Pedro Wirz uses raw and discarded materials to create sculptures and installations that invoke a synthetic, decomposing natural world and a tension between man and nature. As a Swiss-trained artist who grew up in rural Brazil, he toys with the different mythologies and cultural tropes through which we encounter and understand such discordant ecologies. In this Phone Tag interview, Pedro talks about working from his gut, how he found his way to Europe and the visual arts, and the importance of maintaining a criticality toward the work.
Phone Tag is a generative interview format, where I ask each participating artist five questions (plus others as the discussion meanders). At the end, I ask him or her to introduce me to an artist whose attitude and work they find interesting and/or inspiring, who I then interview with the same five questions.
******
Linnea West: What are you working on right now?
Pedro Wirz: I have my first solo show with Nagel Draxler Gallery, in Berlin, in September during Art Week Berlin. I’m producing the work for this show.
LW: One of the things that I thought was interesting looking at your work is the materials you use. Where does that come from? Does it feel natural and intuitive, or are you planning in advance the specific materials you want to work with?
PW: A lot of people ask that. It is intuitive. I grew up on a farm in the countryside of São Paulo. My mother is a biologist. My father is an agronomist. I understand soil, bees, animals… these were the things I learned about. I never had any sense of disgust toward things that make some people go, “Ugh.” The materials always seemed absolutely natural to me.
I’m working a lot with soil at the moment and I have my reasons, but I also just have to move forward. I’m just working and I do what is urgent. Intuition is a big part of us. Why not just follow it? Learn out of it. You cannot be blind all the time. It’s amazing to learn out of blind moves, but then learn how to deal with it. What is the answer behind it all? What is even the initial question?
LW: You said that you first met [former Phone Tag participant] Beto [Shwafaty] in Europe. Of course, you are both Brazilian but you met working on different projects or studies over there. How do you end up in Switzerland?
PW: No one in my family is an artist, but I was long involved in theater and I was always making drawings. I never thought about whether this was art or not. It was just a sort of expression that I always had to practice. When I was growing up, in Brazil, I wanted to study music, actually, but then I didn’t get into the university. My girlfriend at the time said to me, “You should do what I am doing, studying public relations. It has a lot to do with you.” I see why she suggested this–I like to talk. So before studying art, I completed an education in Public Relations at the University of Taubaté in Brazil.
I went through some good jobs while studying communication and after graduating as well. I ended up landing a very good position in a big French company. However, I very soon realized, this was not where I belonged.
Well, I just quit. At that time, I was 23 and I told my parents, “I want to do photography.” I moved to São Paulo to work with the photographers Claudio Elkisabetsky and Moa Sitibaldi. They taught me a lot about thinking artistically, and especially how to be attentive to detail.
After two years I decided to move to Europe. A young French man that I met while working at the French company had become a very good friend of mine. He said, “Why don’t you come to Europe and work here as a photographer?” I said, “OK, I’m just going to go.” By the age of 25, I moved from São Paulo to Nantes in northern France. I was trying to find work and it wasn’t happening, but I didn’t want to give up yet. I have Swiss roots, and my uncle in Switzerland invited me to stay with his family for a while so I said “OK.” I moved to Switzerland, and I started to work in whatever jobs I could to make ends meet. But I kept on working on my photography.
When I was living in Switzerland, in the very beginning, I moved out of my uncle’s place into a house with new friends. One was a singer, the other one was going to art school, and the third was a musician. As a 25 year old, who was artistically motivated but did not really possess any tool to express himself yet, to live with this constellation of people was fantastic! At the same time I also fell in love with a girl that was going to art school. I visited her at the school to see what she was working on and realized “This is what I want to do.” I prepared a portfolio and applied to all the Swiss art schools that I had heard of.
Long story short, two years after I moved to Europe, I enrolled in the art school in Basel, in 2007. I started going to school and doing more and more stuff. I studied one year in Stuttgart in Germany. I finished in 2011.
LW: Across all of this time, was there a moment when you thought to yourself, “OK, now I’m an artist”?
PW: Honestly, I was thinking that from the very beginning when I entered art school. It’s terrible, but it’s true. I was absolutely convinced that what I was doing was amazing. I would talk to the teachers in my very bad German, asking “Do you get it?” Now, I realize this is pretty much a first-year bachelor student thing. It took me a long time to understand what my practice as an artist could be. Back then I thought, “OK. I’m going to the art school, people are teaching me how to be an artist, and when I finish school I will be an artist. I’m going to paint, and people are going to buy it, and I will be some sort of Picasso, I guess.” The reality is completely different!
It took me a long time to understand and accept what my practice is about. The route that led me here was one that took a lot of work and time. I think this is beautiful because artists are thinkers, and they have a responsibility towards what they bring to an audience. Alongside continuously working on my practice, I traveled a lot and found different ways to connect with people. It helped that I am good at communicating–at discovering different sources and not being afraid to establish a connection with them.
It isn’t long ago that I arrived at the work that I am doing today. That happened, maybe around four years ago. And from that very moment, many things followed in my career… I started to work with galleries, received bigger invitations for shows, etc.
LW: You say you met and spoke with a lot of people all over. Looking back, who do you think had the biggest influence on the work that you make now?
PW: I think criticality is very important. One of the most important people that I have talked to is a very good friend of mine, Gabriel Lima. He’s a Brazilian artist who studied at the Cooper Union in New York. He also studied at the Royal College in London. From the very beginning, I think by the age of five, he knew that he would be an artist. He’s a very virtuosic person. He can draw; he’s a fantastic painter; and he’s a brilliant mind. He had all this critical knowledge that I didn’t have–I just followed my gut.
He would be very hard toward the works critically, saying, “Man, why are you doing this? It’s not working.” I would be very angry with him because I was still thinking, “This is killer.” We had a very tight relationship, and he helped me a lot. I would go from residency to residency, and sometimes when I had no money, he would also help me.
My last residency was at the Swiss Institute in Rome. A place that afforded me time to work. I was just in the studio, working, working, working, working. Calling Gabi–Gabriel Lima–all the time. It was ten months of just working, and then I had my first show in New York with my first gallery. It went very well, but in the meantime the residency had finished. So I had to find a studio. I was asking myself “How do I do this? I have to pay for a studio. I don’t want to have any other job. I just want to do art.”
Gabi motivated me to move to Porto and was very generous, offering me a place to stay for the first six months. He knew I had no money. The first six years after graduation, I had been living on the edge. So I went to Portugal. I found a studio. I also sold some works at this time and everything started to roll, more or less. I start to work with Kai [Matsumiya] and do some fairs and group shows. Suddenly, other galleries began to show interest, and I got an invitation to my first big institutional show in Brazil. I was super happy.
What also happened around that time is that my partner, Leonie Thalmann, came into my life. Soon after we became a couple she became pregnant. At that same time I received an invitation for a residency in Berlin; someone called me and said something like, “Mr. Wirz, you’ve been accepted.” Then I was like, “Oh, I didn’t apply to anything. I’m not willing to move anywhere.” Then this other curator called me like, “Are you crazy? This is one of the best residencies in Germany. I am the person who suggested you.”
My plan was to move to Zurich, to be a father and to find a job, but Leonie said, “No. You should accept this offer.” So I went to Berlin for this residency. It was insane. I worked three months non-stop, not sleeping, just producing and thinking about the work. At the end, I started doing studio visits, studio visits, studio visits. Leonie had told me, “You go there, and you come back with something.” This was two years ago, exactly two years ago. So that’s what happened. I had to close this amazing studio that I had in Porto, organize my life, and come back to Switzerland, to find a new studio, to live in Zurich, the most expensive city in the world.
LW: When you come into your studio, do you have a plan for what you are going to do? Do you just respond to what’s around? What is an ideal day like in your studio?
PW: I think this question has reshaped itself since I became a father. Now I have an ultra-tight schedule. The amazing thing behind the question is: how can you control creativity or tie it to a schedule? What I do is, I get all the juice out of the two hours that I have.
I think mostly all days in the studio are good days. I always think about the privilege of it. Growing up in the country where I grew up and the social level that I was raised in, I always keep this in mind while producing and thinking about art.
LW: You’ve lived in different places and now you live in Zurich, a city and a particularly expensive city at that.
One of the questions I always like to ask is: Is it more important for an artist to be in a big city where you have galleries, where you have an art scene, where you have other people but it’s expensive and there can be a lot of pressure, or to be in a quiet place where you can really focus on making things?
PW: I cannot give you a black or white answer, but I can tell you what I have experienced because I have lived in many different places. During the art school, everybody was going to Berlin and I went to Stuttgart. Everyone was like, “Why?” It felt better. In Berlin, in big cities, people struggle so much to even be alive or be there. For myself, I had a lot of fears moving back to Zurich, but I love it. There’s a lot of culture here. The city is very small. I can get around quickly. In New York, I’m mad all the time; I’m lost all the time.
You do have to have a certain presence in cultural hubs. I don’t know how artists should manage this. I’m not saying they always have to have a gallery. I think artists have to understand that they are responsible for creating the economy that they are going to live in. That’s the most important thing. Once you realize that, then you’re free to go. I know people who are great artists, amazing painters, and they don’t have galleries. They have organized themselves in different ways. They get museums to pay them, or they teach. There’s no answer to say what is the best way, but I think in larger cities you meet people. It’s in these cities where you’re going to have the chance to see important artists or shows. Whereas small cities have treated me very well and have brought me to the place that I am in now.
But of course not only the place is important, but to meet the right mentors and peers. For me, for example, it was helpful to meet Rainer Ganahl, who was my teacher in Stuttgart. I met him because I decided to go there. His dealer is also Kai, my dealer in New York now. I told Kai and Rainer, “Well, I’m going to go to Portugal now, and everybody’s going to forget me.” Kai was like, “You should move to New York,” but Rainer said, “It doesn’t even matter. You have to go to a place where you can work. Is Portugal where it’s going to be? Just go there and work there. Work your ass off there. If it’s good enough, everybody is going to hear about it.”
Anyway, the most important thing is to work. That’s what it is. At the end of day, at the end of this era, what is going to matter is the work.
LW: That’s great. Well, thank you.
PW: It’s an honor talking to you. Thank you.
