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themes have not changed that much. The abyss will keep knocking us off-balance. Although it may not be equally visible, my work is about things that throw me off-balance. You could consider my works as attempts to overcome gravity, which makes them doomed to fail. In other words, the abyss is certainly present. To counter the absurdity of our life with a gesture: that is what it was about before and that is what art is still about today. The fact that my work has a technical side to it is secondary; it is the medium I like to work with. JB: One of the pictures in the studio is a reproduction of Sleeping Venus (c. 1510) by Giorgione. Why is this painting so special to you? FG: We see a naked woman lying in a landscape. The work has continued to fascinate me since I first saw it in Dresden, which was twenty years ago. Titian and other great painters have copied him, but these works were never as good as the original by Giorgione. The setting – the woman in the foreground and the landscape in the background – is a strange combination when examined more closely. Imagine it without the landscape and the foreground becomes an interior due to the use of lighting and the drape of the fabrics. There is a breach between the foreground and the background, which gives the painting its power. Landscape and woman need each other. Without the landscape and the horizon the woman would lose much of her mystery and her erotic power. The woman that reveals herself is made elusive again by the landscape. I think it’s phenomenal that art can do that. JB: Do you think the function of art is to make the intangible visible? FG: Yes, but in the sense that Heidegger gives: of “emerging from the mystery”. A work opens itself, evokes meanings, but at the same time withdraws into itself over and over again. The double movement of revealing and concealing inspires me. JB: How do you experience and discover the context in which something is made? FG: I cannot create an artwork without thinking of the context. I believe there is no autonomous art. Context is always
present in different ways. There is the history and the artistic context that flows from it, in which you – as an artist – look for a position. But even more direct is the physical, spatial context in which you place your work. Like the foreground and background that reinforce each other in Giorgione’s work, I believe that an artwork consciously enters into dialogue with its surroundings – ranging from the architectural environment to the movement of the sun – which can lead to a more intense artistic experience. In that way the spectator is placed in a larger whole.
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