Katinka Bock's works are part of the collections of the National Museum of Modern Art, the Center Pompidou and Chicago Contemporary Art. Exhibited at the Pernod Ricard Foundation, from February 14 to April 29, 2023, the sculptor and visual artist shares her current inspirations.

Katinka Bock is first known for her sculptures. Based in Paris, this German-born artist is part of a tradition of sculpture marked by thePoor art, a movement that appeared in Italy in the 1960s, favoring the use of simple materials, often natural or recycled elements in opposition to the consumer society. Clay, sand, stone, chalk, wood or even metal are his favorite materials, to create works questioning the notion of perception of time and its inscription in space. For his exhibition at the Pernod Ricard Foundation entitled The Sonnenstich, – insolation in German or more literally “ the sting of the sun – Katinka Bock shows for the first time a series of photographs, sixty-five mostly black and white prints, taken between 2015 and today.

1) A neighborhood to get lost in

I like to take the same paths in the Ménilmontant district in Paris, cross at the same crossroads, greet the guard who comes out at exactly the same time in the morning when I pass. In the fever of rehearsals, I can get lost in my thoughts and pay attention to all the details. I am thinking in particular of what the German philosopher and art critic Walter Benjamin said: Not finding your way in a city can seem uninteresting and banal. All it takes is a little ignorance, nothing more. But to get lost in a city as one gets lost in a forest requires another education »

2) A book to devour

discord by Clara Schulmann, researcher and art critic, is a book that has been with me for several years. I often converse with the voices in this book. It is a book on orality, composed of the voices of women taken from a friendship or collected in the subway, in a coffee, in memories, on telephone answering machines, in books and films. He questions the power of voices: how to be heard, how to find the right words?

3) A film to discover

Life According to Agfa impressed me a lot. It is an Israeli feature film directed by Assi Dayan, which made a lot of noise when it was released in 1992. It is shot in black and white and tells the story of life in a bar, "Barbie", in Tel Aviv. A summary of the population frequents this bar. The balance, between pain and beauty, love, abuse, violence and the ups and downs of life, is printed on the camera roll of Liora, one of the waitresses.

4) An inspiring series character

The character of Special Agent Dale Cooper, played by Kyle MacLachlan in the series Twin Peaks . It has a fuzzy outline, I like it. Dale Cooper is sent to the small town of Twin Peaks to investigate the death of Laura Palmer. We then see him plunge into the tensions inherent in any quest to understand a crime, while confronting the darkest forces of incomprehension. The agent navigates between these two forces and this is what particularly affects me.

5) A favorite perfume

That of the wind, whether in town or at sea. A smell is never alone, it is expressed with other sensations, that of touch, sound, and rarely with sight. We smell an odor more intensely by closing our eyes. I like to see this gesture in my loved ones: close your eyes and put your nose in a scarf, close your eyes and walk into a kitchen.

6) An iconic recipe

My daughter's Pavlova, but rarely do we get to treat ourselves to this delicacy – so I just put whipped cream on raspberries or strawberries whenever I feel like it. I also like simple things, like biting into an apple. My ceramist says to me: I eat the fruit straight from the tree ". He is right ! Stealing cherries or figs, eating them on the pile, staining your t-shirt, having your tongue blackened by blackberries, it's better than recipes.

7) A photo to share

Still life Berlin, 2005, Wolfgang Tillmans. I like window sills and still lifes. Stealthy constellations are portraits of people, cities and seasons that are immediately familiar to us. This one, taken in Berlin, I particularly like.

8) Music to listen to on a loop

I'm a PJ Harvey fan, this morning I was listening to the album The Hope Six Demolition Projectt loop. Sometimes I give titles to my pieces/works that refer to songs, like Down by the water, also by PJ Harvey.
I also think of a musician with an equally impressive, but softer voice, Josin. His single oceans wait is wonderful. These two women are incredible in concert. More recently, I discovered in the streets of Chelsea, in New York, the group Sipper and their title Dance in Room Soundg – that's precisely what we often do at home, dancing. For the title Aile by Nukynuke, we shot a short clip last fall in Berlin at Tempelhof, the airport's former landing strip.

Photo credit: 2019 Marcel Duchamp Prize © Manuel Braun, 2019