Werner Schroeter film, theater and opera director

in an interview on Lilly Grote’s light boxes

Lilly Grote's light boxes remind me of the magical eyes in old VHF radios.

The magic eye full of secrets. The boxes contain a secret world.

Aspects of lost planets which can also be found within oneself.

The eye from within the box. My eye looking at it and this eye looking back.

It makes thoughts flow and the most diverse figural patterns move and dance in the mind’s eye.

First the quiet in the magical eye, the sender is there ... it’s quiet. As I look at your box for the first time. I am calm inside and then start to absorb it. The eye looks back, there is constant winking between the box eye and mine. First it is quiet and then it begins to speak. The conversation, communication without words. It is very beautiful. But it is a hieroglyphic language, a secret language which requires no explanation, as any explanation would destroy it.

This broad area is approached in an incredibly fruitful way, and I really like it. It is a quite unique form, 

shifting from tangible life to abstraction.

That is the three-dimensional aspect, it is just that – a space. It is not a flat image speaking. To that extent it is similar to the eye, because it has various dimensions. Depth and plasticity. Multi-dimensional, the secret lies in a fifth, sixth, seventh dimension I would never question. This is the nature of artistic reality, artistic truth. Any explanation destroys the intention.

It’s creative daydreaming. This is an essential aspect of the attraction to these works. The depth they have also protects them from being applied arts. Their craftsmanship does not predominate but rather maintains a 

balance with thought and creative power.

The viewer can decide whether or not to get involved, wander with his eyes and enjoy seeing something beautiful which promotes his associative faculties. Association is a very important concept today, because it is sensuality, soul and intellect. Associative thought, action, feeling is an enormous spectrum of possibilities, these thousands of ways one should allow oneself to absorb, to compose something for oneself from an external artwork. Allow what is personal in the mind and the heart to set in motion and take shape. These boxes are made for this in an almost meditative way.

Werner Schroeter, September 2009