While an artist’s career is usually best understood through the works they produce, how and where they live and the influences that stand behind them remain somewhat hidden. Exploring the obligatory information line »lives and works« often illuminates the un-shown elements that ultimately shape their thinking and play part in the formation of work. Lives and Works examines artists through the lens of where they live and where they work, the overlap between domestic and work spaces, as well as their personal history. By ADAM CARR
 "Nina Beier's place in Berlin")
Why did you choose to live and work in Berlin and how long have you been living there?
I often travel for work and spend a considerable amount of time in other places. But my books have been based in Berlin for the past two years. I like the place. It is a sort of retreat; reality cannot get to me here.
Is where you live where you work?
Yes the two tend to mix.
Does the place where you live inform your work in any way?
Possibly. But at the moment I think it is rather the other way around.
Could you tell me about your neighborhood?
I live in Mitte – the place is full of youth hostels. The reason why I am there is a great flat.
Do you have works by other artists displayed in your home?
My art collection is still very modest. I have a drunken pen drawing by Michael Bauer which his gallery forced him to draw for me as payment for letting them stay in my kitchen until very late one night, a long time ago. I have a napkin, which is a contract to exchange a work with Roman Ondák. And I recently acquired a strip of tape from a Daniel Buren stripe while he was installing it. But what surrounds me in my home are a lot of unfinished Simon Dybbroe Møller works, but they don’t belong to me, I am afraid.
Do you have a favorite artist’s house that you’ve visited?
Jiří Kovanda’s home in Prague.
Liudvikas Buklys
Why did you live in Vilnius and how long have you been living there?
Vilnius is my birthplace, so I could talk about it as my absolute choice, but things have definitely become more multiple choice, with other cities included in the selection list. I rent a studio in an industrial neighborhood.
Do you feel a separation between where you live and where you work? Does the place where you live inform your work in any way?
I don’t have fixed working times so the space is not fixed. A studio as a separate space is good for reviewing things during a certain period of time.
Could tell me about your neighborhood?
At the moment I live in a 50s soviet housing project. Until the 90s, the area and building were intended for high officials, writers and scientists. In the early 90s, the area became a battlefield for new rising criminal powers, and in the last ten years it has developed into a quiet embassy district.
Do you have works by other artists displayed in your home?
I have one early Gintaras Didžiapetris photograph showing two guys in suits making notes in some countryside field.
Do you have a favorite artist’s house that you’ve visited? Could you talk about it?
Recently, I visited Pierre Bismuth’s apartment in Brussels with its double bass and two bass guitars in the top floor.
Julieta Aranda
Why did you choose to live and work in the particular city that you do, and how long have you been living there?
Currently I live straddled between New York and Berlin. I know it sounds good (and it is not bad!) but it wasn’t exactly a matter of choice, somehow both cities happened to me in the same way. In the mid 90s, I left Mexico City for a 3 month stay in NY, and somehow never managed to go back. And in 2006, I left NY for a 3 month stay in Europe, from which I never completely returned. The cities where I live, in the end, are places where I feel very comfortable, but they don’t necessarily have a direct impact on the work I make. There is no real geographical stamp to my work.
Is where you live, where you work?
Yes, I am one of those live/work people. I have grandiose dreams of having a great studio, with big windows and bad heating, but the truth of the matter is that I am a real homebody, and it is hard for me to leave the house and »go to work«. Therefore working at home is a way to guarantee that I get some work done.
Do you feel a separation between where you live and where you work? Does the place where you live inform your work in any way?
I think that at this point I don’t make a separation anymore between life and work – my life informs my work, my work informs my life, and they both happen in the same place. There is a constant double function for all the objects, surfaces and conditions that populate my life. It is as if everything has two jobs; my friends are my colleagues, my colleagues are my friends, I think I am having fun when I am actually working, etc .…
Could tell me about your neighborhood?
I used to be a Brooklyn snob when I was in NY full time, and lived in Williamsburg up until a few months ago. It was a good neighborhood in the mid to late 90s, and maybe even before that. Now things have changed, the neighborhood is totally gentrified, I am a bit older and more benign, and there is not much to say, except that one of my neighbors had a pet pig, Emmett, sweet and fat. In Berlin I live in Hackescher Markt, at the crossroad of three demographic groups: the tourists that get shit-faced at Kilkenny Pub, the prostitutes that work Oranienburger Straße, and the rats that come out at night to feed of the tourists’ leftovers. It is rather nasty, but also very lively … maybe it reminds me of NY a little bit, who knows?
Do you have works by other artists displayed in your home? If so, could you speak about some of these works and where they are placed?
I have a big photograph by Anton Vidokle in my living room, from his project Nuevo which I helped to shoot several years ago, and I also have an ugly drawing made by a friend – I never seem to get around to taking it down. In NY I have a Lawrence Weiner lifesaver, which somehow always helps me remember the things that I should think about.
Do you have a favorite artist’s house that you’ve visited?
When I was a teenager, I lived for a little bit in an artist’s commune in Mexico City. The house went by the name La Quiñonera since it belonged to four brothers with the last name Quiñones. I think everyone from my generation went to at least one party there, the place was legendary in all possible ways. Lawrence Weiner has a fantastic house that reminds me of a boat. And I used to have this friend who wasn’t a great artist, but had a gigantic loft in New York’s Chinatown, where all the rooms were on wheels.
ADAM CARR is an independent curator and writer based in London.
More in the print edition: Interviews with Mungo Thompson, Jason Dodge, Jonathan Monk, Lawrence Weiner, and Alek O.
 "Jonathan Monk's Studio's Library")
