Paul Barsch Remixed A Daunting Art Theory Lecture Into A Hip Hop Banger

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My Snoop Could Do That' by Paul Barsch, a talk by Brad Troemel sped up into a rap song

German artist Paul Barsch has coated sculptures in liquid carbon, turned videos of artist John Baldessari into songs, and created a boombox that blasts Internet browser sounds. He has managed to do all this—and more—wittily, but without sarcasm. Everything has an inherent curiosity untainted by the present chaos of contemporary art.

Obsessed with the co-existence of high tech and old school, Barsch listens deep to white noise and technological bleeps. So deep, that he finds beats hidden within. Recently, he has taken an hour long Brad Troemel lecture and turned it into a hip hop track. Barsch found that Troemel's somewhat-daunting Athletic Aesthetic theory worked better in double time with remix flourishes such as thundering bass and a drum kit.

Lately, Barsch has been training a vacuum cleaner to paint like Bob Ross and spending time on Vimeo. He spoke to The Creators Project from Dresden about the power of collaborations and how to channel symbolism in art.

The Creators Project: Tell us more about the rap video you made with Brad Troemel. Do you think the art world needs more hip hop?

Paul Barsch: I've follow Brad’s essays and artistic output for a while now and once exhibited with him (or with one of his Etsy pieces). Brad Troemel gave a lecture at the 89plus Marathon at Serpentine Galleries last year. I found this video where he was delivering an hour-long speech within 15 minutes. That pretty well fit his topic of Athletic Aesthetics and the importance of speeding up contemporary art production and broadcasting.

The whole speed reading seemed pretty rap to me, so I asked Blue Stork--a producer from Berlin--to create a contemporary hip hop beat for the piece (there’s a collaboration again). I combined the two things and voila. My Snoop could do that! Brad doesn’t know about it yet but I’ll try to convince him to perform this live. Art world, hip hop, you don’t stop!

You play with the co-existence of primitive and high tech culture, and everything in between. Can you tell us more about your found sculptures which are coated in carbon? 

I was experimenting with this new technique, water-transfer-printing, which is mostly used to pimp cars or coat weapons in camouflage. You can print on nearly any 3D object and nearly every material with a variety of fake surfaces, such as carbon, stone and wood. I researched and bought a variety of different (primitive) wood sculptures from different areas of Africa and had them coated with a carbon surface.

It’s a really complicated process when it comes down to complex shapes. There was no way around professionals. To understand the process better and get a feeling for the material, I heavily worked with this technique and practically tested everything I had available in my studio. The sculptures have different cultic meanings--you can bring them in but you can also just admire the carbon perfection.

What was it like working with industrial materials. Do you find it symbolic or practical? 

For my work, a material is always both: with potential for symbolic and practical nature. It depends on its use. In the case of the cult sculptures I’m interested in the questions and pictures that a called awake when bringing these two things together. I’m totally aware of history and oral and visual traditions and hence the symbolic and cultural is bond to the shape and material but at the same time all materials (or objects and actions) have a practical value too. This offers lots of different layers of perception, and even more if you should decide to bring them together. I work with all materials in a manner that I’m aware about their symbolic value but at the same time, I try to work with them in a neutral way with the most possible distance.

Did you stop painting or did you just take a break? Did you find the medium limiting?

I studied New Media in Lutz Dammbeck’s Class at the Dresden Art Academy. He is an artist who has a very complex understanding of medium and media that I can follow pretty well. Though, I was mostly involved with painting and analogue technics, at that time, I was experimenting with a lot of different stuff aside most of the time. I was working mostly working on collage back then, in a practical and intellectual sense. Using objects, artworks and actions inside and outside their original contexts and tying their different layers of meaning together as close as possible--just so well and at times au contraire so wooden and loose, that an outsider must have problem with its reading.

Now, I’m more and more involved with new media again, but I still paint from time to time when it’s necessary. I don’t limit myself to a specific medium. The idea determines the medium and the material. So sometimes it’s necessary to paint, to work with stone, with people, internet, language, music, sound, toilet paper, whatever. The sum of all this is the work with material. The only limiting thing with painting would be the one painted square and people’s modes of reception with painting.

Right now, I’m experimenting with vacuum robots and I am turning them into little Bob Ross bots by letting them paint with their cleaning brushes. The first one broke right after a heavy oil painting session but the bot created a nice and ugly grey color field out of all the rainbow colors I attached on the canvas.

Are collaborations powerful to you? If so, why? In your opinion, what has been the most influential art collaboration in history?

Collaborations are very powerful. Collaborating with other artists means working in collective creative processes. That calls for expected unexpected results. Your personal approaches and ideas can be extended and amplified one by the process and two by the other. You’re forced to take different perspectives and question you known logic at all times. You think together and create together and you need to become aware of your own shit and the reasons for your doing. This leads to new ideas and multiple evaluation by very specialized people in the field of art. Collaborations with specialists in other fields can have a strong impact on the work, too. Working with them it is less about the collective creative process that counts and shapes the result, it is about a respected knowledge transfer.

See more of Paul Barsch's work on his website, here.

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