David Krut Publishing

In our recent conversation, Friedrich Danielis, painter and writer, reflects on his choice of media, what inspired his creative development, and the function of an artistic message.

As a voracious reader, a passionate aficionado of classical music and opera, a lover of painting, and a curious traveler, Friedrich Danielis invites a variety media to enter into a dialogue with his own creative work as he carefully chooses what should exist in painting and color and what is more appropriately represented through a text. Consciously forming two creative realms that may or may not refer to the same idea, Danielis engages in multiple mediums to expand his idea beyond one concept and allows a conversation to occur in his artworks. And after talking with Danielis, one is immediately struck by his wonderful ability to tell an engaging story. His spontaneous storytelling and instant critique of the function of art offer an entry-point into his work as he invites his spectator to view his paintings, read his texts, and enter into the written temporality and the visual space of his ideas in his artist books. When telling me about his current project involving photographs taken of the Alberti Santo Sepolcro in Florence, Danielis revealed what an artwork should be and do. Inside of this building, there was a chapel, and inside the chapel was a beautiful empty sepulcher, above which text in Latin was inscribed: “He is not here.” Danielis commented: “It’s a work of art. I had to laugh…I’m struck by the honesty. I think it’s great that it’s empty…He never was there. He never will be there.” For Danielis, this building demonstrated architecture as sculpture as the building was “inhabited by an idea.”  Referencing Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise,” Danielis stated that “truth is pattern and not an object. It’s not something you possess.” Similar to the Alberti building and the statement “He is not here,” art is not declaring one meaning; it’s actually a site, a grave, that could be filled with multiple ideas or remain empty. This duality between presence and absence, meaning and non-meaning, demonstrates the multitude of truths to be experienced in an artwork; Danielis seems to engage this multiplicity and offers his viewer both the space of painting and the time of a text to enter into his conceptual realm.

Here are some moments from our conversation:

KC: Since your body of work includes painting, writing, artist books, print editions, and collaborations with artists and musicians, is there a medium that you identify with the most? Do you consider yourself primarily a painter?

FD: I’ve always been a painter who reads. The actual writing was never intentional. To my surprise, I did not dislike it.

KC: In your creative practice, what seems to be your starting point?

FD: I think first, then the title, then the picture will follow. Then come drawings…Drawings are like chamber music; they are quiet. It involves starting and stopping in one day and then you can throw it away. This is the most important tool of the artist (he says pointing to the dustbin).

KC: What is the relationship between the painting and the title? Is it always a starting point?

FD: Always. Sometimes I may edit the title…It’s describes the nucleus of the idea which causes the picture.

KC: Does the text or title function to explain the painting?

FD: It can be any different things at the same time…A picture is first of all a name…It defines what it is and, by that, what it is not. If someone wishes, it gives them a hint.

KC: Do your titles or texts ever lead your viewer astray?

FD: I’m afraid so. Sometimes intentionally; sometimes not. [Referencing living in Venice part of the year], the great benefit of getting lost is you see something unexpected. [The titles are] just trying to get them to look in an unexpected direction.

Above: Friedrich Danielis. From his series “Split Second.” Gouache on paper, 2005.

Keywords: Painting, History, Arts-and-Culture, Design, monograph, Photography, Art, South-African, International, Bookstore