I grew up with a father whose identity is defined by considered aesthetics. We lived in a modern house he designed with crisp, clean lines and mid-century furniture pieces. It stuck out like a sore (but beautiful) thumb in the Oxfordshire village in which it still stands, alongside ancient thatched cottages and modest cream bungalows. Sometimes I was self conscious of this difference, but my Dad was proud, rightfully, of the spaces, shapes and colors that he carefully curated. He could no more settle for a floral curtain or knick knack-laden mantelpiece, than I could vote for Trump.
When I met Olaf Breuning, an internationally renowned artist from Switzerland who now lives in the Catskills, I recognized a familiar artistic fastidiousness. Not long after we became friends, Breuning roared up to the kids’ soccer practice at Marbletown park in an original, racing green Mini—a deeply unpractical car choice in the hilly Hudson Valley where snow and ice cover the roads for 4 months of the year—and climbed out wearing his uniform of paint splattered grey sweatshirt and jeans. When I visited his home for this interview, I discovered his house is a one-off 1960s design, a preserved slice of “Mad Men” minimalism surrounded by the most perfectly manicured grass I have seen outside of Japan. Breuning showed me the robot that keeps the lawn this way—a three blade system—and looked at me askance when I mistakenly did not remove my shoes for a tour of the house. I knew that look.
Breuning’s unswerving creative instincts have paid off. He has built an impressive career spanning photography, painting, sculpture, film, drawings and experiments with social media, NFTs and AI. Breuning is 55, but has the playful energy of a teenager and can be relied upon to deliver unfiltered opinions on life and art that will make you snort with laughter.
So, it was a genuine pleasure to spend time with Breuning at his studio, and explore the “diary” of work that he has created over several decades. By his own admission, he loves to “produce and produce.” It is often hard to predict in what way Breuning will be producing next. Since I have known him, he has created sculptures for a gallery in New York City, set light to one of his famous smoke bomb installations at Inness, produced a climate change exhibit for a museum in Melbourne, created a book of his wood block paintings, and collaborated to make a tablecloth of his ‘Faces’ photographs, a series of odd unintentional faces he spotted in food and found objects, that started as Instagram posts.
Despite the diversity of mediums, there is a clear throughline in Breuning’s work: humor. Unlike a lot of artists, Breuning intentionally “opens the door” to art for more people by making them laugh. It is a bold move in the often self serious art world; and I’m grateful for that bravery. By inviting us in with a smile, Breuning allows us to connect through the one emotion that truly binds us as humans. As he so succinctly put it: “We are the only species who can do it. I don’t think my cat has a lot of humor.”
A. J. Lee: You grew up in Switzerland and studied in Zurich originally. How has being Swiss shaped you as an artist?
Olaf Breuning: Switzerland was a very fortunate place to grow up; it’s a very advanced country. I grew up with a very nice childhood. We were not a wealthy family, but a middle class family—there were no pains thanks to my parents. A lot of Swiss artists develop a lot of humor and lightness in their work. Switzerland is a rich country—one of the country clubs on the planet—place where you are sheltered from things. Many of the Swiss artists (me, Urs Fischer, Nicolas Party) we look at this big world through a lot of windows because we’re in the middle, always looking out and making an interpretation of the world.
Tell me about your family. Were they supportive of your chosen path?
My whole family supported me as an artist. My mother did a lot of hobbies: spinning wool and making stuff. My father is a graphic designer but his heart is music; a space filled with instruments. I grew up with blues music. My father would have blues bands, and there was a big influence of Black culture on my life.
My father gave me a camera when I was 15 years old, and I was obsessed. I didn’t know what to do after school, and my mother thought it would be good for me to work in an office. Then my mother died when I was 18 and it was a breaking point. Cancer. That moment was when I realized I couldn’t work in an office and my passion was photography. The death of my mother was an interruption in life.
I got an apprenticeship with a photographer. I did four years in industrial photography; it was hard work. Then I went to art school and studied photography for five years. My art came out of photography. One medium followed the other. Cartier-Bresson, Cindy Sherman; I had time to try all these things. I wasted a year of my life in a dark room. But I had enough time to digest the history of photography, then I was ready to make my own language. It took 10 years to get there.
It’s interesting you mention Cindy Sherman, who is famous for metamorphosing into different characters. Your work also contains a lot of constructed figures, or personifications from objects: Lion, Mr Sushi, Sibylle. Where does that impulse come from?
The photograph Sibylle was one of the first works where I figured out my own language. I try to make art that is understandable to any person on the planet. Characters, or stereotypes, are recognizable. I want to talk about life in general and our understanding of this world is full of images of characters like vikings and knights. I want to make it direct.
Some artists you have to find the door then you open it. My door is open from the beginning, then you enter and you may get confused. I want to make it as easy as possible to enter, to access. Andy Warhol was there when I was growing up, and pop culture. I was one of the first artists who brought horror film aesthetics; bringing the real world straight into the art without a filter. It was a no brainer. We live in a world of fast products and fast things. I want an unlimited, non commercial view but one that is as easy and accessible as products. But to confuse people and make them think with humor.
I love that idea of opening the door to art for more people. Your work seems to have a child-like exuberance: injecting humor and vibrance into art. I’m thinking of images like We Are Such Animals and bunnies. Is that playfulness reflective of your own excitement for the act of creation?
When I find the medicine to cure human beings, it would be humor. It brings people together, it doesn’t divide them. I don’t think my cat has a lot of humor, we are one of the only species who can do it.
When people have humor, it’s a buffer zone before you get serious about something. Life is a tragic event in general, we all die. And humor is something you can use as a softener of it. If you have an innocent approach, often you can turn dark and weird, and I like that mix.
The only ones who really speak out in America right now are comedians. When people lose humor it becomes mostly a battle or a fight. My inspiration are people like Paul McCartney, using playfulness in talking about the world. And John Carpenter—I watch a lot of movies, it’s a big part of my life.
You regularly move fluidly between many genres and mediums — painting, sculpture, live installations, photography. Is there a particular medium you prefer?
I love all of them. I get bored, so when I get unhappy I do something else. For next year, I will do a lot of drawings, and I’m excited to get back into it. But I try to keep the same style. Simple line drawings. Photographs are always the same size. It’s so confusing that I have so many mediums, so I have to stick a little bit to guidelines.
I never studied painting and I’m not a real representative painter. But then Covid came and I couldn’t make photographs with people. And then it popped into my mind: “nature”—I’ll use nature to talk about nature. That’s how I started doing the wood block paintings. I have a lumber place that cuts the blocks for me. I paint the wood blocks, then I press them on the canvas. The canvas is on the floor, and I look at what I’m gonna use, and it’s very spontaneous. It’s quite physical, and you see that in the paintings. It’s very simple—the quality of them lies in the simpleness.
When I do shows, I mostly design them myself. I think it’s important. Next year, I have a show at the Museum zu Allerheiligen Schaffhausen in my home town in Switzerland and I’m excited, because you can create those experiences more in museums. It’s going to be all new stuff. I will make a book next year. I want to produce and produce.
Tell me more about your preoccupation with nature and our impact on it as humans.
Nature has kind of brain washed me after 10 years of living up here [in the Hudson Valley]. We are just nature and nothing else. We can come up with inventions and put concrete on the ground, but we remain nature, biological beings. People now talk about global warming as a mainstream talking point. It’s a big thing coming. So I tried to take it into my work—not by putting my finger up and telling you “you cannot do this”; my artistic way is how to come closer to nature. I’m not a scientist, I just want to bring it into my work.
You have deliberately referenced other artists in your work throughout your career, like in the The Art Freaks series. What’s your perspective on the value of originality in art?
Many artists who are hot, they find things they think are new. I was in the line of Matthew Barney.
I got my breakthrough with a huge wooden installation, hallways and smoke and music, a bug room with wood and the film projected—these interactive installations, it was new. When artists get a breakthrough people think it is new for a while.
But so much is done in art, now. The speed we produce things and the amount of artists today compared to 100 years ago. In the nineties, critics were talking about post-modernity. I don’t know where the philosophers are now—post post post. Ultimately, history is irrelevant, criticism is irrelevant; whatever works works; if people create something and a thousand people think it’s great, then it has a reason to be. The last 100 years all the art was made on renewing itself.
Today, it is difficult for artists. You aren’t writing art history, you are just one of the branches… and maybe that’s good. There’s freedom from the pressure, people are just doing what they feel they want to say.
I don’t give a shit. I have a language. For me it’s like writing a diary about life. Sometimes I’m in more, sometimes I’m out more.
I first discovered your work in Central Park: Clouds towered over me as I walked uptown. It was so beautiful to see art in such a famous public place, so obviously not nature or buildings, and yet able to enhance both. I went to see it several times. What was that experience like for you?
The Central Park thing: at that time I was a New Yorker, I was proud to have it there; but often when something is in a show, it’s gone, and I’m on to the next thing. The Clouds have an afterlife, at Art Omi, and they went to England. I am thankful for anyone that likes something. I want to make a living with my art, and I want to be free to do whatever I want to do. I can say I am not a one trick pony.
I’m interested in your ability to move on quickly. Some of your art has a temporary element to it, and you are constantly exploring new mediums, like NFTs and AI. Is that restlessness intentional?
Each artwork has a different message. Smoke Bombs are unpredictable, sometimes it’s beautiful, sometimes it’s not. The world is a complex place, and I want to address it in as many ways as I can. I love to have that flexibility. Some artists are happy to have one perspective, but I can’t do it. I like all my work, that’s why I have it around me. It’s a mirror to my life. I see an old work there and I remember the time I did it, where I was in life. It’s a diary of my life. But then I’m focused on the new one—I want to add something. I’m always curious. I try to look at this world and digest it and bring it into my art. I want to look into the future, not the past.
You have created an artistic haven in the woods, with your main studio and painting cabin. How has living in the Hudson Valley impacted your work?
The bigger change was becoming a father. An enormous life change. You don’t have that freedom to do whatever you want. Art only comes out of humans when they have enough food and the time to make art. Otherwise they would run around trying to survive. I don’t criticize it, but that is the biggest change. But I am lucky that Aka [Olaf’s daughter] came into my life at that time in my career, and I was happy to spend that time with her. She comes now and gives her opinion: “No, this is not good.” And has ideas for sculptures. I like it.
I’m happy now. I imagine being in the city and trying to compete all the time. I’m happy to be here in the forest with my family.
A. J. Lee writes about the creative people of the Hudson Valley at Catskillcultureclub.substack.com.
