FIVE QUESTIONS FOR VERONIKA WENGER FROM ZHOU LI | 周力对薇罗妮卡·温格的五个提问

Interview on the occasion of the exhibition
Veronika Wenger. Upon a Line,
December 21, 2024 – March 16, 2025
OCT Boxes Art Museum,
Shunfeng Mountain Park, Shunde District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province

展覽期間接受訪問
薇罗妮卡·温格：在“线”之上
2024年12月21日 – 2025年3月16日
盒子美术馆
中国广东省佛山市顺德区顺峰山公园

Zhou Li：How do you choose the titles for your artworks, like “Lipstick” and “Little Angel”? These titles seem to originate from an imagination unrelated to the visual imagery of the works, or is there a certain critical irony behind them?

Veronika Wenger: The titles have a similar function to the dancer or person in my works. They give the drawings an apparent reference to reality, a form of narrative. The titles arise from various circumstances, sometimes as provocation, criticism, through form or color, but always in relation to things that surround me, literature or experiences. The titles arouse sensual feelings, e.g. Lipstick, Crostata, Apricot…With “Cherub” (Little angel) the title can be viewed critically. It came to me through the form that appeared in the process of drawing, during a period of studying Hegel’s writings on religion. The titles create a connection between the lines and the drawing, between the words and the language.

周力：你如何为作品选择标题，比如“口红”和“小天使”？这些标题看上去来自某种与作品视觉意象无关的想象，或者某种批判性的反讽？

薇罗妮卡·温格：标题在我的作品里就像是一位舞者或一个人物的形象。它们把作品和现实联系在一起，是一种叙事形式。它们时常与我周围的现实环境或事件有关，或者源自我的阅读与生活，是一种伴随视觉而来的挑衅或批判。它们往往提供感官内容，比如“口红“；而像”小天使“这样的标题，则是一种批判，它是我对绘画过程的一种形容，源自黑格尔有关宗教的写作。总之，标题把画中的线条和语言联系在一起。

ZL: Your creations feature subtle material contrasts, such as tape, pencil, spray paint, and so on, but nowadays many of your works, in the form of images, appear on social media platforms like Instagram, where the texture of the original works is inevitably compressed. This is a challenge faced by almost all artists. Do you mind or regret such compression and loss of information?

VW: I use Instagram (and my website) to provide an insight into my work and to make my drawings accessible. By focusing on the digital quality of the depiction of my work, I use the best possible quality of photography to display my drawings. I can only experience the materiality, the reality of the work in front of the original. Thus the image of the drawing appears here as an abstract message that the viewer can read in a similar way to a book or a text. In contrast to the viewer’s presence in front of the original work and material. Here the viewer has two possibilities to immerse himself in the work: in the abstraction of the drawing and in the connection with reality, the materiality of the line, paper, tape, spray, etc. On social media, the non-abstract reality is removed and transformed into a digital reality that I as a viewer cannot touch. As a viewer, I am not in the same room, I can only look through a window. So I do not regret such a condensation of information compression and I think it is no loss, it is like spoken language and written language.

周力：你的创作包含许多微妙的材质对比，比如胶带，铅笔，喷漆等等，但如今你的许多作品，以图片的形式，出现在ins这样的社交媒体上，那么原作的质感一定会被图片压缩。这也是几乎所有艺术家都会面对的问题。你会在意或者惋惜这样的信息压缩和损失吗？

薇罗妮卡：我会在自己的Ins和网站上展示部分作品，让更多人看见。我会尽可能利用现有的数码技术，让作品的照片还原作品的质感。但对我自己来说，我必须在原作面前才能感受到作品的全部，尤其是它的物质存在提供的经验。于是，作品的图片变成了某种抽象的信息，就像读者通过文字去理解某种内容一样，这与观看原作是完全不同的。可以说，观众有两种办法深入作品：一种是阅读图片，发现作品的表达；一种是观看原作，感受真实的线条质感，纸张，胶带，喷绘，等等。
在社交媒体上，所有非抽象的真实都被改变了，变成了某种数码的，不可触摸的真实，就像通过一扇窗看到的房间。我并不为这样的信息压缩感到遗憾，因为这并不是一种损失，而是像口语和书面语言一样产生对照。

ZL: The artwork titled “Bärendreck” (Liquorice/Bear Scat), which uses black and white tones, seems to deliberately eliminate the olfactory sensations associated with licorice or bear dung. It appears to extract the deeper imagery of these two objects rather than their superficial phenomenon. So, what is the profound imagery?

VW：As with all drawings, I only add the title after the work has been completed. In the case of “Bärendreck” and “Konfekt”, the color, the materiality and also the resulting form play an essential role in the titles. “Bärendreck” is not easy to translate, Selima and I thought long and hard about whether we should translate it literally or use its High German meaning “liquorice”. Bärendreck is the southern Bavarian term for liquorice. It reminds me of my childhood and perfectly describes the taste and appearance of the “Bärendreck” offered to me as a child. As is often the case with dialects, it is a very figurative word that associates a situation: Bear and dirt: hence the colors black and white. The title “Bärendreck” enriches the drawing with the word Bear Scut depicted through language.

周力：那幅名为“甘草/熊粪”的作品，用了黑白色调，是否是在刻意消除甘草或熊粪的气味感，似乎画面在提取这两种物体的深层意象，而不是表象，那么深沉的意象是什么呢？

薇罗妮卡：我都是在一幅作品完成后才给它起名字。“甘草/熊粪“那幅作品，是以它的色调，质感，以及两者的交织为基础的，标题也是为了强调这一点。“Bärendreck”这个词并不好翻译，它在南巴伐利亚地区是“甘草”的意思，我和赛莉玛（Selima）想了很久，思考是否应该把它的字面意思“甘草”直译为标准德语。这个名字让我想起自己小时候，以及记忆中那时候甘草的味道和样子。在方言里，这个词也有熊和它的粪便的意思，对应了黑白的色彩。最终的标题保留了这两部分意思。

ZL: What is the particular reason for the large empty areas in the composition of the artwork titled “Konfekt”?

VW：The composition “Konfekt” (Confectionery) was created during the work process. In this drawing, I have already struggled a lot with lines, color and material in a for me unusual corner, so that everything has already taken place in this corner and the resulting drawing, in my eyes, requires the remaining white surface to represent its essence. The title also refers to this: to the artificiality of a confectionery presented in a box; to the contrast between the white surface and the “colorful confectionery” made of tape. The composition is, like the sweet, protected in its box, protected in its artificial area of the white paper.

周力：那幅名为“糖果”的作品，画面里有大片空白，这个构图有什么特别的原因吗？

薇罗妮卡：这个构图是在创作过程中逐渐确定的。画它的时候，我是从那个角落开始的，然后不知不觉花了很多精力在线条，色彩，和材料上，然后发现一切还在那个角落。于是，我觉得这幅作品应该让其它地方保持空白，这样它才是真实的。作品的标题在暗示盒中糖果的人工感，这与空白处形成对比，也与胶带形成的“彩色糖果”的感觉形成对比。构图和糖果很像：色彩也像是被装在盒子里，空白部分是人造的空间，就像糖果盒里的空间一样。

ZL: Your brushstrokes are very expressive, not structured in a conventional sense. How do you control your brush? Have you been particularly influenced by any artist?

VW: To keep myself in line, I try to stick to the following approach:

Grammar of drawing – Observation – connection of distinctions

Composition – Sensation – Nature

Formalities – Observation – Factuality

If the drawing sinks too deeply into my observations or feelings, I often use color as a connecting element or as an opposing element to create closeness and distance at the same time. Color or an expressive brush-touch completes the drawing through its determination or saves the lines from depicting an idea/image. “Pure drawing is an abstraction. Drawing and color are not distinct […].” (Cézanne). There are no specific references to a particular artist. In my current involvement with philosophy or art, I would name Tintoretto, Niklas Luhmann and Bernhard Lypp.

周力：你的笔触很有表现力，并不是那种结构性的处理，你如何控制自己的画笔？有没有哪个艺术家对你影响很大？

薇罗妮卡：为了让我自己保持专注于线条上的思考，我尝试着坚持以下的方法：

笔法：观察——突出之处的联系；

构图：感官——自然；

结构：观察——真实性。

如果笔法与观察或感觉的联系过于深远，我就会使用色彩来把它们联系起来，同时又把它们孤立起来，产生距离感。色彩或笔触需要有肯定感，而线条不能被具体的想法或形象所拖累，就像塞尚说的：“绘画都是抽象的，所以它不可能与色彩分离”。我的作品并没有特别指向任何艺术家的影响，目前来说，我关注的哲学或艺术家包括丁托列托，尼克拉斯-卢曼(Niklas Luhmann)和伯恩哈德-林普（Bernhard Lypp）。