With his sculptures of dark, spectral presences and paintings of elongated, vampire-like figures, Swiss-born Tobias Spichtig creates work that oscillates between sincerity and irony – capturing fleeting episodes and modern ghosts. His upcoming show at the Contemporary Fine Arts gallery, Taxi zur Kunst, draws from cult films and weaves together scenes of nightlife that appear charged with melancholy, absence and a hint of contemporary alienation. His work has been exhibited at institutions and galleries worldwide, including Kunsthalle Basel and KW Institute for Contemporary Art.
Why is your new exhibition called Taxi zur Kunst?
Well, ‘Taxi zur Kunst’ is a playful title because my gallery always takes out an ad on the back of the art magazine, Texte zur Kunst. It’s also inspired by weird Berlin films like Taxi zum Klo from the 1980s. The painting in the ad is creepy and a bit funny too. The truth is, I’d always wanted to do a show with that title, and it came back to me while watching Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro. There’s something nostalgic about taxis, especially in Berlin – one of the last cities where they still feel iconic. The show captures that vibe of a night out in the city, people standing around, having dinner. It’s a mix of scenes, scenarios and portraits.
A typically long, hedonistic Berlin night?
Not necessarily long, but people having fun. No one has fun anymore. Maybe it’s because no one’s drinking, but it’s all become quite serious. At least for me. I was thinking about Taxi Driver as I was painting, how the main character gets totally radicalised. It’s really weird, and the whole surrounding context and atmosphere inform the exhibition.
He becomes incredibly violent…
Yeah, and I can’t stand the guy, but it’s very watchable in a filmic sense. I’ve never really painted scenes before. Or if I have, I’ve never really shown them. Another inspiration was Blood for Dracula (1974) with Udo Kier. It’s about Dracula having to go to Italy to find fresh blood. Udo Kier is beautiful but the whole story is pathetically just insane.
Your stretched, high-cheekbone figures are instantly recognisable, where did that come from?
That’s just the way I paint, I guess. It’s just what I find beautiful, or what I like. There’s not really an escape from it, I’ve sort of given in to it. But they come from regular drawings, and then emphasising certain things. I’ve always liked the idea of having a style or cultivating a style. As it was the case in pre-modernism, a bit like Bernard Buffet.
Who?
Oh, he’s terrible, but also great. He was like a young Picasso, and back in the 70s, his prints were everywhere. He had a huge market. And then was disgraced, because he was doing this Les Miserables thing, painting the poor while he himself just bought a castle. And then everyone started hating on him. He’s in all the museum collections, but he didn’t get shown until lately. I like his stuff sometimes.
Your paintings catch this perfect ambiguity – and it’s hard to tell whether they’re showing this high-goth gloomy seriousness or a fun, lighter aspect.
It’s funny, this whole goth thing I’m not really into. I’m just serious about things, whether they’re dark or not. Maybe it’s also about timing, my work coinciding with the goth revival … but honestly, any painting could have that quality. Walk through any museum – almost anything could be in a goth movie. In any case, I was always more into punk, grunge and stoner rock.
I’m less interested in things themselves and more in the ideas or feelings they provoke.
Are you mocking that scene a bit too?
I’m not great at mocking things – even if I tried, it would come off serious. If people find something funny, it’s usually because I meant it. But I don’t make hurtful jokes or troll people; that’s not me.
As well as painting from life models, you often incorporate portraits of your friends into your work…
Yeah, because they’re around but I often ask people to come by. I guess that’s kind of the beauty of painting, right? You can paint the people around you that you like, the people that mean something to you. That’s something I find fascinating about Andy Warhol, he really loved the people he had around.
You’re equally well known for your Geist sculptures, these emaciated figures, made up of dark, draping clothes over chairs, or propped up. How did they first come about?
I had just moved to Berlin from LA, and it was quite a lonely time – lots of quiet, solitary Sundays in my flat. Over time, clothes and jackets were left behind after parties. They were still untouched, smelling like the people who wore them. Having learned how to work with epoxy, I realised I could fix them. Suddenly I found an excuse to buy more second-hand clothes and turn them into something meaningful. They were empty at first, but once I styled them, they became characters– nothing turned into something. It felt like a presence, someone that was really there. That process reminded me a lot of painting. You start with just paint and material, but then it becomes something real, almost magical, a kind of material spiritualism…
Will there be geists in the show?
I’m not totally sure yet, because I’m working on making them in bronze.
Your work tends to divide people – when I told people I was interviewing you, half were excited and the other half were a bit dismissive. Why do you think you provoke such binary reactions in people?
Well, that can hurt. But it also means people feel something, which is a good sign I guess. In a way, it’s a compliment too, I guess. I’m not calculated about things. I don’t try to game the system or be too clever. I just take what I do seriously – I’m definitely not an “idea artist”. My work comes from dedication and a kind of desire. I really like what I do. Also, I think I’ve also done it over a period of time and maybe that’s not so easily explained, it doesn’t fit conceptual frameworks and can’t be easily legitimised by some contemporary discourse. There’s a sincerity to it that comes from a different direction and that might be a trigger.
Do you think some of that criticism comes from being outside the conventional art world niche…
Well, that’s kind of strange, I don’t know why people fixate on that in my work, especially since I engage with it the least of anyone around me.
You collaborated with fashion designers and labels to show the ghost sculptures, like Demna Gvasalia at Balenciaga or Christa Boesch and Cosima Gadient at Ottolinger…
I got asked to commission sculptures, and I thought it was also a bit funny, that the ghosts were suddenly wearing expensive brands. I really like clothes, so I like to work with designers once in while but I’m not into fashion much or that industry. I’ve just always loved clothes and I admire designers a lot like Rick Owens.
But you don’t regret those connections then?
Absolutely not. I love music, film and clothes and all that. It’s all connected, a small world at times. Its very important to me and I admire these people who do that. But I am not into the industry part of that.
The industries are something different. They work with mood boards and references. You end up on one, and they create from that. Art and music are always ahead – anything culturally relevant starts there. And only very few designers work like artists. In the end, everyone looks at everything …
That’s just the way I paint… what I find beautiful, or what I like.
You mentioned your well-received sunglasses paintings. They played with the idea of looking back at the watching viewer…
I think any painting has that, I was drawing from what was around me. I liked sunglasses – they’re a nice item to collect. A friend had a big collection, and when I photographed them in the dark they flashed back, and it kind of clicked as a piece. It’s funny how things come together, but in the end, I just want to make beautiful things.
Not that your work isn’t always beautiful, it’s more that it has an unsettling feel…
Lately, I find I’m less interested in things themselves and more in the ideas or feelings they provoke. I’m not the type of artist who focuses heavily on research or subject matter. Instead, I’m driven by a desire to explore and get closer to things, without always knowing exactly how to express it.
The feeling of creating something entirely new…
I think more restoring something already there, like the first scene in Faust when the devil arrives. If you go to the Nan Goldin show [at Neue Nationalgalerie], all these stories become real and it’s incredible and so beautiful. The people become your friends.
We’ve been trying to schedule this talk for a while, but every time we’ve tried to talk you’ve been out to dinner!
I’ve barely had the chance to leave the studio.
Are you a workaholic?
Well, I usually get up around nine at the latest, I’m at the studio at 10 or 11 and if there’s nothing in the evening, then I’ll usually stay until midnight or one or two in the morning. I go out to dinner maybe once or twice a week.
Do you have a clear idea of what you’re going to paint before starting?
I have two approaches. Sometimes I sketch things out, but they often turn out differently. Other times I develop the painting directly on the canvas. But they always turn out differently, it’s an excuse to go somewhere else…
Do you destroy paintings that you don’t like?
Yeah, too often, and later on I’m annoyed because they were actually quite good!
- Taxi zur Kunst, Apr 12 through May 31, Contemporary Fine Arts
