julije knifer—drawings, meanders and the everyday by julije knifer

hans-jürgen slusallek, adelheid hoffmann and julije knifer at edition & galerie hoffmann in 1994

photo: h. herbert

it was important to follow the logic of a process that had begun and that, above all, represents an objective logic in which i never sought the forms from my imagination, but noted the basic rhythms of what was happening on the surface

juljie knifer, 1985

letter by julije knifer to adlheid hoffmann with a statement on his working process in preparations for a forthcoming exhibition in april 1985 and the publication of the portfolio "mäander" (1985)

in 59, i started with the following:
i always started from the simplest positions.
without codification or explanation, i lined up facts.
basically, it was an escalation of monotony.
it was important to follow the logic of a process that had begun and that, above all, represents an objective logic in which i never sought the forms from my imagination, but noted the basic rhythms of what was happening on the surface.
for these reasons, i work only with the colors black and white and use vertical and horizontal lines.
between black and white and vice versa, a process takes place on my surfaces that creates a visual event or an organized visual happening from black and white. i try to make sure that all of this unfolds using the most minimal means.
the original idea – to use the means of the most basic rhythmic possibilities.
the original idea – to create the simplest possible rhythm and visual form with the help of the most minimal means.
later, everything developed as a consequence of these first original ideas.
i make drawings continuously and systematically, just as one writes or reflects.
i lined up drawings in order to draw some specific conclusions.
i lined up elements on these drawings in order to arrive at a specific logic.
when i could no longer add or remove anything on a surface, and that came later, i lined up surfaces...

dear heidi!
thank you for the letters and the phone call. i think everything will be fine. i will arrive at the beginning of the second half of april. unfortunately, nada and ana cannot accept your hospitality, but we will all come during the summer. i am looking forward to seeing you again soon, and i believe that our joint venture will have a purpose.
warm greetings, your julije

25. lll. 1985

reproductions of the portfolio "mäander" (1985)

julije knifer—drawings, meanders and the everyday

cover sheet with a text by zvonko maković

questions and answers

if
today is really may 12
i will not try to ask questions
but i will give the answers
not to my own questions
nor to the questions of others.

answers that will not be answers,
but therefore they will be the ideal answers
to the unasked questions.

or rather,
they will be the ideal questions to the impossible answers
or rather,
they will be questions and answers, but they will
be neither one nor the other
but therefore they are, since they are neither one thing
nor could be anything else, they are precisely what they are not.

on jujie knifer
adelheid hoffmann and hans-jürgen slusallek in conversation with žarko radaković

the conversation (abbreviated here) took place on july 7, 1990 in friedberg and was first published in the magazine "flugasche" the same year, in an issue on julije knifer edited by žarko radaković

žarko radaković

how long have you known julije knifer?

adelheid hoffmann

we have known his work since the 1970s. i remember a small silkscreen, blue with a golden meander... we have just discovered that the first letter he wrote us is dated october 6, 1981. it starts very beautifully: “i was delighted to receive your message, which came about as a result of some telepathic circumstances. for months i had intended to write to you. i would like to thank you above all for your regular information about your gallery and publishing activities.”...

hans-jürgen slusallek

in any case, he was present at the constructivists biennial in nuremberg. i still remember exactly that kubicek and urbásek talked about knifer at the time.

ah

that must have been around 1969 or 1970.

hs

i had certainly seen his work before, maybe just an individual piece. but what is still present for me today is knifer in nuremberg. at the time, i noticed knifer as a pictorial (bildnerisch) problem.

žr

what does that mean: “knifer as a pictorial problem”?

hs

only the fact that he paints meanders. it was immediately clear to me then that this was something special. in between everything else, it seemed monotonous, it was something somehow clunky, difficult to grasp. it became clear that knifer was very interesting for us.

žr

did you keep in touch with him regularly?

ah

i think we met and talked to him every time he was in germany. but we have no overview of his body of work at all. we always experienced the impressions that came to us when we stood in front of a painting by knifer in complete isolation.

žr

under these circumstances, wasn't it very difficult to come to an assessment of knifer's work at all?

hs

it was very difficult. we were always faced with the same problem. when i stand in front of knifer's graphite drawings and imagine that he has been working on them for a month and basically working on something that hardly differs at all from the next drawing (because you have to look very closely to see that there is a distinction between them), then i am faced with the knifer problem. a direct development is not visible at all. it is always the same and yet with a small difference. and this difference is actually not plumbable and not really recognizable. for me, the knifer problem is really a phenomenon. it presents itself again and again under new aspects, but it remains the same phenomenon.

žr

knifer says: “for me, measurable time is not important at all. time as a continuum does not exist for me. my first meander could just as well be my last – and vice versa.” could this be related to the difficulty of gaining an overview of knifer's entire work? could this statement by knifer be a key to interpreting his work?

hs

i often imagined how knifer's work process unfolds. sometimes he said that the sheet of paper he was drawing on was the size of the table. he couldn't really make it any bigger. when i imagine him sitting there day after day and covering this surface again and again with the pencil, it's not a process that's goal-oriented. there is a goal, though: at some point the hatching will become denser, and at some point knifer will also stop drawing. but that is not the goal that he directly addresses; instead, it is the time that elapses. the time in which all the thoughts are captured. without being made more precise as a result, they are incorporated. such a meander immediately evokes the association with a river. but a river that somehow flows, that does not move purposefully towards the sea, but flows along as it is trapped by its surroundings. this is how thoughts flow into such a drawing. the drawing is actually a condensation. it could also be a text, but it is not. it is a condensation that turns into an ever more total blackness. it seems to me like a leaden impenetrability. something metallic, but soft metallic – lead. something is embedded in it like in a coffin. like kings used to lie in a lead coffin so that they would not decompose. but not in a constructive way and again purposefully, but it flows in there, and in it it is, and in there it is also timeless. and then it really doesn't matter where it is, whether at the beginning or at the end. then it is just captured there. and it doesn't matter at all what the thoughts are; they are just embedded. and you can't get them out again in a differentiated way later. it just stays in there. i believe that everything – an entire person – flows into it. motor skills are captured in it, as are thoughts. because motor skills are not expressed in a gesture, in something different, but it is a matter of paying attention – you have to make sure that you just stay within the boundaries, not go beyond them – otherwise you can simply paint right over them. it is always the same, but it is still purposeful – and yet it is not purposeful either. it is basically an absolutely contradictory work.

i think in the drawings it's really knifer. the paintings are a compromise so that he can work with galleries. so that he can exist at all in the structures in which artists have to exist today. [...] the graphite drawings, on the other hand, are embedded in his life. while he is a househusband and preparing food for his wife nada he can occasionally continue drawing and forget and not forget. it all flows in.

hans-jürgen slusallek, 1990

žarko radaković

knifer worked in a number of different techniques: a great many small-format sketches in pencil or ballpoint pen, drawings with very soft graphite, and paintings. he also worked in very different formats. what suits him, what does he do best?

adelheid hoffmann

i would like to add something to the above. the question was whether it is difficult to approach knifer. it is difficult if you assume a normal logic, for example, how another person would construct images, or if you want to understand a system. if you want to see through mathematical relationships, as for example with richard paul lohse, if you are looking for a key, if you want to understand how series of numbers are constructed. personally, i don't find it difficult to approach knifer, because i actually always meet him as i left him the last time. it's similar with herman de vries. when i imagine him, he sits in his meadow and observes his grasses. when i come back in five years, the person will be a little older, and maybe the meadow will have changed. but he is still there. this is detached from our goal-oriented, logical activity. it is irritating. it causes difficulties. you stand there completely baffled and wonder: what has he been doing for five years? where is the development? the difficulty then lies almost within oneself, because one always thinks: a + b = c, and today cannot be what was yesterday: there must be a logical development. knifer's work is actually like a meander or a heartbeat or minimal music. it is simply a rhythm, a repetition. in music, this has been readily recognized, but in painting it is probably more difficult. when you look at knifer's paintings, none of them are the same. and it is precisely these differences that are so attractive. they are not at all serial paintings in the sense of american minimal art; for example, as in donald judd, where one has the feeling that almost identical elements have been assembled, perhaps with only the color differing. at first glance, i always think: knifer's paintings are the same. then i look more closely and realize how difficult it is to follow the individual elements and to identify where the “stop” is in these constructed paintings. they are so difficult that i could never trace them – even though at first i am always convinced that i could. the paintings are composed of individual blocks and one flowing element. in between, there is a break

žr

is it possible to have just one work by knifer in your room, like it and live with it for years? let's say, is there something erotic in a single work by knifer?

hans-jürgen slusallek

i am firmly convinced of that. i would like to make one reservation, though: this only applies to the graphite drawings. i have observed knifer at work on sketches. he starts drawing, realizes that he doesn't have enough room and takes a new piece of paper. in doing so, he realizes that he has to start much further to the left and paints the next sketch. i think you can tell from this: he doesn't have a picture in his head that he wants to paint. rather, the process of sketching starts and stops somewhere. he does try to place something on the page. and he never succeeds. that is the impression of the sketches, of the few that we have – they are so wrong on the paper that you always think: well, the paper is actually the least important thing. it could have been a wall. that's where a contradiction begins: that he draws on paper instead of drawing on the coast in the sand. there it would be, i think, really appropriate, because there is infinity on the left and on the right. and then it doesn't matter. but because it's on paper, it's always askew. i don't think the sketches mean that much to knifer. they're not preliminary work for graphite drawings or paintings, but are just as awkward, as if they've been stuck in somewhere, as they end. i think that if he does the same thing as a graphite drawing or a painting, he faces exactly the same problem again. the sketch didn't solve anything... and if there is anything erotic at all, anything that could captivate you for a lifetime, then it's only in the drawings. i think in the drawings it's really knifer. the paintings are a compromise so that he can work with galleries. so that he can exist at all in the structures in which artists have to exist today. that's really something that's demanded of him. and i think that's why he has such a hard time with paintings. the graphite drawings, on the other hand, are embedded in his life. while he is a househusband and preparing food for his wife nada, he can occasionally continue drawing and forget and not forget. it all flows in. on the other hand, with the large pictures, he has to travel somewhere – he just can't paint them at home. preparations are necessary, technique must be applied. everything has to be done in the right order. i think this is where the difficulties begin that are related to the current cultural process. as an artist, you have to work with a gallery, which has to be informed when an exhibition is planned; so and so many works have to be finished, you have to be able to place them somehow. all the logistical questions that arise are related to this. and that's why paintings have to be produced. but these are absolutely no knifers. i find them interesting, simply as a form, but only by repeatedly imagining the graphite drawing. the graphite drawing is then the life for such a painting. the painting itself, i mean, has no inherent life. that is exactly the point where commodity is eventually produced. whereas the drawings could never become commodity. they develop so slowly. they are so without development. there aren't many collectors who would wait thirty years to get a drawing like that. in the meantime, everything would be forgotten. that means you could never make gallery politics with it. the few drawings that exist would be sold in no time – and then the phenomenon would be over. that's where the paintings come in. the paintings are the market. the graphite drawings are knifer's life. the graphite drawing is the real knifer.

ah

i also like the graphite drawings very much because they contain density and the long time that goes into them. but i believe that someone who works with black and white and geometric forms and, even if it is torture, paints a large-format canvases, thus experiences a form in body size and in relation to space, experiences a great deal in the process. at the “passages” exhibition at the “art prospective” in geneva in june 1990, where the paintings were once again enlarged as murals, there was suddenly a connection to the room. it is then not a showpiece or a notebook, but a reality that exists in an architecture. it is simply impressive what has been created as a wall painting. i believe that the image – even if knifer is reluctant to do so, perhaps because of the acrylic paint or some production methods – is very important to him as a process.

reproductions of the graphite drawings sketching out the concept for the five-part portfolio "mäander" (1985)

zarko radaković

i observed knifer at work in feldafing in march 1990. knifer called his then current work phase “the time of recapitulation.” it is an attempt “to evaluate the old sketches, to work through them and possibly finally to translate them into large scale paintings,” as knifer himself said in a conversation with me. the paintings that were created in feldafing are based on these sketches, some of which are thirty years old.

hans-jürgen slusallek

i find that incredibly interesting. that would exactly support my thesis. when he approaches large scale paintings, he approaches the world like a small child. he has to travel abroad, he has to go to friends, the friends talk to him, tell him the sizes. it's like saying to a small child: just do something! paint boxes and crayons are set out, a drawing pad has been bought – so that something is finally put on paper. i always had that impression. and then he paints. but it is a reality that is somehow not his own. it is something that is immediately separated from his person and is always experienced as something alien. for example, when we were at dacić's, knifer kept stumbling over his paintings – because he can't handle them, because they're too big and too heavy. he appreciates them, but as something that is alien to him again. therefore, i can well imagine that he falls back on old ones. he only selects the sketches and realizes them. but it is not like the drawings in this process of sitting in front of them, this problem of starting and stopping at a certain point because the sheet is not larger, and condensing and capturing everything in a rhythmic motor activity. i think that's something totally different. he is not trying to transfer a new problem onto the pictures (actually they are something bigger, something completely different, which will also have a different effect later), but he draws on something that is stored, deposited, sedimented, so that he can start at all. and then a completely mechanical process results. an assistant could really do that. the thoughts i express here could be completely wrong. but that's just how i personally try to explain the phenomenon of knifer to myself again and again and get closer to it. whether it is so is a completely different question.

adelheid hoffmann

the difference between the sketches – where the drawings are somehow stuck on top, awkwardly, and the paper then ends at some point or in the middle – and the graphite drawing is huge. with a graphite drawing, knifer relies on a paper format, and the paper format is determined by the paper mill. so he engages with a reality that is given to him. this is quite different from aurelie nemours, for example. she trims her drawings; they are then, for example, seventy-two millimeters in size. this means that she draws a form on a piece of paper and when she is finished, she cuts the paper. each drawing is a different size. julije, on the other hand, starts with a piece of paper that he accepts as reality. it is not like the sketch. for the drawing, he has to plan exactly. he has to say things like: i'll halve that, i'll fifth that. he then has to measure it out, too. it is a very conscious process that he has to go through when he determines the layout of the drawing. it is exactly the same process that he goes through when he starts a painting. he is probably just very frightened in front of this big, white canvas. i think it also shows his sensitivity and that he is a person who thinks for himself when he stands in front of that white canvas and thinks: that's enough, why should i mark it up now, it's beautiful. many painters know this conflict in front of the white canvas. they can't start – it must be the most terrible thing to violate a white, perfect surface. you have the feeling of destroying it with your first stroke. the planning is just as rational in the drawing as in the painting. if, for example, he divides something into thirds in the painting, sets a central axis or a proportion, then he may not have planned it when he painted it, but he must have set it out beforehand. but i do believe that it is the same engagement with reality. you can't say that an assistant could do that. i think that's something that is also present in the drawings. or he would have to stick to these sketches, to this eternal meandering. but the moment he starts planning his graphite drawings, it becomes something rational. it's not just an eternal rewriting, like rewriting a piece of writing. i think the result also speaks for itself. the pictures are so good, they may be dented at the corners, which can be disturbing. but as a phenomenon, the way they confront you, they are exceptionally good. the wall paintings are also such that they really dominate the room. it is fantastic how he calculates sizes and widths. it is skillful. it is something extremely beautiful that has been created.

hoffmann

on jujie kniferadelheid hoffmann and hans-jürgen slusallek in conversation with žarko radaković

works

on jujie knifer
adelheid hoffmann and hans-jürgen slusallek in conversation with žarko radaković