Tobias Pils
The Discussion, 2021
Oil on canvas, signed and dated verso 236 x 198 cm
Tobias Pils
Detail, The Fall, 2021
Oil on canvas, signed and dated verso 230 x 198 cm
Tobias Pils, Capitain Petzel, Berlin 2021
Q&A with Tobias Pils
by Mart Engelen
Mart Engelen: How did this joint exhibition come about?
Tobias Pils: I knew quite early in our friendship that I would love to see Joe’s and my work together; coming from these different backgrounds but still sharing this mutual understanding about painting itself. Then my gallerist Gisela Capitain came up with this idea: Joe and I could do a show together at the space in Berlin. The show grew from these seeds; it took some time until we thought we had the paintings needed for this adventure. There is now one room filled with our paintings: the ‘body’ of the show. Our paintings are confronting each other. The drawing room is the ‘brain’ of the exhibition. They are hung as pairs—like couples. It’s two singular bodies of works, mixed and sometimes matched, in conversation.
ME: You have known Joe for some time and have developed a close friendship over the years. When and how did this friendship start?
TP: It started on a lonely island in Greece...
ME: How would you describe your own work?
TP: Personal, naked and colourful.
ME: You say that the work you show here in Berlin centres around a common theme of children resting on horses. Please tell me more.
TP: I wanted to have a motif circling through the show—so I chose these paintings which centre around the common theme of children resting on horses. Being connected. Physically and psychically. These paintings are about travelling but without a beginning, a middle or an end.
ME: What attracts you in Joe’s work?
TP: It’s all about energy and vibrations. Joe has developed his own pictorial language, not just a style. These recent paintings don’t have any attitudes at all. They don’t want anything from the viewer. They are beings. They just are. Which is beautiful.
ME: At first glance, we see Joe’s abstract paintings and your more figurative style of painting in this show. Can you tell me more about the contrast and similarities you see in this joint exhibition? TP: We are not so interested in storytelling at all. If you really dig deep into our paintings, you might ask if Joe is maybe more of a figurative painter and I am more of an abstract one. Actually, although we tend to compare everything and everyone, I would rather have no comparison. That’s not what this is about. It’s two highly personal and even intimate standpoints of their own, hanging next to each other and exchanging energy.
ME: What artists inspired you when you were starting out and maybe still do today?
TP: That’s changing all the time. As a child I would often leaf through a photo-book by David Douglas Duncan on Picasso. This book presented me with a dream of art and life that never let go and that I never wanted to let go of. At the moment I think a lot of Agnes Martin and On Kawara.
ME: We are living in exceptional times. Does this influence your work?
TP: I just have this one life, so this is my time.
ME: What does art mean to you?
TP: I prefer to leave this question open....
—Copyright 2021 Mart Engelen
Joe Bradley, Capitain Petzel, Berlin 2021
Q&A with Joe Bradley
by Mart Engelen
Mart Engelen: How did this joint exhibition come about?
Joe Bradley: Tobias and I talked about staging a two-person show years ago—maybe five years ago. So the idea has been in the air for a while. Tobias thought of Capitain Petzel as a possible venue and pitched the idea to Gisela.
ME: What is this two-artist exhibition about?
JB: I’m not really sure it’s about anything in particular. Tobias and I worked independently—we didn’t share images of what we had going on in studio until pretty late in the game. And we never discussed anything in the way of an overarching theme. I think it was just an opportunity to hang the work together.
ME: You have known Tobias for some time and have developed a close friendship over the years. When and how did this friendship start?
JB: Tobias and I both work with Eva Presenhuber in Zürich. I met Tobias and was introduced to his work through Eva. Eva had a little gallery on a Greek island called Antiparos. Every summer she would put on a show there and invite a bunch of artists who work with the gallery to come to the island and hang around. I got to know Tobias and his family during one of these annual get- togethers and we hit if off.
ME: How would you describe your own work?
JB: This is a tough one for me. I like to keep the language around my work pretty vague. ‘Painting’ might be enough.
ME: Can you tell me more about the work you are showing here in Berlin?
JB: My contribution to the show is five paintings and a group of drawings. I started working on the paintings a couple of years ago in New York. I dragged them out to Long Island and kept pecking away at them during the lockdown and all of the insanity of 2020 then finished them last spring in the South of France. Moving the paintings from place to place took time, so I worked on them almost in chapters. I like the scale of these. I usually work on larger format paintings, so these feel intimate.
ME: What attracts you to Tobias’s work?
JB: Tobias’s work feels totally authentic. Not a false note. And they really belong to him—they don’t look like anything else out there. It was great to have the chance to spend real time with his paintings while installing the show here in Berlin. They are enigmatic things—even a bit stubborn. They don’t give up the ghost easy.
ME: What artists inspired you when you were starting out and maybe still do today?
JB: Early on I gravitated towards Pop Art—Warhol and Johns. I loved Keith Haring. Comic books. Folk Art. Now I just look at everything. The Alice Neel show at the Met last summer was a religious experience.
ME: We are living in exceptional times. Does this influence your work?
JB: I’m sure it does, but I couldn’t tell you how.
ME: What does art mean to you?
JB: My life revolves around art. I’ve put all of my eggs in the art basket. My identity, my whole idea of who I am is wrapped up in art. All of my friends are artists. It is my livelihood and my sadhana.
—Copyright 2021 Mart Engelen
Joe Bradley
Detail, Passenger, 2021
Oil on canvas, signed and dated verso 178 x 190.5 cm
Joe Bradley
Detail, Sisteron, 2021
Oil on canvas, signed and dated verso 148 x 196.5 cm