WORDS: MIA MEDAKOVIC
INTERVIEW: PAUL RICHARD LANDAUER
PHOTOS: ALEKSANDAR BUBALO, MOMCILO GRUJIC, PAUL RICHARD LANDAUER
BELGRADE RESIDENT PAUL RICHARD LANDAUER IS AN AUSTRIAN ARTIST WHOSE PRODUCTIVE ENERGY HAS MADE HIM ONE OF THE MOST EXHIBITED ARTISTS IN SERBIA IN RECENT TIMES. IN OCTOBER HE HAD HIS SIXTH SOLO SHOW IN SERBIA IN JUST 5 YEARS AND WE WILL LEARN MORE ABOUT IT BELOW IN THE INTERVIEW.
LANDAUER HASN’T ALWAYS LIVED IN BELGRADE. HE WAS BORN IN VIENNA IN 1974 WHERE HE STUDIED ART HISTORY, PSYCHOLOGY AND COMMUNICATIONS. IN HIS EARLY YEARS HE EXPLORED MANY DIFFERENT CREATIVE MEDIUMS ASIDE FROM PAINTING AND WORKED AS A PHOTOGRAPHER, CAMERAMAN AND FILM DIRECTOR AS WELL AS ADVISED INTERNATIONAL AD AGENCIES IN VISUAL COMMUNICATION. TODAY, LANDAUER IS AN INDEPENDENT ARTIST AND A PERMANENT MEMBER OF SERBIA’S ASSOCIATION OF FINE ARTS (ULUS) AND LIVES WITH HIS FAMILY IN BELGRADE.
How did you choose to become what you are now, Paul Richard Landauer, the artist?
I was born as a creative person and so I have worked all my life in the creative industry. But it took a while – more than forty years – to be ready for some of the art’s most essential pillars: Absolute honesty, the courage to face yourself and the emotional strength to transform these personal feelings into publicly exposed creations.
I think I envisioned this path already at the start of my life, but didn’t have the courage to dive into it earlier. Now today, since I started walking that path, I can’t imagine a different life anymore and I’m grateful to eventually meet myself. Ever since, every day in the studio is a good day. In the end I think I didn’t choose it, I just accepted it.
What is art to you?
Art is to me an opportunity to meet yourself and learn about your relation to the world around you. It’s like a mirror to our souls and it’s as complex and contradictory as human existence can be. Art is never finite, because it always continues to evolve in the eyes of the audience. The subjectivity of the way the public perceives an artwork opens infinite versions of an artwork’s impact and purpose. It can calm, irritate, stimulate, cause revelations, open questions, make you happy or sad. Art is the ultimately human miracle.
Why did you choose abstraction as your way of expression?
I always try to keep something open in my works. I wish that an artwork can breathe and has a scent of possibility. Abstraction supports that. The abstract expression allows me to reduce my conscious domination during the process of creation and opens the opportunity of growing beyond the limitations of my persona. Trust is an essential ingredient in that game, also regarding the artwork’s life after it left my studio. The perception of abstract art can be highly subjective. Each spectator can see it in an individual way. That gives room for interpretation, but also allows intense emotional and subjective experiences and you don’t need to be an art expert to experience that. That’s the beauty of it.
You are the painter of large format canvasses. Do you sense a level of trepidation in front of such a blank canvass?
As I´m convinced that one can create art only when being liberated from all fears, it has been a central aspect of my work to learn how to handle my fears and build trust in myself, and the world around me. As a result, I can happily say today that I have no fears when facing any new, blank canvas. It hasn´t been always like that. But today, I even approach it with great excitement, because every new canvas is an opportunity to explore new worlds, learn new things and hopefully grow beyond myself. The “me” who stands in front of the blank canvas is never the same “me” who will stand in front of the finished painting. This positive power of the process is an opportunity for change and growth and that it is so much stronger than any fear of failing.
The large formats are also supporting me in my endeavor to let go from consciously over-controlling and overthinking the process of creating. The physicality of working with big canvasses is a challenge, tests my limits and so distracts me from the boundaries of my conscious thinking and my fears.
Do you have a color which you prefer to use mostly in all your paintings?
The reddish soil, which I find on the Adriatic coast, is one of my favorite materials I work with. I start almost every painting with the ritual of spreading this soil on the blank canvas, which creates a warm tone, which I often intensify with multiple layers of red oil paint. Eventually, these layers create endless and very intense shades of red. I´m a very passionate character and I guess that I just feel connected with the emotional qualities of the color red. These qualities are complex and contradictious and can stimulate and comfort equally. Red is a mysterious and exciting color.
Where do you find inspiration?
Inspiration isn´t a thing that happens in a certain, singular moment and then causes a specific artistic expression. Inspiration is an open and infinite process that happens constantly and subconsciously and can change in its quality through time. My senses are highly active 24/7. They absorb all kinds of impressions and I´m often not even aware of them. I recognize this sometimes days later, when these impressions subconsciously influence my work. I never wait for inspiration. I just need to create – always and every day. It’s like breathing to me.
In October you had an exhibition in Kulturna Stanica Svilara in Novi Sad. What was the theme of this exhibition?
The show was titled “Reconstruction”. It’s part of my long journey of coming closer to the essence of my existence. After the shows “Silence the Noise”, “Excavation of Innocence” and “The Lost Paradise”, the “Reconstruction” show presented a group of works which are dealing with the process of remembering and understanding the experiences and influences, which shaped me as a person.
I think that it is essential to any process of personal and artistic growth, that you truly understand who you are. This constant process of looking into the darkest corners of your existence is often uncomfortable, but eventually very rewarding. It’s the only way of eventually creating the “Lightness of Existence” many people are longing for. With “light” I don’t mean “shallow”. It’s a lightness, which comes once we detach ourselves from the burdens of the past by understanding and overcoming them and converting them into inspiration. It’s a lightness, which turns our focus from the past into the area of possibilities. Even though it’s still a long way to go for me, I enjoy every single step along the way and the artworks are all documents of this journey.
Tell me the secret of your success? A lot of people buy and like your paintings.
I paint as if I would be alone on this planet. I don’t think about selling or pleasing anyone. The only worry I have during my work is to stay true to myself and be even braver and to dig even deeper in the most personal and hidden corners of my life. I guess that this very honest and personal approach, which creates artworks with an aura beyond their visual composition appeals to some people. There is little space left for honesty and individualism in a world in which most people are under enormous pressure of matching the expectations of their friends and families. People share everything on social media, everything, but not who they really are, or how they really feel. My work is the opposite – a last haven of honest humanity.
The topic of the November issue of the RYL magazine is “Some Universe will create us again” inspired by the verse of Serbian poet Branko Miljkovic. What do you think about that?
I think that this happens always and constantly. There is no “Universe” as something that surrounds us. We are part of it.
The Universe is – just as everything in it – in constant motion and transformation. As humans we are in a relation with all other elements in this Universe and these relations constantly change, because all its parts change and evolve and transform infinitely. I’m not the person I was in the morning when I leave my studio in the end of the day. Each action and decision I made, each person I talked to, each painting I created shapes my existence.
People tend to delegate the responsibility for their existence (or destiny if you like) to external influences or powers. But I deeply believe that we have to take responsibility for our part in this infinite world. It is in our hands – at least a little. But that doesn’t mean that the Universe isn’t part of it!
I can relate to Brank Miljkovic as long as we are aware, that there is no separated existence of “a universe” and “us”. We all are part of the same universe and all parts are equal and therefore it is us, who re-create ourselves again and again through our interactions with all the other parts of it.
Nothing just “is” and so is not the Universe. If we want to be part of the Universe we need to let go of holding tight to the things as they are, because the Universe will always continue evolving and changing, but that’s not scary at all, because it is the essence of life and an infinite chronology of chances to do better.
