Anne Imhof

So that's like, I think also what speaks to you in certain times is really important that you let it like come closer, I think, without like blocking it off because you're afraid of it.

I was always afraid of storytelling.

Of course, I could say the first artist whose work I loved was Tino Segal or like was Andy Warhol because it would fit very well, right?

Especially the Velvet Underground.

It was almost like kind of the players or the...

The whole scene.

Yeah, that intrigued me, the collectiveness of it.

And I think also the queerness of it in the first place that made me drawn to it.

Or, for example, Basquiat.

I mentioned that and it may seem odd on first glance, but then if I see him working in a studio or certain interviews, like I feel very kin to the way he was portrayed.

working, like the way he was behaving in the studio.

I can relate to that so strongly, like how you get yourself into a state where you're in the flow and working on 10 things at the same time and have constant images coming through you that you...

trying to get somewhere, like sometimes impatiently, sometimes like it's just good.

And sometimes it's horrifying.

So this like kind of tornness of an artist in between worlds and in between feelings and states, I can very well relate to.

But then which artists really inspired me at first, like my piano teacher, maybe who were like,

who was also a performer who I saw both like teaching me and then performing on stage.

She was American.

It was like in the part of Germany I grew up.

She was the first one who like saw like my drawings lying around on the staircase in my parents' house.