Why Besenkunst?

Besenkunst literally means broom art and it evolved out of the question what makes an artist an artist.

Art has accompanied me my whole life and yet I have not seen myself as an artist for a long time. It was anthropology that I felt dedicated to and the deeper I immersed myself in the world of science, the more it began to become my identity.

As art became more and more a part of my scientific work and turned out to be an outstanding tool for communicating scientific content, I began to wonder if art and science could not be more than compatible.

At the beginning of my doctoral studies, a wonderful person came into my life who embodies the identity of the artist without the slightest doubt.

“How does one become an artist?”

I asked this question to that wise man whose friendship certainly had a decisive influence on the status of art in my everyday life. I saw myself as a scientist, but could I really have the identity of an artist as well?

“First you need a broom.”

He reached for one right next to him and together we danced across the yard.

At Christmas I gave myself a broom and painted it. Thus a broom symbolically extended my identity as a scientist to that of an artist.

The “Besenkunst” now stands here as a virtual broom and shows how these two souls in my chest find and enrich each other.

Art and science together sweep the dust from our brains.