
After the birth of my second child, I decided to start
consistently dating my drawings and to stick to the same format
of sketchbook and the same type of pencil. The idea was to add
some sort of transportable studio during a phase of my life in which
I was being distracted by small children. This meant that I would
be able to briefly bow out of any everyday situation and “produce”
something. In those years I also had fixed studio days but I knew
that I still needed something away from this space that, on the one
hand, was part of my life but, on the other hand, allowed me to
escape it with a minimum of effort.
From the very beginning I regarded the entries in these books not
as sketches but as drawings, which means that I assigned to them
the status of works. I had realized that I have my best visual ideas
when I am, so to speak, working “on the side.” By this I mean a
situation in which it is actually inappropriate to be drawing such
as during a conversation or a meeting or while waiting for the
tram. I describe this form of drawing as automatic, in reference to
“écriture automatique”—these are situations in which I am working
intuitively and creating unconsciously.
Having begun so nonchalantly, this approach has developed into
a complex and productive source of pictures and ideas without
which I would no longer be able to work and that continues to function,
free from any pressure to perform. The books are extremely
valuable to me and I panic whenever I can’t find the latest one.
And given that they also play the role of diaries, the loss of one of
these books would also somehow erase a period of my life.
Zürcher
What is the importance of language in your work?
Schreiber Combinations of image and text often appear in my
automatic drawings. But while the fragments of text accompany
the drawings like autonomous pictorial elements their function
is different—and, together, they actually do produce a new medium.
Sometimes the text is a voice in the wings that means that a
drawing can be read in another way or clarifies or distracts from
the context, which is also necessary from time to time. Sometimes
the two elements work like they do in a comic: they must be seen
and read together if they are to make any sense at all or at least
to carry the meaning that I want them to carry and that I would be
unable to produce if I had to do without one of the elements.
In many works my linguistic interest is merely focused on the
title—although this is an area where I really pay attention. I have
a certain aversion to Untitled: I often find myself feeling as if I
have been left somewhat alone with a work, and this implicit claim
that the work possesses such an aura that it is self-explanatory
can also make me uncomfortable. This consideration also led me to
create the seemingly redundant titles of my performances that
invariably contain a short description and, as a result, appear to
overlook the most important thing: the drawing itself.
Zürcher
How did this performative element come about? What do
you find interesting about this immediacy, which occurs right before
the eyes of the audience?
Schreiber
When I run a pencil over paper and feel the resistance of
both in my hand and watch the line as it moves, I find the whole
process stimulating. It is as if the line is providing confirmation of
my own existence. I am interested in showing the immediate, the
fleeting, the variable—more precisely, the vital; I also wanted to find
out if the directly executed drawing can have a similar effect to, for
example, music. This is why I started putting drawing on the stage.
Zürcher
How does everyday life flow into your work?
Schreiber
The series Quittungen is a good example that enables us to discuss everyday life and its impact upon my work.
I started it in 2018. I’d just popped into Migros to do my shopping.
The result: another round of the supermarket and yet another
100 Francs spent on everyday necessities. I compared the amount
that I had spent in relationship with my income and this set me
thinking. And then I did what I often do in awkward situations.
I drew—directly on the receipt (Quittung)—and that is how the
series Quittungen began. Since then I’ve collected all the receipts
that I can’t submit when doing my tax returns because they concern
private expenditure. Either I draw my own motifs on these
small bits of waste paper or I copy well-known works from the
history of painting.
Zürcher
For your exhibition here in Haus für Kunst Uri you are transferring
your studio to the exhibition space, lock, stock, and barrel
What’s the idea behind this? What does your studio
in Zurich mean to you?
Schreiber
I really like my studio, but it’s tiny, freezing cold in winter,
and gruesomely hot in summer. However, its great advantage is
its location: I can get there from home in just five minutes and
don’t have to think in advance if it’s worth going when I don’t
have much time. The studio is on the second floor of a building
that was built more than a century ago by the City of Zurich as a
building for artists. I like the view of the chestnut trees and the
feeling of being cut off that allows me to concentrate on my work.
The truth is that the insanity of this action appealed to me: I’m
packing every bit of paper, every brown banana, and every outdated
memory device into moving boxes in order to sort through them
in Haus für Kunst Uri in Altdorf. And at the same time I realized
that this really is the only way of introducing some sort of order
into my chaos. And of course I’m also calling the exhibition
Karoline Schreiber räumt auf. Besides the meta-meaning, the title
(Karoline Schreiber Tidying up) means that I must create order; it
represents, so to speak, a promise that I have given and that I have
to keep.
The conversation took place during the preparation of the exhibition in May 2019.