photo: Volker Liebig
*13/09/1988 Bolzano, Italy
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Ever since I can remember, I have moved between science and that realm of existence which science cannot fully reveal or explain.
For many years, I studied the human being — anatomy, physiology, pathology — searching for understanding. Yet despite all this knowledge, most of my deeper questions remained unanswered. My very own problems unsolved.
It was photography first, then philosophy, and finally drawing and painting that helped me find a sense of resolution. I need all these forms of expression to articulate my thoughts and to continuously unfold myself into existence.
I do not simply incorporate philosophy into my artistic process; it is an integral part of it. To me, every thinking individual is, in some way, a philosopher — artists included, perhaps often unconsciously. There is no escape from it. Yet another question remains: Is philosophy itself a form of art — a creative process in its own right? A question too vast to fully explore here, but one that continues to accompany my work.
Merely through action, every individual offers an implicit answer to the question: What ought I to do? To choose any course of action — even if only in preference to its opposite, or in favor of inaction itself — is already to establish a hierarchy of values. Such preferences, however unconscious they may be, are grounded in underlying beliefs. And these beliefs are inevitably connected to one’s own philosophy of life.
There is, however, one fundamental difficulty. A genuinely precise philosophical exposition is so exceedingly complex that it can only be understood by those who have cultivated themselves on the same explicit level of philosophical inquiry. One might imagine a world in which the greatest works of art could be truly comprehended only by artists of equal stature, where to read a work of art one would first have to possess the very capacities from which it arose. It may indeed be the case that the fullest appreciation of a work’s greatness is accessible only under such conditions. Yet art nevertheless speaks to every observer, including the uninitiated. Philosophy does so only at a single point: where the “observer” encounters actions that are genuinely good and beautiful. Its force resides not in the explicit formulation of ethics, but in ethics as something that is lived and manifested rather than articulated.
I once read that all great philosophers lived according to their philosophy.
In truth, we all do.
What a gift it is to have you here!