Or: Could you reserve that for me, please?

I recently visited Rudolf Reiber (link) in his studio here in Stuttgart. I stumbled over his work because the German collector Rik Reinking covered him in the Art Radar (link).

While I really wanted his work “Dark Matter”, I also got interested in the work “48.085″, a series of 49 drawings, executed over 49 nights, depicting a certain area of night-time sky, as seen from the roof-window of his condo during an art-grant he received. (The image shows the artist in front of the artwork at an exhibition in Stuttgart, August 2008.)

Reiber went through the process of painting the stars he could see in black ink on white paper. For naming the work, he then went through the process of counting all the stars he had painted (give or take a few).

What I like so much about it is that it could be seen as a return to the very early days of astronomy, when astronomers actually had to work this way in order to determine the movement of celestial bodies. But it could also be seen as a symbol for the desire of man to know the number stars shining down on us.

And of course, it could be seen as the fraction of an endless scientific and emotional process triggered in humans by the very way our universe is set up.

In fact, it’s much easier than that: I like the work because it fuels my imagination. And it really fits the pieces by Lasse.

The talk with Reiber was extremely pleasant and I will revisit him again before I go on vacation. And since I really want this work, I decided to follow what seems to be a standard collector’s procedure:

I reserved the work.

It felt weird because, in a sense, this probably is the common denominator of collectors of art and tourists: Always ready to place a towel on a deck-chair very early in the morning. Now, let’s not speculate about the motivation to actually use that deck-chair … gallerists may have a different opinion on this than collectors.

On a more serious note, reserving the work helps. It feels like you bought it without having done so. And if there is no sense of regret: great! And if there is: Phew!

No regrets here. So this may well be the next piece in my collection. And I’d love that.

Or: My first art

I bought art! To be honest, I bought it last week and apart from a little twitter note, I haven’t told anyone, yet. Why not? Hard to tell, probably because I don’t have the art at home yet. And this is a very unnerving situation.

Let’s start here: At the opening of “D.O.A. – Dreaming of Africa” (I wrote about that earlier) I talked to the curator Philipp Ziegler (who also works at Galerie Reinhard Hauff in Stuttgart, link) about me becoming a collector. Since we have seen each other at previous openings, you could say that he has an idea of what I like and why.

So when I asked him if he could recommend something to me, he immediately mentioned a specific work by Lasse Schmidt Hansen (link). I had come in contact with the work of Lasse a while back, at the very first opening at the Dorten Haus (link). Lasse had installed standard neon lights in our irregularly shaped space (see image below). I immediately liked the way Lasse approached standards and norms. What comes to mind is his having a carpet cut to the measurements on the ground plan of a room and then putting the carpet in that room. Just to realize that it doesn’t fit at all!

And now Philipp was to recommend some works by Lasse Schmidt Hansen for me to buy.

I went over to the gallery a week later and having finally found it some flights of stairs up in the back of the building (for an outside view, see the image below), I first had a look at the current exhibition “Botox to Go” by Frank Ahlgrimm (link).

Philipp told me some very interesting stories and one sentence stuck especially well: “Collecting starts where your own four walls stop.” As long as you can fit the art in your condo, you’re still decorating, in other words. So hey, I advanced rapidly from “nothing” to “home decorator” now. Still a long way to being a collector …

Anyway, back to the art I bought. Philipp showed me parts of Lasse’s edition x/°°. A series of A3 photocopies. Lasse printed an online version of one of Thomas Ruff’s “Star Series” (at least that’s what I think it was, link) and cut out the stars. Now he can sprinkle them onto a photocopier and thus creates star maps by photocopying the stars with the lid open (See how it was exhibited below).

The edition is called x/°° because the edition is infinite. He can always do it again and the outcome will be different. I bought the numbers 11 and 13, because they seem to belong together, the way the stars fell on them. What’s more, they’re prime numbers and they link my collecting passion with another passion I have: science fiction literature and vintage non-fiction books about space.

Here is how they were laid out and how I decided on them. Mine are the two on the right:

Philipp himself bought two of them and he’s having them framed now. I’ll wait to see how they turn to decide if I want mine to be framed in the same way. So it could be weeks before I actually have the first of my art in my own hands.