He hears voices. He uses them to tell him which colors he can use in his paintings.
Outside: dreary weather. Hectic, sirens, delicate trees along the roadside. On a balcony, a rainbow flag.
Inside: By the bed: a dreamcatcher. Above the desk, brushes line up. Everywhere there are splashes of color, not only on innumerable canvases, but also on the floor where they stick. The place happened to be painted with oxblood, so the paint could be wiped away. He cannot afford a studio, so he lives in one. With a view of the stained couch, Maximilian zum Quadrat says: “The paint must be dry.”
Growing up: Maximilian zum Quadrat, the writer and artist who goes by this pseudonym, was born in 1988 in Marburg. “I only lived there for six weeks.” His mother wanted to bring him into the world near their family. “My parents were already living in Berlin.” He lived there for seven years, not far from his current apartment in Neukölln. “Berlin is my homeland.” As a child he liked to play in broken cars, he says. “There were illegal races here, and the wrecked cars were left on the playground.”
Oldenburg: To escape the bustle of the big city, the family moved to Oldenburg. When he could not yet read, his parents and those of his friends sent letters back and forth between Oldenburg and Berlin. “I still have many kindergarten friends today; I have kept in touch.” Later, SMS and WhatsApp messages replaced the letters.
Stomach pains: “School years were a hard time,” Maximilian zum Quadrat recalls. In his elementary school class, the children who were “not as capable” were placed at single desks in the middle, he explains. For him that was uncomfortable: “I had many nightmares and even repeated a class.” He would come to school with stomach pains. Do these experiences and the nightmares connect to the teaching style of the teacher? “I would say yes.”
Changes: “In the new class everything changed abruptly.” The nightmares and stomach pains disappeared. “I became a really good student, later also class representative and school spokesperson.” Today Maximilian zum Quadrat says: “Spelling is still not my favorite, but I have partly made it part of my art.” And it carries him through life.
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Mexico: After completing tenth grade, Maximilian zum Quadrat spent a year as an exchange student in Oaxaca. That experience was formative, he says. In the Colonia where he lived there was a football team; everyone was connected to each other. There he experienced closeness, “a completely different warmth” than in Germany. “I am privileged to have been able to experience this.”
Literature: Because school in Mexico had often been canceled, he read a lot: books he had brought from Germany. He also began to write his own texts. He was fascinated by surrealism, the “fantastic in Latin American literature.”
Unrest: “It was also connected with ups and downs.” Because at that time schools had largely their funding cut, there were 2006/07 “extreme demonstrations.” For him it felt “civil-war-like.” “There were-riots that were suppressed with weapons.”
Return: Reintegrating into Germany was difficult for him. “It was a very big adjustment.” He then attended the twelfth grade, earned his vocational diploma, and began studying social work. In Mexico Maximilian zum Quadrat had decided to become an author. “But social work interested me for its social relevance.” Topics that also occupied him in his writing.
Studies: During his studies he spent time in the Netherlands and a period in Nicaragua in disaster risk management. “I realized that development cooperation is not for me; it felt like postcolonialism.” Maximilian zum Quadrat subsequently traveled, selling art with two women from Argentina.
Other Worlds: “When I was back in Germany, I had to reconcile realities for a second time.” The ones he had encountered abroad and the German one. “That threw me into a crisis.”
Crisis: “That lasted three years.” Until he found a path into therapy. A girlfriend he visited in Marburg went with him to a psychiatric clinic there. “I spoke with a psychiatrist there.” Yet the atmosphere in psychiatry frightened him; he did not want to stay. Today he is glad that during that time he had a strong social network, and therefore did not become homeless.
Another Situation: Instead of talking about illness, he prefers to speak of an “other situation” in which he found himself; it was an intense period with many art events and little sleep. “I drank alcohol to fall asleep. I thought at the time that I was a project in another world.” Maximilian zum Quadrat already knew other people who had experienced psychosis. It became clear to him that he was experiencing something similar. “It all felt like a theater piece.”
Therapy: Through a friend he found a psychiatrist whom he felt could truly help him. “I had previously seen several psychiatrists and left because I did not feel understood.” He has never been a patient in a psychiatric hospital.
Voices: Today he still hears voices occasionally, despite medication. It is not that they tell him what to do; they do not get angry or upset if he does not act. Rather, they are an important source of inspiration for him as an artist, and he does not want to miss them. He has learned to control them. “When I am focused, I do not hear the voices. But I can hear them when I sit in front of the canvas.”
Dialogue: Then, in front of the canvas, his thoughts begin a “dialogue” with the voices. “I paint by voices, not by numbers.” The voices suggest colors he could use. “In the end I have the finished work, and I see the aesthetics.” When he looks at the paintings, they reveal something about himself to him. After all, they come from within him, he says.
Market: In the hallway, a shelf is stacked with paintings; the artist paints a lot—and quickly. Some paintings he sells in a gallery for queer artists. He has also sold some on the street. Some are more of an “outsider art.” The term often used for pictures by people with crisis experiences describes for him art that is “not made for the art market.”
Writing: In addition to painting, he writes a lot. Sometimes he gives readings at organized dinners. And he sends texts by email on request. “I am an e-mail artist.” He has also completed a novel, for which he is currently seeking a publisher. And he writes poems that his voices dictate to him. In one that he particularly likes, the “Chaos” appears, who in the Lion Circus roared: “Well roared, Lion!” Before it ends: “Two flies, performing wonders through the fog, and the dream was over?!”
What does he wish for the future? Really only that his life stays “as crazy as it is,” Maximilian zum Quadrat says. “I see the word as something positive and I won’t let it be taken from me.”
