Only Posers Fall in Love: Q&A with Duda Bebek

After receiving degrees from prestigious Valand School of Fine Arts, Gothenburg and Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the up and coming artist has been rather busy exhibiting her work in Vienna, Gothenburg and Stockholm. Her peculiar and cheeky paintings are currently on display at Gillmeier Rech in Berlin. The Berlin based gallery, founded by Verena Gillmeier and Claudia Rech in November 2013, represents emerging artists such as Zuzanna Czebatul, Lindsay Lawson, and Marco Bruzzone.

ArtRabbit caught up with the rising star:

ArtRabbit You’ve studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna under Daniel Richter, one of the great contemporary German painters. What impact did he have on your practice, and on you personally?

Duda Bebek I remember the first crit with Daniel. I had my works laid out on the floor, he strolled around them in circles, with his hands on his back, moving them close to his face from time to time, and giving his chin a good-old scratch. His closed lips made a muttered repetitive ‘hmm-hmm-sound’, as if he was trying to freak me out. This silence took me by surprise. Daniel has true skills being outspoken, and a master of rambling spontaneous thoughts. So, I was offended by this awkwardness. Was there not one damn thing to say about my work? Eventually, I realised that this silence did me good. It forced me to reconcile with the thought that there are many different ways to be understood. I learned not fight back so much, and that the confirmation from others is not worth stressing out about. During art school, however, keeping my integrity was the number one priority. Which led me to easily get offended by how my works came across to others.

Silence is sexy but scary.

AR What motivated the title of your current exhibition ‘Only Posers Fall in Love’ at Gillmeier Rech?​

DB I’m amused with sentences that are impossible to make total logic sense of. Words with double meanings and contradictions. "Only posers fall in love" is easy to understand on one hand but also totally impossible to figure out. The title is a quote from the movie SLC Punk by James Merendino from 1998. I haven't seen it but found the quote in the shape of a meme on Facebook.

AR Taking the cue from the very great Marlene Dumas, you quote in your exhibition text, “No painting can exist without the tension of what it figures and what it concretely consists of. The pleasure of what it could mean and the pain of what it’s not.” Where do you see this tension in your work?

DB I relate my works to Dumas’ understanding of figurative painting, though I’m not seeing myself as a figurative painter (if that makes sense?). For me, one of the most interesting parts when painting is the challenge to ignore the symbolic value of the chosen motive which is heavily layered with opinions and society norms. In this anarchistic action I feel most free to let my paintings surprise me. The tension lies in this action. This denial - let’s call it that - often makes my works politically incorrect. Which can be complicated, but mostly it’s interesting. I don't like the thought of the artist standing above things, and looking down. I wish more artists were like Michael Jackson but without, of course, the holding-baby-over-balcony part.

AR While we’re at it: Marlene Dumas once recalled (in a conversation with Barbara Bloom), "Someone was interested in these smaller paintings of a naked young girl, and asked, ‘What is the age of the child?’ I said, ‘It's not a child, it's a painting.’” Is this something you’re hinting at in your paintings, when you portray nudes behind window blind like patterns, inviting the viewer to peep through the blinds, and finding him/herself in this strange voyeuristic stage​?

DB Yes, good point! The women behind the blinds are mirror-like perversities. I believe that anything that is not already existing in nature to the human eye is a perversity of nature. Which puts pressure on both viewer and me as the creator of these works. Much like the “talking painting”: The satirical cartoon by Ad Reinhardt made in the 1940s but without any kind of Irony. I am a true romantic and a believer in magic.

AR Exhibiting in Berlin, did you have some time to explore the landscape? What shows or venues can you recommend?

DB *good old chin-scratch* I was too busy going on dates I forgot about the art. My ‘survive-extreme-heat-in-Berlin-tip’: Always put sparkling water in your wine.

AR We'll give it a try! Thank you!

Duda Bebek. Only Posers Fall in Love
27 Jun 2015 – 1 Aug 2015
Gillmeier Rech, Berlin

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