Interview with Massimo Giacon
q) Well, first of all please tell us a little about yourself.a)The name,surname and date of birth should be already known,therefore I had to avoid to repeat myself,but since the introductions are ritual forms I should do like the anonymous-alcoholists and to greet so:my name is Massimo Giacon,and I’m an artist(applauses of encouragement follow).Once I was very reluctant to define myself so,but since my activity is multiple(painter,performer,musician,designer,cartoonist),at the end I say I do the artist so I save time.Sometimes I use my various definitions in instrumental way:if I want to be considered respectable I say I’m a designer,if I want to stimulate curiosity I define myself cartoonist,if I don’t want they ask me if I draw Dylan Dog I say I’m a graphic.To tell the truth I use not much the term artist:when you define yourself so you seem often like a poor stupid ,according to the ‘’phisique role’’ you’ve.
q)How would you describe your work?
a)I work like a filter.All I go to cross is transformed by my sensitivity.I realize that this might say of every human being on the earth,at the end also a plumber transforms a tubo according his sensitivity,and his skill causes that tube becomes something of very important for who has to drink or to wash himself.Many describe my work in the’’New Pop’’ or ‘’Extreme Pop’’ current,but I disagree.I’ve the presumption to think that in my things there is a self-conscious and political attitude more acid than the carefree American artists.I think many of pop surrealists’ works are extraordinary from the formal point,but very often they remain the artistic expressions of big childs that don’t want to grow and since many of these artists have more than fifty years I find the thing riicolous and sometimes irritating.
q) Did somebody encourage you to become an artist?
a)To this question I can answer with a name and a surname:Ettore Sottsass.It a very curious thing,because at that time he was already an old guru of the radical design and it was strange to be received in his study,I was 25 years old,and almost I could not know who he was. Ettore had seen my first booklet published by Frigidaire,and he had wanted to know me,his first words were:’’I don’t know what we’ll do together,but we’ve do something’’,the second words were:’’you’ve to paint on large canvas!’’.I had never done it,it seemed to me a strange thing…He ordered me a large canvas and he gave me an apartment to do it,and as I was not accustomed to work in vertical I painted it lain on the floor.I took a week and I painted a yellow and red city,threatened by an huge black superhero,and he liked it much and for various years the painting was in his home’s entrance-hall,to be replaced by a large Clemente’s canvas,when Ettore decided it was the time of a little o tranquillity.
a)To this question I can answer with a name and a surname:Ettore Sottsass.It a very curious thing,because at that time he was already an old guru of the radical design and it was strange to be received in his study,I was 25 years old,and almost I could not know who he was. Ettore had seen my first booklet published by Frigidaire,and he had wanted to know me,his first words were:’’I don’t know what we’ll do together,but we’ve do something’’,the second words were:’’you’ve to paint on large canvas!’’.I had never done it,it seemed to me a strange thing…He ordered me a large canvas and he gave me an apartment to do it,and as I was not accustomed to work in vertical I painted it lain on the floor.I took a week and I painted a yellow and red city,threatened by an huge black superhero,and he liked it much and for various years the painting was in his home’s entrance-hall,to be replaced by a large Clemente’s canvas,when Ettore decided it was the time of a little o tranquillity.
q) What is your favorite medium?
a)All and nothing,I like the immateriality of the PC as the pen rubs a rough paper,I’m curious for the new materials,modern techniques as the most primitive applications.For long time I’ve been frightened by the tridimensionality,and to start to project seriously for the design’s world I’ve had to kick myself,but now I’ve a better relationship with the mysterious world of the objects .To return to Ettore Sottsass I remember again a talk with him,when with much humility he admitted he had again much to learn on the objects and that it was necessary to respect them.At that time he was already 75’!Now at my young age of 46 I follow this wise thought.
q) Can you describe your process, from the seed of an idea to a complete work?
a)Generally I start with a narrative idea:I’ve the idea of a story and I try to see it realized.Sometimes this story presents itself like a powerful image,and on it I build then a fit framework for it.At the end this procedure helps myself too to self-analyze the reasons of my attraction ,and also to articulate the work.For the comics it’s more simple,because it’s an almost automatic mental form,while for the cycles of the artistical works is more difficult,because it seems to me to have to hide my primordial wish to face the more diverse visual themes(fetish,the wrestling’s wrestlers,the sick toys,the television faces,the old age,ecc…),giving an intellectual and political justification.To say it so it seems to me a very dishonest thing,something like’’I make a little all I like,then I find a way to present the work to spool critics,gallerists and collectors’’,but it’s not so,it’s a procedure useful especially for me to deepen the sense of that I make,because all doesn’t stop itself to a superficial pop-aestetical level.
q) Generally speaking, where do your ideas come from?
a)Sometimes I find them on the way,living in Milan the underground railway is an inexhaustible source of ideas,that sometimes I forget too.Generally I don’t believe in inspiration,also because working with the industry (comics,publicity,design)hardly ever you’ve the time to think and to pull out from the hat the big idea of the century.You’ve to have the ideas even if you’ve the empty head,and with speed:to work submitting your brain to this kind of hard work is a good way to hold it trained.
q) How long does it take to complete a piece?
a)Since 5 minutes to 5 years.Working with so many different medias it’s exactly so.There is the immediacy of the pencil on paper,while for design the productive process can be tortuous and very slow.
q) Who are your favorite artists…and who are some artists you are currently looking/listening to?
a)Contrary to what they can think,I’m not never been a big fan of Pop Surrealism,this because I’m never been a fan not even of the old surrealists(I prefer Dada).Mark Ryden is a visionary painter visually very satisfactory,but after a little he bores me.I’m faithful to my love for Joe Coleman,and it’s risky to define this painter as a pop painter,since he’s kept a constant repulsion for the common sense to see.I like Barry McGee,I think he’s very poetic even if he was lost himself a little on the way,I remain absolutely indifferent for the ‘’new graffitists’’,Obey and Miss Van smell of old and the last Gondry’s film(‘’ The Art of The Dream’’)has disappointed me much,but I hope in the future.On the Italian slope I like much Karin Andersen’s work,Enrico Corte,Andrea Nurcis and alas(I say alas because,even if I don’t know him,he’s a little disagreeable to me),Nico Vascellari.On the comics’s slope the stars of Daniel Clowes and Francesca Ghermandi continue to shine(two of the best comics’ books of the last years)and finally new talents begin to emerge,like Maicol and Mirco,Ratigher.Tuono Pettinato,Mr.Pira.I have to say now the Italian underground park begins to be solid and full of proposals,with Costantini’s works,Squaz,Paper Resistance,Spider Jack(Mauro Chiarotto),to quote only some of the authors I know.I don’t forget moreover David Vecchiato’s(Diavù)steady work,who has tried to give cohesion to this underworld exploiting his small space on a magazine with high edition like XL(Repubblica).Now surely they can object that this magazine isn’t surely the most underground space of the world(an edition of a hundreds of thousands of copies)but I answer it’s necessary to become cunning and to learn to exploit the chances,and that if those big idlers of Expresso’s publishing group leave open some cracks it must to take them.At the end it’s how to occupy a establishment ,and as long as the house-owner leave us in peace we self-manage ourselves.However underground now is relly an antihistoric label:are underground Simpson and South Park?
a)Contrary to what they can think,I’m not never been a big fan of Pop Surrealism,this because I’m never been a fan not even of the old surrealists(I prefer Dada).Mark Ryden is a visionary painter visually very satisfactory,but after a little he bores me.I’m faithful to my love for Joe Coleman,and it’s risky to define this painter as a pop painter,since he’s kept a constant repulsion for the common sense to see.I like Barry McGee,I think he’s very poetic even if he was lost himself a little on the way,I remain absolutely indifferent for the ‘’new graffitists’’,Obey and Miss Van smell of old and the last Gondry’s film(‘’ The Art of The Dream’’)has disappointed me much,but I hope in the future.On the Italian slope I like much Karin Andersen’s work,Enrico Corte,Andrea Nurcis and alas(I say alas because,even if I don’t know him,he’s a little disagreeable to me),Nico Vascellari.On the comics’s slope the stars of Daniel Clowes and Francesca Ghermandi continue to shine(two of the best comics’ books of the last years)and finally new talents begin to emerge,like Maicol and Mirco,Ratigher.Tuono Pettinato,Mr.Pira.I have to say now the Italian underground park begins to be solid and full of proposals,with Costantini’s works,Squaz,Paper Resistance,Spider Jack(Mauro Chiarotto),to quote only some of the authors I know.I don’t forget moreover David Vecchiato’s(Diavù)steady work,who has tried to give cohesion to this underworld exploiting his small space on a magazine with high edition like XL(Repubblica).Now surely they can object that this magazine isn’t surely the most underground space of the world(an edition of a hundreds of thousands of copies)but I answer it’s necessary to become cunning and to learn to exploit the chances,and that if those big idlers of Expresso’s publishing group leave open some cracks it must to take them.At the end it’s how to occupy a establishment ,and as long as the house-owner leave us in peace we self-manage ourselves.However underground now is relly an antihistoric label:are underground Simpson and South Park?
q) Are you represented by a gallery? Do you have any upcoming exhibits?a)I continue to work with the Gallery LipanjePuntin in Trieste and I’ve in schedule to work with Gallery Guidi and Shoen of Genoa,I’ve a collective to Gallery Contemporanea of Pescara,I’ll have a big personal show during the Salone del Mobile in Milan,on 2008.
q) Do you have any 'studio rituals'? As in, do you listen to certain types of music while working? What helps to get you in the mood for working?
a)Generally I’ve the TV or the radio on all the time.I listen rarely the music I love when I work,I prefer to do to permeate myself from the informations’ stream,and I absorb them also unconsciously.To work in a state of trance with the prefered music at high volume seems to me a big waste of time.If I must to face some hard works I’ve before to clean the home(or the study).
q) What is your favorite a) taste, b) sound, c) sight, d) smell, and e) tactile sensation?
a)
a)Breaded potatoes in the milk and in the floor and then fried.
b)Distorted and atonal guitar.
c)Beautiful legs with veiled stockings.
d)Inside of a comic-strip magazine just bought.
e)To touch the stripe of the stocking with stripe and the hell and the strengthened tip(better if with leg towards the inside).
a)Breaded potatoes in the milk and in the floor and then fried.
b)Distorted and atonal guitar.
c)Beautiful legs with veiled stockings.
d)Inside of a comic-strip magazine just bought.
e)To touch the stripe of the stocking with stripe and the hell and the strengthened tip(better if with leg towards the inside).
q) Do you have goals that you are trying to reach as an artist, what is your 'drive'? What would you like to accomplish in your 'profession'?
a)I should like to have the possibility to continue to live by my work,of the possibility to represent my internal universe finding interested people to share it,this naturally after conquered the earth and destroyed the known civilization,ach!
q) When have you started using the internet and what role does this form of communication play for you, personally, for your art, and for your business?a)I’ve not a blog,I’ve not a site,I’ve not a space on Flickr nor on MySpace.Therefore pratically I don’t exist.Maybe a future where don’t appear it wants to say to be somebody, a little like the celebrities that don’t appear on the telephone directory.This after the next war among who’s been in television and who not.
q) What do you obsess over?
a)The shoe.A shoe doesn’t to go correctly with the person that takes it modifies immediately my simpaties.It doesn’t want to say it has to be at all costs a beautiful shoe,it has to be the right shoe,all here
q) Do you have prefered working hours? Do you pay attention to the time of the day or maybe specific lighting?
a)I prefer to work towards evening and in the night.It’s finally a space all mine as much as till they don’t cancel completely the division of operativity between wakefulness and sleep,and in the big cities they’re arriving there very slowly.
q) Do you do commissioned works?
a)Yes,but with moderation,in the sense that I do only for two reasons.
A-If I’ve an extreme need of easy money.
B-If the purchaser is an interesting person.
The two reasons have not to be at all costs in combination between them.
A-If I’ve an extreme need of easy money.
B-If the purchaser is an interesting person.
The two reasons have not to be at all costs in combination between them.
q) Any tips for emerging artists?a)Don’t buy nor read ‘’Advices for young artists’’ of Damien Hirst.Considered his present results(the quality of the work,not the quotations),it’s a very bad guru to follow.For the truth this manual has been written rightly to take all as a joke,but I see many young artists follow it to the letter.
q)…Your contacts
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