I Want Pictorial Content Without Sentiment, But

Everything Has A Reason, Including The Selection Of The Photos, Which Was Not Arbitrary But Appropriate To The Period, Its Highs And Lows And My Sense Of Them.

When I First Painted A Number Of Canvases Grey All Over (about Eight Years Ago), I Did So Because I Did Not Know What To Paint, Or What There Might Be To Paint: So Wretched A Start Could Lead To Nothing Meaningful. As Time Went On, However, I Observed Differences Of Quality Among The Grey Surfaces - And Also That These Betrayed Nothing Of The Destructive Motivation That Lay Behind Them. The Pictures Began To Teach Me. By Generalizing A Personal Dilemma, They Resolved It.

The Political Topicality Of My October Paintings Means Almost Nothing To Me, But In Many Reviews It Is The First Or Only Thing That Arouses Interest, And The Response To The Pictures Varies According To Current Political Circumstance. I Find This Rather A Distraction.

Art Is Not A Substitute Religion: It Is A Religion (in The True Sense Of The Word: 'binding Back', 'binding' To The Unknowable, Transcending Reason, Transcendent Being). But The Church Is No Longer Adequate As A Means Of Affording Experience Of The Transcendental, And Of Making Religion Real - And So Art Has Been Transformed From A Means Into The Sole Provider Of Religion: Which Means Religion Itself.

I Originally Came From Dresden, Where Socialist Realism Prevailed. Konrad Lueg And I Came Up With It, For The Most Part Ironically, Since I Now Live In Capitalism. It Was Certainly 'realism', But In Another Form - The Capitalist Form, As It Were. It Wasn't Meant That Seriously. It Was More A Slogan For That Particular Happening At A Furniture Store.