Q&A Adrian Altintas

Q&A Adrian Altintas – Berlin, February 2020

Q: Can you tell me about your background?

A: I was born in Heidelberg, a small city on the river Neckar in the southwest of Germany. I left Heidelberg after I graduated from school.

Q: What was the first artwork you made?

A: What I remember was a small drawing of a cocktail glass and a bottle. My parents must still have it in a drawer.

Q: What is more important to you: The Process. Ideas, The final visual outcome. The material? Or something else?

A: All together lead to a result, which is judged. Then the question arises whether the path was the right one. In the end it’s all about survival.

Q: The world and speed of Social media. Living as an artist within this arena.. How do you see yourself, And how does affect your work, way of living .. Or does it ?

A: I keep the pictures and myself away from it as much as I can. Social media has undergone a transformation from its beginnings til today. And it will always change. Many examples have shown that you cannot conquer social media. It only makes the world smaller.

Q: It seems like there is trend towards. Instagram and informational overload how do you see this,, and do you respond.. use it.. and if so.. where do you see this ending up.

A: One must never underestimate the power of images. You can’t really avoid all this, so you should turn on your own filter and focus.

Q: I have read this text about your work: The concealing part ,, Could you tell me more about it ?

A: In these paintings the speed of the information flow is reduced, it is decelerated. This creates a sensitization for the reception of a motif.
In previous paintings, I have resorted to a collection of photographs to find a motif. I have discarded this way of working since, painting habits always change.

Q: I have read the following.. And would love to hear more about the reduced part, and how this began. “Adrian Altintas shows very, very, very, no but: very, reduced paintings”

A: The reduction is a circumstance that occurred over the course of time of doing paintings. The reduction is a process instead of a pre-considered effect.

Q: What influences you?

A: Things I don’t understand. We all have a different reality depending on how we look at things, how we perceive them and how we can continue to talk about them.

Q: Some people have the opinion that all contemporary art looks the same these days… Care to comment

A: I dont think that everything looks the same, but many look as if they are having to do with fear, but unfortunately they are not dealing with it.

Q: Can you let us in on some of the future projects, works?

A: I’m currently working on some new Maquettas and their question/habit of scale, framing and dependency.