WHAT’S NORMAL ANYWAYS?

Diffuse light streams through the loft’s high windows while outside, fog hangs over the rooftops like a melancholic blanket. The streets are grimy, the corners neglected—typical Berlin, that eternal love-hate relationship between beauty and decay, between courtyards as refuges and sidewalks as impositions. But Zsá Zsá Bürkle cuts through the November gloom the moment she enters. Her laughter is bright, her energy infectious—a radiance that has nothing to do with superficiality and everything to do with the rare ability to see color in the grey. “Berlin is the place that keeps drawing me back,” she says. “But at the same time, being here also drives one crazy.” 

This ambivalence—being simultaneously drawn to the city’s diversity and quietly irritated by it, enduring contradiction—shapes not only her relationship with Berlin, but her entire creative existence. The musician and actress moves between worlds others prefer to keep neatly separate: between control and flow, between image and state, between what she releases and what others perceive. “What I do is half controlled, half flow bubbling out of me,” she says. It’s this mixture of intuition and staging that makes Zsá Zsá a projection surface—an icon to some, a disruption to others, but always someone who polarises. Her song “Madness”—also the theme of this issue of SLEEK—wasn’t an image back then, she says, but “at that time, it was definitely a state of mind.” Madness as a productive state of emergency rather than pathology: that’s the territory Zsá Zsá inhabits. She thinks it’s “actually pretty cool” that she polarises, even if the intensity of the reactions sometimes surprises her. “I think what I do is sometimes not as extreme as the reaction it triggers.” Her guess: it stems from the friction between appearance and sound, between what people expect from her and what she actually delivers. “Maybe I’m just holding up a mirror—and then people are confronted with their own shitty attitudes.” 

For Zsá Zsá, madness also means standing on stage in front of hundreds as a musician and performer, existing on social media, and exposing herself to the public gaze. “That’s not normal. I mean, it’s basically on the borderline of madness.” It’s a constant game of losing control and trying to regain it—“training for mental health,” as she puts it. The stage both intimidates and satisfies her precisely because it scares her. She’s “great” at performing songs, but as soon as things go quiet and she has to speak, it becomes difficult. “I can’t say straight sentences anymore.” A fascinating vulnerability reveals itself behind the supposedly strong, fearless façade. 

Zsá Zsá Bürkle also uses her real, middle-class name as an artist—no distance, no protective shield, no divide between private person and performer. “I am one with what I do,” she says, even if it can be a “wild ride” sometimes. On stage, she leans into more ecstasy, but overall, what you see is really her. When she watches herself in video interviews, she sometimes feels “cringe”—authenticity that becomes foreign when it’s reflected back through media.

In the studio, she never thinks about how something will be received. “I just do it and don’t let myself be intimidated.” This radical self-focus—in the best sense—is her greatest strength. “Making art is actually totally selfish.” Ultimately, she wants to put joy and confidence into the world—and that doesn’t always require a “radical attitude.” Her attitude is authenticity. At a time when reality seems to grow more unhinged by the day—“What’s going on?” she asks when she looks at the news—when everything gets faster, more absurd, louder, Zsá Zsá holds on to a simple truth: “It’s not that deep.” On days when everything feels too loud, she reminds herself that what she does is a privilege. “It’s not brain surgery. No one’s life is at stake.” This perspective grounds her, helping her carry on without getting swept up in hysteria. 

Madness has become part of today’s aesthetic landscape, from fashion to music videos—“people want to surprise,” Zsá Zsá says. But real madness, as she understands it, is something else: the willingness to stay unpredictable, to refuse pigeonholing, and to be honest. “I’ve become much more honest in what I do.” Ultimately, it comes down to: “What do I want right now?” Clarity and simplicity—and at the same time, the freedom to live out wild personas, to dare when others wouldn’t. On this November morning in Kreuzberg sits a young woman who doesn’t care whether her art is labeled provocative, calculated, or authentic. Someone who loves shit-storms because they spark debate and friction. Someone who isn’t intimidated by expectations, prejudices, or interpretations. “Everything people project onto it, accuse me of, or whatever prejudices they bring—that’s not in my hands. They can think whatever they want.”

In Zsá Zsá Bürkle’s universe, madness isn’t a diagnosis— it’s an invitation to go through with it, to have fun, to just do it. And perhaps, in these crazy times, that’s the most radical attitude of all.

CREDITS

Creative Direction Mathilda Orczykowska

Creative Production Hannes Aechter, Mathilda Orczykowska

Photography by Joshua Dylan Kronen

Styling by Tamara Svenja

Hair & Makeup Rafa Delgado