Dancing

It all happened in 1979. Me - only 6 and since one year a passionate „Football player“ in the E-Youth team of VfB Hchstadt – for the first time could assist to a big game, HSV against Schalke 04. Great experience, even if only those in front of me could see something from the match and I saw nothing at all. But it didn’t matter. Since that moment I became addicted to football. Could not think about anything else then football, results, players, coaches and the „Football mafia DFB“had to suffer and make me happy.

“Football is our life and, yes King Football rules the world”. This cliché by Gerd Müller and his colleagues never interested me. Red and white Essen, Kickers Offenbach or Westfalia Herne and of course always FCK were and still are the hero’s of my football world. There the world does not get ruled; just some order is put in place. The sociology of this football scene, the aesthetics of the clubs which do not take part in the Champions League or at the top of the national league, that is the world from which I draw inspiration and the images for my works. Turning the non-aesthetics of the everyday scenes from the games of those teams in the 70’s and 80’s aesthetic, that is what interests me. The Cult which comes from the illuminated memories of the football past is the matter from which one can make POP. Honestly, who would one like to meet in a bar or around the corner? Erwin Kostedde or Oliver Kahn? For me this question has only one answer!

In my works I try to tell this synaesthesiatic experience of sweat, French fries with sausage and a bleeding nose from the stadium world and mothers worries. Sometimes, not very often, I win against the daily question: “Bonanza or Sportschau”.

For the Azzurri I have applied my work on a non German football world and the World Cup for the first time. Football is and remains football. The exception which confirms the rule.