Sophia Süßmilch - Artist

Interview: Dr Nadia Ismail, Director of the Kunsthalle Gießen and member of the LBBW Collection’s Expert Advisory Board, spoke with the artist Sophia Süßmilch about her work. In 2021, the LBBW Collection acquired a body of work by Sophia Süßmilch.

Dr Nadia Ismail, LBBW Collection: Bold, witty, controversial. These are the keywords frequently used in connection to your work. What attributes would you ascribe to your work?

Sophia Süßmilch: The term ‘bold’ always gets me worked up; I don’t see it that way. For 15 years I’ve been standing naked in front of the camera or a live audience with my natural body, and it’s still labelled as ‘bold’ or ‘progressive’. I don’t think you can fully understand my work if the nudity is so much in the foreground. ‘Controversial’ is also an easy label to apply, because whatever you do, you’re bound to get on someone’s nerves. Because I work across so many media and genres, I always find it difficult to deal with the buzzwords people use to describe my work. But if I have to… – OK, here it comes: I find it all: difficult, simplistic, exhausting, loving, warm, silly, supple, beautiful, trashy, cumbersome, imaginative, full of ideas, varied, boring, fast-paced, entertaining, successful and a failure in equal measure. All in all, I’d say: Failing beautifully with Sophia Süßmilch.

Dr Nadia Ismail, LBBW Collection: In many of your works, you show your naked body, sometimes in seemingly absurd actions that often take place in interaction with other people. For instance, in “Pietà Pervers”, 2020, you perform with the actress Sandra Hüller. How does such a collaboration come about?

Sophia Süßmilch: Usually, I’m the one who’s asked to collaborate. In this case, though, Sandra Hüller had been replying to my Instagram Stories for quite a while. So, I thought I’d just ask her. I remember writing, quite succinctly: “PS: I’d like to do something with you soon, too.” She’s just such a brilliant actress, with such a powerful presence. She was up for it as well, and so one day we met up as Holy Mother Sandra and Sad Jesus Sophia. Pietà Pervers. Instagram is one of my most important tools of the trade, unfortunately. What I like most about being an artist, apart from the meditative act of ‘painting to myself’, is that I get to meet so many interesting people. I’d love to go for a coffee with every single one of them. With some of them, I’d also like to make art.

Dr Nadia Ismail, LBBW Collection: You’re extremely active on social media, publish an exclusive series of images in the political satire magazine ”Titanic”, and have recently published a book. Do you see these different media as a kind of expanded concept of art?

Sophia Süßmilch: I don’t really distinguish between the medium or genre I’m currently ‘dabbling’ in. I just get so bored otherwise. I couldn’t spend the whole day just painting. I tend to bounce around a bit, perhaps in an ADHD sort of way. But it’s also brilliant to have everything at my disposal! What I can express in a photograph, for example, doesn’t really work in theatre. Perhaps I’m also simply afraid of failing in any one area, so I’ve got a few other irons in the fire. No matter which one, they’re all a bit lame, but I’m fond of them.

Dr Nadia Ismail, LBBW Collection: What does the term ‘collecting’ mean to you?

Sophia Süßmilch: Anyone who’s ever been to my home and knows what it looks like, knows that I’m a collector through and through. It’s mad – just loads of stuff I like. Not much space, everything crammed full. Collecting is hoarding, amassing, selecting things according to specific criteria. In my family, collecting is in our genes – much to my delight and, alas, my chagrin. Perhaps that’s why I paint so much – because I want to have lots and lots of paintings. I simply love objects of all kinds very much. The paintings – those are what I love most. Anyone who buys something from me isn’t paying for the painting – that’s compensation for the pain of parting with it.