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 Visual Artist - Stefano
Pasquini |
Interviewing Stefano Pasquini about Hevent Horizon project
and previous works.
"For this project I will use this phrase: FILMIC
PERFECTION, MUSICAL HAPPINESS" |
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Interviewing STEFANO
PASQUINI
SA: Have you ever participated in any public art
project in the past? In your opinion, what is the importance
of making artistic interventions in specific places? What
interests you in these kind of situations? SP: I
guess the first “public art” project I participated in was an
exhibition in Leeds in 1996 titled Artists challenge the
Armouries, where I put microphones in the cafe of a
church, then broadcast the people’s conversations over the
signal of BBC2 radio within a two miles radius. The idea
came from one of my Unrealizeable Projects, although
I got to realize it. I wanted people to hear themselves, and
broadcast themselves freely. At this time internet was
just starting, so making a pirate radio was the thing to do if
you needed an underground communication channel. I was very
curious to see if the police would seize the equipment and
jail me and the vicar, but nothing happened. In this kind
of situation the public’s reaction is what interests me the
most. Especially from people who are not familiar with
contemporary art. Their reaction is truly exciting. And to me
this is the most important factor about public art. A lot
of people live without art throughout their lives, or without
music. If you hate music you can’t avoid it, you hear it
practically everywhere, but if you hate art, or don’t care
about it, all you have to do is avoid galleries and museums
and you’re fine. Of course things are slowly changing, if
you live in New York you can’t avoid contemporary art, but if
you live in Rome you barely notice there is contemporary art
around, you’re surrounded by ruins all over the places, you
walk through art history. But if you live, let’s say, in Zola
Predosa, or any little suburban town, you can lead a life
without art and not even notice it. This said I love it when
complete strangers stop and stare at contemporary art.
Recently I participated in a group show called
Accidental//Coincidental where Robin Press and Carina
Grossman presented work that was specifically created in order
to be “accidentally” found by everyday people and not
necessarily understood as art. I found this idea extremely
interesting, and the idea of looking at art without knowing
it’s art really excites me.
SA: I read in your
web site that your art “has always been strongly influenced by
what happens politically in the world”, This is the
intersection point of your research with Event
Horizon. How would you describe your working process
for this work? SP: I wanted to make something that
could be confused with a photocopy of a newspaper, or
something like that, again in order to slightly confuse
people, push them off balance a little. As I stated above, the
idea that people could be looking at my work without thinking
of it as art excites me. When this happens I think your mind
wonders more freely. A lot of people’s attitude towards
contemporary art is “I don’t understand it” and shut off
completely. But when they don’t know it’s contemporary art
they may try and actually get something off it. It could just
be nothing, but the idea of making someone’s thought wonder
off for a second is very interesting for me. For this
particular piece, which was supposed to be representative of
the press somehow, I decided to take a phrase that was very
“un-press-like” and use it as a paper headline. Terror, death
and fear are the most common headlines in papers and
magazines, so I thought having a title like Filmic
perfection, musical happiness would move the spectator to
a curious approach towards the newspaper. Which of course
turns out to me in Italian, thus unreadable. The original
newspaper story was about 3000 protesters heading to Genoa
from Bologna before the 2001 G8 summit. Reading about this now
is almost surreal, there’s so much hope in the future in the
article, demonstrating against globalization seemed like a
normal thing to do at the time. Although fear of violence is
mentioned many times in the article, no-one (apart from some
policemen, maybe) could guess that the right to protest would
be denied to so many people at once, that so many people would
be beaten so recklessly, that one would be shot in the head
and killed.
SA: A project still not realized
Portrait of New York as a human being, aims to “portray the
feelings of ambition, despair, solitude and hope New Yorkers
experience in their daily lives” don’t you consider artistic
performances in urban contexts as kind of portrait? I am
thinking, for example, of Gillian Wearing. SP: In
a sense every artwork is the portrait of its author, and one
could consider most of Gillian Wearing’s works to be
self-portraits. I like her work, and I am quite excited about
her project in Trento, where she organized a sort of
competition to find the perfect Trentino family, and soon a
bronze statue of the winning family will be erected in a town
park. I don’t consider all artistic performance in urban
contexts as portraits, but some of them
are.
SA: Do you have a particular kind of
public in mind while producing your works? SP: I
strive to make my artwork to be experienceable by all,
regardless of age, disability, family responsibility, marital
status, race, colour, ethnicity, nationality, religion or
belief, gender, sexual orientation, trade union activity,
unrelated criminal convictions, or any other relevant
criteria. Most of the time I fail to reach them, but that’s
part of the deal of being an artist.
SA: How do
different media interact for you as an artist? I am thinking
about the installation The Cave at the Torre Civica
Santo Stefano in Molinella. Which is the difference
between that form of interaction and the public art
experience? SP: I forgot to mention that I don’t
particularly like the label “public art”, as I would like all
art to be publicly available. And I actually thought of
The Cave as public art. I was asked to make
something interactive for the non-specialized public, so I did
a sort of sound piece. Children loved it, they kept pressing
all the different color buttons all the time. When they
realized that for each color corresponded only one song they
would play their favorite one more time, then leave. It was
like a little game, and I’m sure a lot of the public didn’t
think of it as art at all. Saying that, Molinella is quite a
small town, so probably everyone knew it was the artwork of
the wacko that kept going back and forth with the blue
car.
SA: In your Eclectic Discount
solo exhibition (2005), you criticize the same structure of
the art market system, analyzing its form and organization
from an inner point of view. Do you think Event Horizon
aims to do the same with communication and information
fields? SP: I like questioning things and yes, I
think Event Horizon was questioning communication
forms as much as Eclectic Discount was questioning the art
market. Both events were slightly off-track from traditional
exhibiting methods, thus even this is being questioned by this
sort of shows. I must mention that a couple got married in the
surroundings of my Eclectic Discount installation, and this,
apart from instantly gratifying me, furthermore questioned the
role of the gallery as a mere display case. With all this
questioning going on, one wonders what is left to
appreciate.
Thank you very much Stefano! |
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Bibliography, links,
notes: |
Pen: Costanza Meli
English Version: Costanza Meli and Stefano
Pasquini
Link: http://www.stefanopasquini.net/
Correlated article: Event
Horizon
Note: Stefano Pasquini
(b. 1969, Bologna, Italy) received his MFA from the Academy of
Fine Arts of Bologna in 1991, he then left the country for
Dublin, briefly, London for seven years, and New York. He’s
currently based back in Bologna, where he works. He was Head
Curator of Sesto Senso, a small no profit gallery in
Bologna, for the exhibiting seasons of 2001-2002. He is Art
Director of “Work – Art in progress”, magazine of the
Contemporary Art Gallery of Trento, as well as
contributing editor of NYArts Magazine and freelance
writer for many art and fashion magazines. He has been
exhibiting since 1988 with group shows in places such as the
Collective Gallery (Edinburgh), The National
Portrait Gallery (London), Casco (Utrecht),
ICA (London), Art in General (New York),
Star67 (Brooklyn), ONI (Boston),
Alphadelta (Athens) and solo shows at Carnera
(Adria), Bond Gallery (Birmingham), Sesto
Senso, Graffio, Villa Serena (Bologna),
Galleria 42 Contemporaneo (Modena) and
PaggeriArte (Sassuolo). |
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UI0803 (Filmic Perfection, Musical Happiness) |
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Event Horizon |
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Accidental/Coincidental |
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Come Buy This, PhotoMiami 2006 |
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Eclectic Discount |
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