Our 4th essay is by Arngrimur Sigurdsson MFA 2018, who is spending the summer in Leipzig, Germany, part of the Leipzig International Artists Programme.
One of Arngrimur’s installation set ups.
The Spinnerei is a very special place, and it has been truly inspiring to stay here for the past month. The complex, a converted cotton mill, houses around 120 artist studios, along with numerous galleries and creative initatives, such as a print shop, ceramic studios, and an arthouse cinema that often hosts free open air screenings.
The events hosted at the Spinnerei attract hundreds of guests every week, and have served as our window into the surprisingly vibrant and strong figurative art scene here in Leipzig, still influenced by the New Leipzig School with NeoRauch and Tilo Baumgartel as the main players. Laura, the program coordinator, has also accompanied us to meet artists both here at the Spinnerei and elsewhere in the city and brought in a local artist, Justus Jager, to critique our work, which he did with much gusto, leaving me and fellow Academy student Aidan Barker-Hill somewhat pulverized. However merciless our critique was, it was pretty refreshing to hear his perspective, and to talk about art like it matters.
The laid back athmosphere of the city and all the greenery, the parks and the canals make it a great place to work. When not in the studios, the three other residents (Aidan, Naomi Nakazoto and Atalanta “Xanthe” Arden-Miller) have biked to the lakes (former coal mines that have been repurposed as lakes), visited the Museum of Art and the Anthropological Museum to sketch, had Weisbier on a bridge, and helped out in the kitchen of Hiro, a Japanese cook, who runs a donation-based restaurant called Die Japanische Haus, where we have since become regulars. We have also gone exploring and foraging for stuff around the city, had good talks about art and life and played some very interesting games of Pictionary.
Xanthe browsing in the Agra flea market.
Hanging out at the Japanische Haus.
The studios here at Leipzig Interntational Artists Programme are awesome, with high ceilings and huge windows. It’s aperfect place to get work done, and an interesting experience to live and work with a bunch of very talented studio mates. The staff at LIA have also been very helpful, and I have to thank them particularly for their guidance on where I could find a large fish (preferably a sturgeon) for my still life setups. I had searched the city far and wide for fresh fish, but to no avail. I mentioned this to Laura and she sent me detailed directions along with a map to a fish farm, that I could reach in 45 minutes from the Spinnerei by bicycle. Their website promised a variety of fish, including sturgeon (in German, styre). But when I got there however, all I found was a measly carp, and one that was not smelling too fresh either. Leipzig is certainly no match for Chinatown when it comes to fresh seafood. So, I had to make do with a few frozen sardines and a carp, but am working on getting a fishing license to be able to get my own fish from the Kanal.
Arngrimur coming back from a trip to one of the old factories where he was gathering materials.
My plans for the residency have been pretty much to reconsider the way I approach painting and to focus on creating experimental work and sketches that can bring me out of my usual way of putting paintings together and hopefully inform my process with new thoughts and materials. I have experimented with acrylic paints, ink, and a variety of surfaces here, and have also created installations /still life setups from objects I have gathered from the vicinity of the Spinnerei. These foraging trips have taken me into very unusual places, such as derelict factories and abandoned buildings. In these spaces I have sketched and gathered objects, attempting to see my environment more for its texture, surfaces and colour, rather than its function and purpose, and hopefully to translate that to my paintings. All in all, I feel very fortunate to have had this opportunity, and am excited to see where my experiments will lead to and how they will inform my thesis work next year.
One of the many old factories, perfect for foraging.