The eXTra finGer

Interview with Hormazd Narielwalla

2012-01-02T04:12:00.000-08:00

q)Please tell us your name and where you practice.

a)) My name is Hormazd Narielwalla and I practice in London, UK.

q) Why do you make art?

a) I make art because it allows me to channel my energy into a physical form. I find the process of making an artwork stimulating and calming besides the most important thing is that it becomes a language for me to express my feelings at that moment of time.

q) How do you work ?

a) I am lucky to have my own studio where I practice. It is based in the London College of Fashion. My principle material is the tailoring pattern that I acquire from bespoke Savile Row tailors Dege & Skinner - these I use depending on the size of my canvas. The methodologies I use in creating an artwork depends on what the final outcome would be. So for instance when it is a collage illustration - I worked digitally or if it's a physical artwork like Dead Man's Patterns skull then it would be a more hands on method. I also use photography, screen printing, hand and Vector drawings in my work. But they all compliment and balance the tailoring pattern, which is the principle component in my artwork.

q) What´s your background?

a) I am trained as a fashion designer. But I don't make clothes. I make art!

q) What role does the artist have in society?

a) the artist is the rebel, the creator and the philosopher

q) What was a seminal experience for you ?

a) finding out that in Savile Row the tailor discards the pattern after the customer dies. My conversation with William Skinner, Managing Director of Dege & Skinner about it ignited a feeling in me that I could create a visual voice to tell their tailoring stories.

q) Has your practice changed over time ?

a)Any practice keeps evolving. I started working only with digital versions of the pattern - now I have started viewing them as physical objects in themselves and I see myself cut, copy, paste more often...

q) What art do you most identify with ?

a)Abstraction art - Matisse and Picasso specifically

q) What´s your strongest memory of your childhood ?

a)Being taken to the Zoo and hating it.

q) What themes do you pursue ?

a)The 2 strongest themes in my work are the body and clothing, I guess you could say that patterns are the link between the two.

q) Describe a real life experience that inspired you.

a) going to the Picasso retrospective at the National Gallery, London.

q) What´s your most embarrassing moment ?

a)In an art context not knowing who Gilbert & George are when discussing with my tutor. I love what they do and how they dress.

q) What jobs have you done other than being an artist ?

a)I worked as a stylist briefly, for an interior designer, and many part time jobs..

q) What responses have you had to your work ?

a)Critical but in a positive way. It took some time for people to get what I am doing.

q) What do you dislike about the artworld ?

a)At times artists are prostitutes.

q) What research do you do ?

a)My phd examines technical values of the pattern - my argument is that in dress history the pattern is a historical document - a file of knowledge and can be viewed as drawings in their own right, abstracted shapes of the human form.

q) What is your dream project?

a)To work with a Matador tailor in Madrid and create artworks inspired by the experience. To also be invited by the Royal Palace to create a portrait of Her Majesty The Queen

q) What´s the best piece of advice you have been given ?

a) Follow your instinct.

q) What couldn’t you do without?

a)My eyes

q) What makes you angry?

a) Stupidity

q) What is your worst quality?

a)I am overly critical of myself.

q) Dogs or Cats ?

a) Both, but cats at the moment.

q) Making art is a lot like being on lsd. Know what I mean ?

a) I have never had it - but my other euphoric experiences could be compared to creating an artwork where I am able to just let myself go.

q) What does “ copy” mean to you ?

a) there is nothing more amateur than being scared of being copied.

q) What´s your favorite cuss word ?

a) C"*T because it's offensive! I've used it once!

''L'ultima onda del lago''

2011-12-15T15:34:00.000-08:00

L'ultima onda del lago

The Lake’s Last Wave.

A novel by Stefano Paolo Giussani

Synopsis.

This is the story of an escape through the mountains around Lake Como in northern Italy.

Anna is a Jewish girl from Milan. In 1944, following the arrest of her parents, she is left alone with her deaf and blind brother and Sebastiano, a gay friend. All three have known the terrible loss of a loved one, as Sebastiano’s partner, a socialist, has also been arrested. Together the three decide to leave the city, which has been ravaged by bombs, and try to escape to Switzerland through the Italian Lakes.

Anna is only able to communicate with her brother by drawing images on the palm of his hand with her finger. Despite their handicap, the group overcome the journey’s initial difficulties and the Nazi controls which slow their progress. Near to the border the group meets a strange couple from the valleys near Lake Como. It is there that Anna and Sebastiano know the bad face of the war...

stefano paolo giussani (1966) is an italian journalist for Corriere della Sera and iViaggi di Repubblica. This is his first novel.

--
stefano paolo giussani
via manara 48, 20052 monza
spgiussani@gmail.com
cel.393.9576719

Interview with Panagiotis Hadjistefanou aka nanogod

2011-12-02T03:51:00.000-08:00

Undernight 5 (Detail)
Mixed media (3ds Autodesk Software, Video, Projections, Music)
Jpeg. (Animation still). Dimensions Variable. Athens 2007.
Courtesy of the Dakis Joannou Collection and DESTE Institute for the Contemporary Arts.
Undernight is an environment that attempts to capture the comfort and splendor of dead ends.

Hallucination Park

Untitled 2 (Sinking Ship Dispersing it’s Bubble-Bath Cargo)
Outdoor Animated Light Sculpture (Animation Still, Installation view)
(Mixed Media – 3DS Vector Object, Jpeg Mapping, 3D projection).
Courtesy of the September Gallery, Berlin, 2011.

Hallucination Park is a series of animated light sculptures, designed in 3D vector software and meant to be projected outdoors in various locations.

Ghost 2
Athens 2007
Sculpture for scanner and c-print
Mixed Media (Ink, oil, pastel and scratches on paper, Jpeg, C-Print) Dimensions variable.
Ghosts is a series of diptychs. Each consists of a mixed media painting and its attendant c-print enlargement. The work is the sculptural feeling generated by the viewer as he touches the paper “original”, trying to discover the unseen areas and marks charted for his sake by the high-resolution scanning process.
Courtesy of the Dakis Joannou Collection and DESTE Institute for the Contemporary Arts.

Hallucination Park

Untitled 1 (Long day’s Collision onto Night)
Outdoor Animated Light Sculpture (Animation Still, Installation view)
(Mixed Media – 3DS Vector Object, Jpeg Mapping, 3D projection) . Courtesy of the September Gallery, Berlin. Berlin 2011.

Hallucination Park is a series of animated light sculptures, designed in 3D vector software and meant to be projected outdoors in various locations.

Undernight Screen (Panel 3 of 9)
Detail of painted screen for the projection of the animations. 1m x 1,5m. Total size 1m x 9 m. (Nine Panels) Athens 2007.
Mixed Media (Oil, spray, pencil and pastels on canvas).

q)Please tell us your name and where you practice.

a)My given name is Panagiotis Hadjistefanou, and my artistic alias is nanogod (no capitals, please). I live and work in Berlin.

q) Why do you make art?

a)Because I cannot do anything else. Art is my destiny, and as such it is not only inescapable, but also its own sake. I strongly believe that in order to be an artist one must devote himself to what he does with the fervor and perseverance of a monk. Anything else for me is dilettantism, and I abhor it.

q) How do you work?

a)I work constantly, fixatedly, as if on a mission. The medium, as far as I am concerned, is not important. I paint, draw, sculpt, work in all kinds of computer software, compose music, make films, photograph, and write. But all these activities have a common denominator: me and my obsessions.

q) What´s your background?

a)It’s complicated. My father is Greek, my mother is Uruguayan - an extremely rare and exotic mix. I studied in St. Martin’s School of Art in London, which has affected me quite a lot in terms of how I approach creativity and the world of art. I have lived in Athens, London, New York, Paris and Berlin. I have travelled extensively, from Miami to Sudan, so I feel I am a citizen of the world. I have no real sense of national identity.

q) What role does the artist have in society?

a)I can only speak about myself, since to define one role for all artists would be either absurd or fascist. My work attempts to illustrate the inexplicably sublime, as if art is the religion of the incredible and I am a hagiographer of saints who believe in nothing.

q) What was a seminal experience for you?

a)To become a household name by speaking out, loud and clear, against the forces of evil cannibalizing Greek society. I happen to be very famous in the land where I was born, Greece. This is because I have taken a very public and active stance against the decadent and fascist elite that is ruling the country by violence, terror and Machiavellian conspiracies against the people.

I am considered a revolutionary icon for intellectuals and artists there, and adored by the people for being courageous and not collaborating with the dictatorship. Before I went into exile in Berlin, I used to write in major Greek newspapers, appear regularly on national TV channels etc. Of course, my activism only led to my ruthless persecution. There have been 3 assassination attempts against me in Greece, two armed ones and one by poisoning. Sometimes I wonder how I have managed to stay alive.

q) Has your practice changed over time?

a)My practice has changed only to the extent that I have changed as a person myself. As I said above, the medium and form for me is not important, what they communicate is always the same, my progress towards oblivion or eternity.

q) What art do you most identify with?

a)I feel a particular affinity for any artist who was damned by his own existential narrative, and his art expressed directly the suffering he endured. From Caravaggio, to Francis Bacon, to Jack Smith, to Tennessee Williams, to Bas Jan Adder, the examples are too many to mention here. For me, an artist is only true when he is true to himself.

q) What´s your strongest memory of your childhood?

a)Terror.

q) What themes do you pursue ?

a)The futility and perfidy of hope, the loyalty and honesty of despair.

q) Describe a real life experience that inspired you.

a)My source of inspiration is the devoutness that burns my soul when I look for love in places where misanthropy is cultivated by the inability of strangers to communicate their vulnerability to each other.

q) What´s your most embarrassing moment?

a)I am never embarrassed by anything because I am fully aware that I am just another aggregation of human frailty, failure and fault.

q) What jobs have you done other than being an artist?

a)Being an artist is not a job, but a calling. Anything that I have been obliged to do in order to pay the rent and eat is a form of prostitution as far as I am concerned, so you can say that I have been a whore. It does not really matter if I was working as a journalist, or a doorman. The feeling is the same. To work in any field except art and writing for me is about strangers paying money to use my body and my soul according to their filthy, evil priorities.

q) What responses have you had to your work?

a)I am considered the most important artist and writer of my generation in my homeland and this opinion is held not only by me, but also by such people as the important collector Mr. Dakis Joannou, who has kindly supported me for quite a long time.

q) What do you dislike about the art world?

There is no such thing as the art world. You are probably referring to the legions of parasites that make their living out of manipulating and abusing the work of artists. I try to ignore them as much as possible, and I am happy to pay the cost of my stance towards them.

q) What research do you do?

a)I don’t research, I discover accidentally, by allowing myself to be constantly exposed to the muse of poetry.

q) What is your dream project?

a)To die as a free man.

q) What´s the best piece of advice you have been given ?

a)I do not accept any kind of advice, I treasure my mistakes over the wisdom of others. Mistakes are nobler than art.

q) What couldn’t you do without?

a)Sleep, a roof over my head, some food for me and my cat, health insurance. A bit of sex with kind strangers now and again is also welcome.

q) What makes you angry?

a)I am particularly irritated by unjustly privileged idiots who believe that their financial or social position allows them to exist as anything else but figures of ridicule. I also hate uneducated fools who voice their opinions solely based on their ability to speak even if nobody asked them to. In the end though, I always decide that my anger is too precious to waste on such people.

q) What is your worst quality?

a)Probably the fact that I defend, support, and protect my loneliness as if it was the love of my life.

q) Dogs or Cats ?

a)I consider all binary dilemmas a form of blackmail, and I never succumb to their extortions. At the same time, I confess I am a slave of Remix, my beautiful orange cat who rules my life with his imperial ego and constant demands.

q) Making art is a lot like being on LSD. Know what I mean?

a)Yes, I have experimented with hallucinogenics in my youth. The common factor between lysergic visions and creating art is the departure from what is commonly accepted as reality.

q) What does “copy” mean to you?

a)Replicas, duplicates, twins, simulacra, counterfeits, decoys, mannequins, portraits, genetic cloning, war games, camouflage, instant replays, digital imaging, parrots, photocopies, wax museums, apes, art forgeries, DNA – copy is everything, everything is copy.

q) What´s your favorite cuss word?

a)Love.

Interview with David Trullo

2011-11-23T11:04:00.000-08:00

q) Introduce yourself first please?

a)My name is David Trullo and I am a visual artist.

q)Where do you live and work ?

a)I was born, live and work in Madrid, Spain.

q) How did you started? How have you realized you wanted to become an artist?

a)I always spent hours drawing when I was a kid and I never stopped. I still have a diary from when I was 8 years old where I wrote I wanted to be a painter, so I guess I had it quite clear since a very early age. My father was a bullfighting photographer, it all came naturally, I suppose.

q) What materials do you use and why?

a)I use mainly photography and video. Photography is quick and gives me a lot of resources to play with fiction, fetishise, turn subjects into objects, and create alternative realities. Video works as an extension of it all.

q) Who is your biggest influence, both art and non-art related

a)Most of my influences come from writers who were curiously filmakers, like Cocteau and Pasolini. Some specific pieces had a great impact like Andy warhol’s silent films, as well as Spanish and Italian 17th century painting.

q)How do you dream up with your wacky ideas? What is your creation process?

a)Sometimes ideas go around for a long time before they become ‘physical’ and some others come up suddenly and are done immediately, or change completely while working on something else. Ideas usually come up by putting together things which apparently don’t fit.

q) What haven't you done yet that you definitely want to try someday?

a)Theatre

q)Are there any contemporary artists that you love ?

a)I like particular works mainly, and follow and collaborate with other artists with a similar perspective like Robert Flynt or Roberto González Fernández.

q) How long does it take for you to finish a piece ?

a)Sometimes months, sometimes minutes. I often go back to former projects and start them with a new eye.

q) What music, if any, do you like to have on while you're working?

a)Anything ‘harmless’ that doesn’t distract me. Radio is fine as long as it is not very ‘arty’.

q) Do you do many art shows?

a)Too many, maybe. ‘Repertoire’ keeps growing…

q)Tell us about a recent dream you had.

a)I’m walking through the Vatican gardens and the Pope is talking about the length of my shorts. No idea what it might mean…

q)What are you doing when you are not creating?

a)Sleeping

q)Do you get emotionally attached to your work and do you miss your

work when it is sold?

a)No. ‘Children’ should fly free when they can. And I don´t have any of my works on my walls either.

q)What new projects or exhibits are in your future?

a)I’m putting together a project on identity and gender with the excuse of studying the life and work of Yves Saint Laurent and Andy Warhol.

http://issuu.com/trullo/docs/bogus

Another project I’m starting will be around representation and iconography based on Cesare Ripa’s ‘Iconology’

q)What is your favourite art related web site?

a)I check artinfo for the art gossip and re-title for interesting projects.

q)What is the strangest thing you have ever seen?

a)I keep seeing strange things everyday, that others might consider banal.

q) What is the strangest thing you have ever done?

a)I keep doing strange things that others don’t notice.

q)...any advice you can pass onto aspiring artists/designers?...

a)Concentrate on your personal work so it fulfills you and don’t worry so much about if it sells or not. If you worry too much if your work is commercial maybe you should do something else.

q)your contacts....e-mail...links...

a)http://davidtrullo.com

http://vimeo.com/davidtrullo/videos

Interview with Thomas Edetun

2011-10-03T15:09:00.000-07:00

q)Please tell us your name and where you practice.

a)My name is Thomas Edetun i am a painter.

q) Why do you make art?

a)Working with art is special, there is no rules. But you have to find your own way and your own rules. In some ways it can help you understand what it is being a human and living in this world.

q) How do you work ?

a)I work mostly with painting in different media as oil, acrylic and watercolor. Sometimes i work with film, photography or art objects.

q) What´s your background?

a)Regular school education 11 years and 9 years in art school. There was no real interest in art from my childhood upbringing, my parents did not attend art exhibitions or other cultural events.

q) What role does the artist have in society?

a)The artist role today can be an economical investment or a mirror for the society (political). but in the long term i think that art can make people understand what the world is about.

q) What was a seminal experience for you ?

a)When i was young and experienced for the first time the freedom in art. That an art piece can make you think and feel something you did not knew existed before.

q) Has your practice changed over time ?

a)I now am more focused from the beginning in what my art work is dealing with, the actual work in my studio with the art piece is easier since i got more experience.

q) What art do you most identify with ?

a)I identify with any kind of art that for me have a meaning and not only are beautiful, but meaningful art can be beautiful.

q) What´s your strongest memory of your childhood ?

a)That must be when i first tried to understand the world around me, i sometimes sat alone and tried to work it out. What it was all about.

q) What themes do you pursue ?

a)I work with any themes that will come up, i try not to restrict my mind before i work.

q) Describe a real life experience that inspired you.

a)It happens all the time.

q) What´s your most embarrassing moment ?

a)None really, i think its human to make mistakes and therefore i accept it happening.

q) What jobs have you done other than being an artist ?

a)Working in hospital, art teacher, art photographer, cleaner, intendent at art museum, technician at museum, window cleaner.

q) What responses have you had to your work ?

a)I´ve had mostly good response in media and from visitors at my exhibitions. And sometimes also from other artists.

q) What do you dislike about the artworld ?

a)That it´s not as free as i thought from the beginning. But it´s like the real world.

q) What research do you do ?

a)I do research in technical things like using new materials and also through seeking out other artists work both from art history and from contemporary artists.

I like to look and experience art all the time.

q) What is your dream project?

a)To be in a situation where i can work for a long time in my studio to prepare a big exhibition which would be shown internationally.

q) What´s the best piece of advice you have been given ?

a)Why not make it the other way around?

q) What couldn’t you do without?

a)My eyes.

q) What makes you angry?

a)That some people in our world today have to struggle so hard to survive, that the world is not equal.

q) What is your worst quality?

a)That i can be too focused on my art, but that´s good too.

q) Dogs or Cats ?

a)Both.

q) Making art is a lot like being on lsd. Know what I mean ?

a)Making art can be entering a special room with is separated from the real world, with rules of it own. Sometimes when you get lost totally in that room you can fell free.

q) What does “ copy” mean to you ?

a)It´s a way to work with art, and a way to show understanding and appreciation of other artists. I have been copied and i get inspired from other artists.

q) What´s your favorite cuss word ?

a)None, i try to use as many as i can.

Interview with WARBEAR

2011-09-23T02:54:00.000-07:00

q)Please tell us your name and where you practice.

a)Following the Temple Ov Psychic Youth concept of multiplicity I like to represent myself as WE.
We are WARBEAR also Know as Francesco Macarone Palmieri and We live between Berlin and Rome.

q) Why do you make art?

a)We do not make Art, we make life. This means colliding theory with writing with video with music with video with love. It's a chain reaction by crashing thought on different languages giving to sociological and anthropological researches the form of books and readings, event managements, Djing and live video performances. We do it because we-ourselves are the result of a mechanism that precedes us, bringing us to enhance the possibility of revelations through a feeling of beauty in a world where abuse is the main value.

q) How do you work ?

a)As said we work by multiplying a concept through different languages with a netowrk of collaborators. We did a work focusing on the relationship between emotions and epistemology in the field of queer studies. This took the form of a essay entitled "emoporn", of a screening section with the same title in a Movie festival called Tekfestival in Rome, of a video performance entitled "Anus is an open scar", of a poem entitled"Falling. Floating. Flying" and of a track entitled "Obsessions".

q) What´s your background?

a)Our background comes from a lot of different fields. Punk, industrial and broken electronics, Independent publishing, Subversive telematics, Sociology, Anthropology, Media studies, Photography and Cinema.

q) What role does the artist have in society?

a)It has to produce norms by embracing the consistency of contradiction as a critical engine. This means embodying the pleasure of displeasure, the self-violation as critical theory, to objectify himself as an arousing process.

q) What was a seminal experience for you ?

a)Knowing the nature of power being grown in a Jesuit College.

q) Has your practice changed over time ?

a)It constantly changes in an open texture, being composed by so many languages.

q) What art do you most identify with ?

a)Assassination.

q) What´s your strongest memory of your childhood ?

a)The shock we had reading Christiane F. "Wir Kinder vom bahnhof Zoo". We re-read it four times in a raw and we knew its passages by heart. We then understood that the metropole as the field of multiplicity, capitalism and destruction would become our playground.

q) What themes do you pursue ?

a)The last ten years we focused on the subversive politics of self-representation inside independent porn as the latest wave of queer studies.The last three years we worked on how to apply emotions as a tool of scientific production by deconstructing methodologies as the intercurring power spaces between the viewer and the seen. Now we are trying to connect these two past experiences to the mechanisms of identity productions in the on-line aesthetics inside social networks platform through the dialogics between Hiding and showing.

q) What´s your most embarrassing moment ?

a)Not being prepared in front of audiences. We hate to improvise if improvisation is not planned as such.

q) What jobs have you done other than being an artist ?

a)We did them all. From McDonald's cleaners to Bags Stealers. From Public Relations to Drug Dealing. From bouncers to Djs. From Software companies Employees to Graphic Designers. From university Assistants to Ghost Writers. From event Promoters To flyers Distributors and Posters Sticker. From book Writers to Door-to-door Sellers and so on.

q) What responses have you had to your work ?

a)We made the sign of the times. Fear and desire in the sametime.

q) What do you dislike about the artworld ?

a)We dislike the word art.

q) What is your dream project?

a)Being Middle Class.

q) What couldn’t you do without?

a)We have an enormous fetishism for hear plugs. We should think more about it as it brings us to the level of compulsive behaviours. It has a lot to do with the desire to be sometimes disconnected from the world and find moments of intimacy to dialogue with each others. You can cut the light off by closing your eyes but you can't produce silence. Silence is utopian.

q) What is your worst quality?

a)The Grudge

q) Dogs or Cats ?

a)We do not like house animals.

q) Making art is a lot like being on lsd. Know what I mean ?

a)No we don't.

q) What does “ copy” mean to you ?

a)The ability to free informations.

Interview with Marcos Marin

2011-07-01T04:02:00.000-07:00

q)Please tell us your name and where you practice.

a)Marcos Marin, Born in Brazil, lives and works in Monaco, Also have studios in Lisbon Portugal, Sao Paulo Brasil, Miami Beach USA,and Lacoste France.

q) Why do you make art?

a)It is the most important part of me, it is my reazon for life! I was born for!

q) How do you work ?

a)From a image, normaly a face, I feel how I can deconstructe and analise what kind of celular element will recompose that image, dots, lines, curves, so after made the composition, the design the creation, for me the most important part of the process, after that it is just a choise of realization, suporte and tecnique to produce the preconcept image. I like made several times the same image to see the possibilities , and somethimes mix all. Accidental elements is always wellcome too!

q) What´s your background?

a)I'm a pianist, after was in Architecture but not till the end of the University. Meeting big masters and great artist was my school, and finaly in 1990 Vasarely inspire me to do optical art, where I became totaly addicty

q) What role does the artist have in society?

a)We do windows for dreams, a scape for the imaginary, a moment for a mental gymnastic!As a person hope I can inspire people to exercice Freedom.

q) What was a seminal experience for you ?

a)it is all the time!

q) Has your practice changed over time ?

a)I always want to change, and try new things, but after a moment I stay consistently abou the base of my creation, op art, and play with all possibilities to do that. Changing but with a strong sustained signature.

q) What art do you most identify with ?

a)Portraits

q) What´s your strongest memory of your childhood ?

a)When Someone played piano and violin, and after when I start in the consevatory with 5 years old.

q) What themes do you pursue ?

a)Portraits, optical kinetic ilusions

q) Describe a real life experience that inspired you.

a)Pierre Cardin life, my Patron, 89 years old, doing new projects all the time!

q) What´s your most embarrassing moment ?

a)I'm naturaly a desaster man, during a very fancy snoby visit to the Sermadiras garden,I was invited to visit with others 30 peoples,higth people,We walk trougth the garden and before the entrance of the castle for a Lunch, we across a sand designed art nouveau drow in the floors, and in the entrance first room of the palace, had a tapecery with pockets and inside each pockets had a soft shoe with fox head! chic! so we can walk on the wood with no sand in the shoes, and I dont know why I try to say to Mr; Sermadira in french " I can take out my paints" insted say shoes!!! He says , ok brazilian keep your paints please!!

q) What jobs have you done other than being an artist ?

a)Pianist, Cinema cleaner, unload merchandise from a ship in a port, stuart, model,

q) What responses have you had to your work ?

a)I won several great prizes, art contests, a car,resident programs for artists 2 times, a house and studio for life by Pierre Cardin, A concert piano, several fly tickets and businnes oportunities, pay my bills with my art, and of course the most important be apreciate and the people love my art!!!

q) What do you dislike about the artworld ?

a)The way of some galleries and marchands treat the artists, explorations of the needs of the artists, the stupid snobism, fake things.

q) What research do you do ?

a)All the time about ne materials and possibilities, love try diferents art suplies from others cowntries, about strategy to show my art, I m recently studing all about art in public spaces.

q) What is your dream project?

a)to have in several cowntries 'land marks', my sculptures, monuments in public spaces.

q) What´s the best piece of advice you have been given ?

a)keep doing always, the insistence, the consistence, be a work-a-holic with your art.

q) What couldn’t you do without?

a)My piano

q) What makes you angry?

a)people that dont pay!

q) What is your worst quality?

a)I'm messy!

q) Dogs or Cats ?

a)Cats of course!

q) Making art is a lot like being on lsd. Know what I mean ?

a)I'm addicted in my art! And without any drogs and alchool!! I play my piano and in that moment my mind produce many ideas for visuals creations!

q) What does “ copy” mean to you ?

a)If you do a copy, make that original!

q) What´s your favorite cuss word ?

a)"caraleo"

Interview with Bryan Schnelle

2011-06-27T04:18:00.000-07:00

q) Please tell us your name and where you practice.

a)Bryan Schnelle, Los Angeles.

q) Why do you make art?

a)That’s a good question, I don’t really know, it’s just something I need to do.

q) How do you work?

a)Quickly.

q) What´s your background?

a)I grew up in a typical, boring suburb not unlike a lot of other typical, boring suburbs.

q) What role does the artist have in society?

a)Different types of Artists seem to have different types of roles. Personally, I hope to encourage and contribute to serious thought about reality.

q) What was a seminal experience for you?

a)I remember going to a museum with my friend Joe and his dad when I was maybe around 13 or 14 and his dad smoked a joint with us in the car before we went in. I wasn’t a huge Picasso fan or anything, but I remember standing in front of this one particular Picasso, the title escapes me now, but I had what I can only describe as a “spiritual awakening”. I knew what I wanted to do.

q) Has your practice changed over time?

a)Absolutely, my work is always evolving as my ideas and interests change and develop.

q) What art do you most identify with?

a)I’m not really sure. I guess maybe sarcastic, funny, clever, or ironic Art?

q) What´s your strongest memory of your childhood?

a)A pop-shuvit tail grab down 10 stairs (landed it, but broke my board).

q) What themes do you pursue?

a)Lately I’ve been interested in advertising and capitalist consumer culture and the state of disconnect with reality it induces.

q) Describe a real life experience that inspired you.

a)The Basquiat retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum in 2005 was pretty impressive.

q) What jobs have you done other than being an artist?

a)Worked for a property management company (serving tenants with eviction notices), did landscaping, assembled generators in a factory, stood outside of stores collecting signatures, dug graves...

q) What responses have you had to your work?

a)Mostly appreciative and encouraging, I think that most people are starting to wake up from the dream.

q) What do you dislike about the art world?

a)I’m not a big fan of bullshit.

q) What research do you do?

a)I read a lot of books and watch a lot of tmz.

q) What is your dream project?

a)Haha, nice try. That’s top secret.

q) What couldn’t you do without?

a)I’m sure that I could survive without any modern gizmos if I had to, anyone could. But books and coffee I would really miss.

q) What makes you angry?

a)Bullshit.

q) What is your worst quality?

a)I’m really awkward socially. When people meet me for the first time they think I’m a dick, but the truth is I’m actually a pretty nice guy.

q) Dogs or Cats?

a)Dogs.

q) Making art is a lot like being on lsd. Know what I mean?

a)I guess it can be, but I actually feel the most grounded when I’m making Art. It’s when I’m not working… that’s when things get weird.

q) What does “ copy” mean to you?

a)Control C.

q) What´s your favourite cuss word?

a)Sucky Motherfucky.

Roberto Kusterle

2011-05-30T14:44:00.000-07:00

Roberto Kusterle was born in Gorizia ( Italy ) in 1948. Since the Seventies he works within the field of the Visual Arts, devoting himself to painting and installation works. Since 1988 his interest for photograhy begins, that has become his primary way to express himself. He lives and works in Gorizia

www.robertokusterle.it/