Art Office

Anne Wenzel, sculptor of monumental clay sculptures, was busy. Her often charged images play a game with the faded glory of power symbols. It went well, she worked a lot on commission and a lot abroad. Until a pandemic broke out.

How did it go for you during that period?
“Let's start at the beginning. Suddenly there was corona and my agenda was empty. I was in Marseille, ready for an exhibition opening with my work, when everything was suddenly canceled two hours before the opening. The uncertainty was enormous: will I still be home? It soon became clear that it was going to be very intense. As an artist it was nice to suddenly have time. But there was panic, which in fact continues to this day. I can wet as an artisthourly production, but my work also has to be seen. Otherwise it cannot generate money. There was no financial aid for which I was eligible in the beginning. I had to send three assistants home because we had to avoid contacts. I asked one assistant back two weeks later to continue working. The other two were back as of June 2020. I didn't want to drop them, and at the same time, I didn't want to lose my onboard team. It was then up to me to arrange the financing for this. That was quite tough, it felt like doing business at a higher level. So the PPR was very important. But there was so much demand for it that the system stalled. This indicates the enormous urgency of that arrangement, which was so special because the money reached the maker with a low threshold. Other arrangements only started much later. Moreover, a great deal of support for the maker was paid out through institutions. For the most part, that money never reached the maker.'

What did you do with your empty agenda?
'I came up with the Bacon Project. I saw work by Francis Bacon in the Center Pompidou and wanted to understand his way of rendering space on the flat surface and translate it into spatial images. This was the time to experiment in complete freedom, all by yourself in the studio. If it didn't work out, no one would ever see it. The project got bigger and bigger, eventually the work was put on display and I published a book with it that acts as a summary of the process and a guide to the future. Everyone I asked for this: designer and author, had time for my project because of the pandemic.'

So the forced period of standstill proved fruitful?
'I always make series, it can become something or fail. But I've never relied on someone else's art before. What is the status of the works? They are mine, but also Francis Bacon's. The goal was to learn how Bacon deals with color and space. I translate an orange stain on his canvases into an orange transparent acrylic sheet. I learned to solder, worked with metal and spent more than a year researching new glazes to mimic exactly the colors Bacon had used.' 

'A yellow oval between two fighting men on a Bacon canvas intrigued me. And I then process such data later in my work. I designed the Razzia Monument Rotterdam, consisting of a man and a woman. I cut them loose, and colored the cut surface orange. That color connects them while still separating them. I never would have done that without Bacon.'

How are you doing now that the corona measures have been lifted?
'The running has already started, everything is open again, the time of introspection and concentration in one's own studio is over. Public life has resumed, but it is important to find a balance. Surviving for two years in the silence also takes a lot of energy. Well, as an artist you can always work wherever you are. But you do need an audience. Now I feel the need to take on everything: work, exhibiting, deadlines. We are not finished with corona and confidence in the basis of the cultural sector has been damaged. The art market will have after-effects. Exhibitions will be extended, costs will be saved, purchase budgets will be reduced. There is no confidence in the future yet. The art world is super slow, and government support is needed, especially in the form of arrangements for makers.'

'Because everything starts with us, artists. Thanks to us there are museums, there are jobs in the art sector. Art should be central in museums. There is a big gap between politicians and even employees of cultural institutions on the one hand and the artist on the other. They don't know what the artist is doing in that studio. How are you going to close that gap? I bring it up with some regularity. We are all individuals and on our own. We need institutions to protect us.'

Temporary work contribution PPR
Om artists during the corona lockdowns to help maintain their professional practice, launched CBK Rotterdam de Ttemporary Wacknowledgment Production, Presentation en Research (PPR) about this visual artists can are signed up at CBK Rotterdam. Divided into two rounds in 2020 in 2021 finally received bijna two hundred artists a contribution. The result of the temporary work contribution is bundled in a publication in which we, together with a few artists, look back and look forward. This is one of fifteen interviews from the publication.

Text: Machteld Leij
Photos: Mark Bolk