Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.
Ruins, for me, are the beginning. With the debris, you can construct new ideas. They are symbols of a beginning.
Art really is something very difficult. It is difficult to make, and it is sometimes difficult for the viewer to understand. It is difficult to work out what is art and what is not art.
When, at the end of the 1960s, I became interested in the Nazi era, it was a taboo subject in Germany. No one spoke about it anymore, no more in my house than anywhere else.
The reason for this project comes from my childhood, that is clear to me. I did not have any toys. So, I played in the bricks of ruined buildings around me and with which I built houses.
If I do something that depresses, it's not because I'm depressed, but because political life and history is depressing.
What does the artist do? He draws connections. He ties the invisible threads between things. He dives into history, be it the history of mankind, the geological history of the Earth or the beginning and end of the manifest cosmos.
History speaks to artists. It changes the artist's thinking and is constantly reshaping it into different and unexpected images.
I believe art has to take responsibility but it should not give up being art.
I was interested in transcendence from a very early age. I was interested in what was over there, what was behind life. So when I had my first communion I was very disappointed. I had expected something amazing and surprising and spiritual. Instead all I got was a bicycle. That wasn't what I was after at all.
But we should also not forget the difference between what first motivated me and the work that is the result.
I believe in empty spaces; they're the most wonderful thing.