Winner of the prestigious Otto Dix Prize in Germany, Matthias Bitzer is known for working with multiple media to create abstract sculptures, drawings and paintings. Bitzer is also known for creating unmatched and intriguing installations that are sure to ignite the thought process of his audience. Whether it is a canvas or abstract installation, both have hidden layers of personality and a clandestine identity.
What was the thought process behind combination of mediums?
I use an extensive variety of styles, medias and techniques in my work. It includes paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, abstract and figurative works, etc. The context of a work determines its execution.
How do the 19th century icons inspire your work? Would you aim to select portraits from 16th or 17th century?
My work has been inspired by a mixture of sources. The occasion of when it occurs is not of too much consequence when producing the work. Some are inspired from fictional characters out of stories. Sometimes, I just deconstruct it and transform it into something like that of a universal symbol which has no constraints from its origin. In "Islands and Chains" I refer to the unfulfilled relationship between 19th century Italian actress Eleonora Duse and German writer/poet Rilke, but not for reasons of narrative or nostalgia.
Which is your favourite piece of art from your own collection?
Each work of mine is relative to the next. They evolve from a magnetism that sets a direction that makes each work necessary in the progression. Although each one can be read entirely independent, they also are fragments of a bigger picture that might only to be read from a distant view. Of course, some works carry a more crucial context whilst others rather represent bridges, in order to span the disparity between two pieces. So therefore it's impossible to distinguish one to be more important than another.
Which artist(s) inspires you?
Gilles Deleuze, Mark Manders, LeopoldoFregoli, Francis Picabia, WG Sebald, Augusta Joyce, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Sylvia Bitzer, Fernando Pessoa, Gregor Hildebrandt, Bernard Frize, Malewitsch, Jorge Luis Borges... to name a few of many, whose thoughts and spirits have influenced me.
This is your debut in India. What do you expect from this exhibit?
The works in the show "Islands and Chains" circle around the relation between the writer Rainer-Maria Rilke and the actress Eleonora Duse. The practice in the shows ranges from abstraction to figurative works including drawings, paintings and sculptures.
The works in the show relate to the unfulfilled love between the German writer Rainer Maria Rilke and the Italian Actress Eleonora Duse. Each work of this complex carries an independance, that allows it to see it dissolved from its precursor and its successor , but, at the same time, shares a continuation, that aufeinander The open ends in this structure allow it to connect to any surrounding. I find this the most interesting aspect of my practice. How a body of works, produced somewhere in the world, held together, by not more than an impalpable string, can inhabit and occupy a space somewhere in another
world, without losing its coherence and complexity.
Tell us about your next collection.
In September I will open a solo show at Almine Rech Gallery in there space in Brussels.