An e-conversation between artists and friends
Stefano Calligaro (CALLIfornia)
and Heyer Thurnheer (CH/NL)
in an uncensored international artists’ studio English
This conversation took place by e-mail, between November 2017 and October 2018 without any publishing purpose. Every grammatical error contained in it is purely fortuitous and deliberately unedited.
Some of the considerations and questions that emerged from this chat are highlighted in the following list:
*1 Does underground culture exist in contemporary fine arts?
*2 What is really relevant in art and what is really not?
*3 Thinking of art as something close to what we are and not to what we want to represent.
*4 Artists’ reasons to produce art versus art-system reasons to decide what will be shown to the public (and what rather not)
*5 Facing the pressure of getting attention and relevance by using “social media” / facebook /instagram etcetera
*6 At art fairs people want to feel important. Real curiosity and interest come in very little groups
*7 The art system defines the rules in art, the artist has to play the game within these rules
*8 What do you think about doubts? Doubts is what I can offer
*9 How would you describe the relation of your art to the social?
*10 When I meet curators I often ask myself if there is something very important I should talk about or not?
*11 When my art embarrasses me I am proud and happy
EVERYTHING STARTS HERE
2. november 2017
Dear Heyer,
How are you, how’re things going there?
I am writing to send you two links with some photos of my shows at Kunstverein Langenhagen in Germany, and Sabot in Romania.
The 1st link contains also a nice little text on my work written by Noor Mertens.
http://www.daily-lazy.com/2017/10/stefano-calligaro-at-kunstverein.html
http://artviewer.org/stefano-calligaro-at-sabot-2/
I hope you will enjoy scrolling through them.
Big hug
Stefano
12. novembre 2017
Dear Stefano
Thanks a lot for your mails…both your exhibitions settings i like a lot, really, at Sabot as well as the one at Kunstverein Langenhagen. Your statement to the competitive and surveillance society, – and to position yourself in the exhibition (with your clothes and yourself as co-player) , it touches me a lot…The text of Noor Mertens is brilliant ……congratulation! It must be great for you to feel that much is understood by a curator and art critic, isn’t it ?….. of course it made me also think of the contextual art manifesto that i wrote 2016. In my eyes you fit a lot in this art field of societal engagement focus. Also the photo documentation you have sent me is super done. I would love to have the opportunity for a co-exhibition with you (and maybe other artists in this direction of work). Let’s see what time opens up as possibilities next, yeah……..meanwhile let’s keep in touch. And hold me informed about your activities……yes!??
Myself i have an exhibition together with Nienke Terpsma and Rob Hamelijnck from Fucking Good Art (NL) and with Ingeborg Lüscher (CH) at onarte, (see link below) opening december 16. I will send you the info material as soon as i got it.
Big hug. Also from Monica
Heyer
http://onarte.ch/
http://onarte.ch/down/12_SMAI_discorso-EN.pdf
5. january 2018
Hi Heyer!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
How was the opening… are you happy with it?
It rains in Cluj today, shitty weather these first days of January!
I am working and writing and posting things on my Instagram; I had to open a public account because Daria, my gallerist, wanted me to go public with my other private one, but I didn’t want to… to make her happy I opened this one instead:
https://www.instagram.com/stcalligarrogance/
I am also looking for funded residencies around Europe to apply to these days.
I’d like to spend some time outside this Country.
Hope you had great holidays
huge HUG
Stefano
10. january 2018
Dear Stefano
Happy to hear from you…..
Yes: ALL THE BEST ALSO FOR YOUR PLANS FOR THE STILL NEW 2018.
I would like to talk with you a bit longer, stefano. (It really interests me to hear
what you are doing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and i want to continue our communication).
But I am in full stress these days (I will tell you later about it….ok?………)
I just want you to know that your mail arrived well and also the exhibition publication.
Thanks a lot a lot.
You will hear from me again soon
BIGHUG
Heyer
25. february 2018
Goodmorning Heyer.
How are you?
My phone says It’s 11.23am now. I guess it’s right.
I am having a coffee while watching this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1FjRfQ1AhM
and I am working on a book these days. While seeking for one collector whose principles might push him to buy my art and cover the printing costs… yes, I am culturally prostituting myself.
BTW. Artists Should’t spend too much time typing.
Art is simple: one A one R and one T, there’s no need for extra letters and words. Art is not one haiku.
I don’t like haiku, But I send you a big hug
Stefano
23. march 2018
Goodday Stefano,
How are you? This days I am in Ticino…….building up an exhibition titled „textile sensation“ with Art School Lugano…….It’s really Mediterranean weather here, blue blue sky and brilliant sunshine. I imagine to drink a coffee with you at Stalles in Rotterdam and talking and laughing about our concerns and fears in art and everyday life………..I am just back from a very demanding period of time. November until March asked a lot of attention. (the Exhibition at OnArte, the Open Studio Borgerstraat show in parallel to Art Rotterdam, realizing the Borgerstraat Publication 2018, finishing an installation including 324 autobiographical statements, and last but not least i was sick for some time after all this as consequence of some mental overload (ha ha ha)). And short after that, family challenges followed like mother on the deathbed etcetera etcetera………But yeah…….. Here we are again……
In the attachment you will find some photo and text you might like of the December OnArte show with Fucking Good Art, Ingeborg Lüscher (partner of Harald Szeemann) and myself.
Big hug stefano…
Hope to see and talk with you soon again……and thanks a lot for your link to peterson………its great to have guys and conversations like this
(un grande bacio abbraccio anche da monica)
heyer
http://onarte.ch/down/12_SMAI_discorso-ITA.pdf
http://onarte.ch/down/12_SMAI_Guide-IT.pdf
24. march 2018
Hi Heyer!
it’s nice to hear from you!!
I miss the summer feeling, Cluj at the moment is snowy and cold…
I hope April will bring us good vibes and more Sun!
Thanks for the photos and text… The show looks really great, as It’s great to see how much good work moves through your hands…
We should speak a little bit more about it sometime.
To be honest, I miss R’dam these days, as I wrote you last time, I am looking for residencies around Europe, and cash is always little.
Still looking for the crazy collector… hahaha does anyone want my art?
Maybe I should just print my book at home with my printer and let my fancy ego stay outside the door. My ego wants a very nice, but simple, book with a cover like the Penguin’s paperback. I told to my ego this morning to not be pretentious and picky… My ego is picky… so I drink a coffee and let things go.
I send you both the biggest hug!
Have a beautiful fantastic day!!
Stefano
5. april 2018
Dear Heyer,
I hope you are doing well,
A few days ago I read an article about “Curator’s privilege” [ I hate the word privilege ]. The main question raising through the article was “do curators today use their privileged position to support the work of artists who are not under the spotlight?”
I thought the question was useless, as the entire article.
I suppose we all know how this works.
Nothing to complain about… I’d rather suggest to young curators to be brave enough and support artists’ work especially when it is/ feels uneasy instead of striving for easy access to success.
However, this isn’t the problem either… do we care?… Sometimes I like to not give a shit about these discussions.
The reason why I sent you this article is that I am curious about another question: “Does something like Contemporary underground culture exist nowadays?” *1
When I asked this question to Kurt Ryslavy, he told me “the artists who work outside the system are the underground”… I am not sure about that… I think that if you put yourself outside the system, your voice can’t be heard by the system you want to talk to in the first place… and if you want to criticize one specific system, or make your point about it, exit it does not make any sense.
I am skeptic… I mean, if things happen purposely outside the “mainstream” we can’t call them underground after all. They simply happen somewhere else. But I like to wonder if it’s possible to really be underground within the art-system without refusing it, without positioning ourselves outside it…
Perhaps this may be the only direction we could take in order to start a real dialogue / confrontation between underground and establishment on an institutional level…
But… do we need it… do we want it?
what do you think?
Have a nice nice day
Stefano
7. april 2018
Dear Stefano
Thanks for your mail.
Great to hear somebody asking questions !!……
Yeah……Let us have a few thoughts on this topic of establishment and underground in the arts and your question if a real dialogue / confrontation between underground and establishment on an institutional level is possible…..
Of course, your question is too big and comprehensive to be answered in a short definition, but it is a good starting point for to think about it and to exchange ideas….
You operate with the terms establishment and underground while i am using more the terms of institution and initiative……
And while you ask for a dialogue on an institutional level, i would ask more for a dialogue on a high quality level (the term professional i definitely would try to avoid)
—An institution I would define as applied idea ( an idea that was created somewhere in the past and that gets used now and institutionalized)
—An initiative i would define as something I create, as an idea in the stage of appearing and incarnation, in the phase of the emergence
—In the meaning of initiative i don’t care too much for the establishment in art and society.
—What I consequently try is, to aim for a high quality level in art and alldaylife (what others think about me in art and in society t don’t care a lot)
—In Switzerland as an example the art critics publish officially with the terms in- and off-scene….. In their eyes i act with my art and life in the off-scene, of course.
—As i said, i don’t care too much about these definitions. But i do consequently care about and challenge myself to realize a high ethic quality in art and life without making a big noise out of it.
—I want to realize my vision of art and of life. That’s all. I think my art and the shape of my life as contemporary design, even if it’s estimated and recognized just by few at this moment. Not only the ears of humans need to be served, but also those of nature and the whole cosmos (don’t you think so too?)
—I think that between the attitude of preserving and institutionalizing something created in the past(establishment, institution) and the willingness to implement ethics through the creation of something new(underground, initiative), no dialogue is possible:
It is not the relationship of dialogue, but the relationship of incompatibility and the struggle
between them, which demands our alert attention day after day!
What do you think about, Stefano?
Have a good day
Was nice to talk to you.
Heyer
(I hope my English is not too bad)
8. april 2018
Hi Heyer!
Your English is perfect to me!
I am writing on my phone today.
I am in the countryside for Easter.
Attached you have some Easter vibes.
To continue with our conversation:
I understand your point, it is clear and does perfectly make sense… I agree with you, quality matters… even though I can’t really tell what I consider relevant in art, and what not. *2
It is all a very personal matter… This is what I like the most about art: nothing can be said to be good, and nothing can be said to be bad.
I prefer to consider everything irrelevant. Taking this in consideration, I shouldn’t even ask questions about underground and institution or high and low quality levels… It doesn’t matter… What is relevant for others may be irrelevant for me, and the other way around….
We live in a filtered society, we need to be very stubborn and conscious, and sometimes flexible about our personal opinions. We need to protect them from trends and from today’s so fashionable identity-group ideologies. Quality is a personal standard. It is important to keep this in mind. As you say, it is important to be yourself.
Institutions and biennials do not mean “quality”. They are just another product of another network promoting matters relevant to some and irrelevant to others… Even the Art-history thought at school was built in this way.
How can we “trust”, without questioning?
How can we judge the value of culture?
I make an example:
Last week one curator from the Kunsthalle Mulhouse came to Cluj to prepare a show about Romanian Art. [ boring from the concept ]. Her tour of Cluj was planned by one very well known curator and one gallerist from Cluj. Only the two of them. Of course, they addressed the lady-curator only to the studios and galleries they wanted her to see and promote, leaving the rest of the galleries, and project spaces out of her possibilities.
Now: What kind of Romanian art show can this be?My answer? NOTHING. Or a distorted view of what one specific group of people wants it to be.
The only thing of this “attitude” that I find problematic is that most of the public does not know clearly how this things work.
The public believes in institutions without questioning their position, and still considers them the places where quality nests.
On the other hand, underground initiatives remain foggy.
I like to think of a different ”place” where quality and irrelevance, institutions and independent initiatives can work together. I like to call it „Otherground“.
Art is a personal nondemocratic matter, and this is its beauty.
Curious to know what you think.
Big hug
Stefano
14. april 2018
Hoi Stefano
You are back from your countryside Easter journey?…..i am just back from CH…….was at the funeral of my mother 2 days ago……..family affairs…….my mother maybe walks now saved and astonished over clouds, who knows……i guess she is fine……thank you for your prompt mail, stefano……yeah, let’s talk:
You ask yourself what is relevant and what is not in the art, that you see it as a very personal choice / matter….in my perception i do not divide art from allday life affairs. Myself, i see art as a consequence of the existence as human being…So I tend to ask the question of relevance basically to the human being and not to art. As i said, art is a consequence…I think in the terms of cause and consequence. And for human life i don’t think that what one is doing is irrelevant…in the biography of the self-responsible human it is not irrelevant what one is doing. Because of responsibility we are challenged to take good decisions in organizing everyday life matters. We have to be aware what and why a certain situation is a good solution.
We are challenged to guide ourselves for the good and to argue for the good of society (including our own life). The good I would define as ethic argument that almost always contradicts with popular arguments….I distinguish two attitudes in the art. The consequence of ethic argument is one attitude while the consequence of popular argument is another attitude …In my view it is relevant what direction your life is engaged in. Art is the consequence of the artists’ values in life…..
—To the argument of being systemically pushed by the actual art system to function as piles of robots rather than individual beings I would ask you: do you want to protect somebody from that? why? what for? Aren’t they adults and able to analyse this themselves?…..
—To the argument that the public still trusts institutions…..and this is what you find problematic, I ask you: Do you really want to protect the public from this problematic? I think either they are stupid or not, and when they are stupid then you anyway can’t help them…..
—To the argument that you like to think that you do your work to challenge the status quo; to demonstrate to yourself that art is irrelevant outside its own borders I argue: maybe we should not protect the public from problems but to make as artists the thinking about these problems part of our art pieces…….
What do you think about, stefano?
Have a good weekend
Bighug
Heyer
14. april 2018 (2 hours later)
Dear Heyer,
Today I am writing to you quickly on my phone from my studio.
I told you about it, I have a space into a bigger space where Radu’s, you met him at Arco Madrid, studio and Sabot’s storage are located.
See photos…
About our conversation: I understand what you say. I didn’t flush my romantic side down the toilet… I agree when you say “art is part of the person who makes it”. I take what I do very seriously, I am only skeptic about the value and importance attached to it by the system. All the fabrications used to justify it. It’s very cynical, I know.
To be honest, I am ok with it. I consider this attitude an important element of my work: it is my paint on the pallet… I don’t want to change people and systems, everything is weirdly interesting as it is… When I say art is irrelevant I mean it. Art, outside the art system is irrelevant. The MAKING, the process, everything is relevant. I think more and more of the art I make as one background for everything happening around or generated by it…
Does it make sense to you?
I like when you write about “organizing things” and I like your concept of “making”.
I like to make things.
Big hug
Stefano
18. april 2018
Dear Stefano
Thanks for your guiding tour through your studio surroundings and universal artists’ cosmos…Looks great (like home)……
—Yeah, the art system as object to deconstruct is part of your artwork
—And yes, i think so too, the MAKING of art is relevant……and yes, also this is my view, the final artwork is irrelevant once we put it out from our door….
—What you mention with: I think more and more that the art I am making is only a background for everything that happens around it or generated by it…….i would mention as: Art is to be realized as object to think about…yes, like this it does make sense….
—Attached I send you a pdf from an actual work that I showed during the Art Rotterdam Week at Open Studio Borgerstraat and also a pdf of the publication
„Fourth Edition Borgerstraat“ (booklet and newspaper format)
wonder what you think about,
Bighug
Heyer
22. april 2018
Dear Heyer!
Here I am, thanks for sending me photos of the installation!
I really enjoy the work! and it is interesting to see how your words about art and life melt together in it.
Curious to know why you choose those particular colours in relation to one specific age, and about the public reaction to it… Did they really install and rearrange the work?…
I am always skeptical about the public.
I don’t know how much I like to engage with the public, not directly at least. I like the distance between art and public. As much as I like to talk about myself in my works.
It is my way to make my art being me and not something demanded by the viewer.
“I’d like my work to, yes, ‘show’ something, but I want it to be me and my incongruent interests and processes all together instead of a clear display of general subjects interesting to others. I like to think of art as something close to what we are and not to what we want to represent.” *3
This is what makes sense to me…
A big hug
Stefano
2. may 2018
Hi Heyer!
How’re things going there… Did spring come to Rotterdam, anyone naked on the street? Ducks having fun on the river? Smell of suncream?
Here is quite warm, I like it! I just made coffee, and I am working a little bit on that book I was writing you about…
This week I should also meet with a group of art history students who are coming to Cluj from around the Country… It’s funny that people asked me to talk to them.
I do not know what they are expecting from me.
The only thing I’d like to tell them is to not look at art for what it is, and to not look only to the art they are fed with by teachers, magazines, blogs and phones…
I’d suggest them to look first at the structure that brought that piece of art they are looking at in front of their nose.
And to understand, as clearly as possible, what they are looking at… [Mainly the product of a structure rather than the product of an artist.] *4
Big Hug, maybe two
Stefano
20. mai 2018
Dear Stefano
Another busy 3 weeks are over……and, hello, here we are again…Here in Rotterdam as well as in Ticino Switzerland it’s a kind of ever changing weather from cold and rain to periods of temperatures like summer the last 3 weeks…How are you in the meantime ?
You have found a way to print your book?…You have had an interesting discourse about how to read art as an art historian?…
—I like your proposal to them, to see art at the very first as a product of structure and not of an artist’s geniality, and to start a discourse always with the question how and why a piece of art gets put in front of their eyes, whereas other art pieces are not shown…
Maybe it’s interesting to communicate to them the fact that there
is A) institutionalized art and there is B)a socially committed art
that embodies the will to engage, or lances something of great importance
that must not be forgotten and to point to the corresponding examples in
the history of art….or to draw their attention to the fact that with Aristotle already a long time ago a social discourse has begun that formulates the fact that society is always divided into 2 sections. A) a section of the majority that propagates a popular institutional direction and B) a section that per se is always in the minority, pursuing a philosophical direction in the form of initiatives…
I think it is always helpful for young people to understand the present in a longer-term mode. In other words, that they understand problems and phenomena of art and society of the present as problems and phenomena that were already known and discussed in earlier centuries.
Hey Stefano, have a good day
Would love to drink a coffee with you, yeahhh
Heyer
13. juni 2018
Dear Stefano
I guess my mail landed in your spam? ……How are you? …..How is your project of printing your book going on?
Have a good day
Bests from Rotterdam
Heyer
20. juni 2018
Dear Heyer!
Goodmorning, and sorry if I answer just now…
I was in Arad for a literature festival where I was invited to read some of my „poems”, and then to Basel for a week with Daria for the Fair…
I must say Liste and Art Basel disappointed me very much… I don’t know, maybe it›s because I am used to Cluj’s relaxed / out of world atmosphere or something.
I am not against the market, as you know, but the run to “self-importance” made me feel out of place… We came back to Cluj yesterday night, after a 24 hours’ drive, by van, with another discussion with Daria, who says that I need to use “social media” more *5… Maybe she is right. But these discussions about the importance of Instagram’s posts annoys me very much.
I send you a big hug. hope to do something
together soon…
Stefano
27. juni 2018
Dear Stefano
Here we are again……How are you? You landed well in Cluj in the meantime? And what about your today’s work? or thinking?
—I sit in my studio… 3 o clock i will meet kathrin w. (from former sils project). We organize the guest artists for the open studio show during Art Rotterdam 2019 and initiate a next Borgerstraat publication for that purpose….…..There is quite some communication work to be done these days….
—The weekend we were in Zürich and Lucerne to meet friends and see different shows……..In one of them one of my sons graduated in graphic design…..On this occasion, I also met Pascal Schwaighofer, who was on his way to the USA to do a PhD in art and science. Of course you remember him.
—Monica is suddenly successful with her jewellery design after all these years,
she does a good job and finds resonance in some top places at this moment (a big hug from her)……
—Your story about Art Basel sounds quite sobering, i hope you don’t lose your humour about that, and that you do not start to doubt too much………or is this hard for you, this criticism and commercial failure ?….
—To be visible in an offensive way is also not what i like………….I like to be visible in the way that someone finds me when one seeks…. So I see an encounter as something mutual. I see an existential encounter as something reciprocal, in which I am looking for what is looking for me (what can be a situation or a human being) (and art the way i see it is existential )…
—I do not believe in the economic doctrine of offensive visibility at all but i do offensively defend the slowness that is systemic, aimed not at egocentric but reciprocity….
—It follows, of course, that I have to earn my living with part-time jobs and money from sympathizers who actively support my path of art production and thinking….
In my view, an artist should get a basic income to really be free for the work that wants to be done for the good of societal development in a long-term mode….
—What are your plans and steps regarding your visibility that you want to realize next, Stefano?
With a big hug
Heyer
28. juni 2018
Goodmorning Heyer,
we arrived in Cluj some days ago.
I was wondering about your lines and the market and the exaggerations of the system we work in.
Even though we like to feel romantic, art was never an “only romantic matter” as it never was distant from cash…
money allows us to work and produce.
Art Fairs are not THE solution of course, they are not bad nor good, they just are what they are: flea Markets. I don’t have anything against them. What I cannot stand of art fairs are the people who orbit these events. I don’t like their self-important attitude, and I include on the list any kind of people, especially artists [ the worst ].
It’s a cat walk where curiosity and interest come out very shy, in small little groups.*6
What about art?
I don’t know… as I told you, art is a very vaporised word, means everything and nothing…
As I told you in the other email, it is important to look at things from a different perspective:
What I am saying is, again, we cannot pretend to run away from the system because we don’t like its rules.
If we want to be very good chess-players we need to build our own alternative rules within the traditional rules of the game and become masters. *7
I am a caricature of myself, and I like it. It makes me feel ok [ I’m not selling high values or deep contents in my work ] what I want my work to be is myself, my doubts and convictions, and my stupidity all together.
BTW.
It is great to hear that you had good time travelling!! photos please! photos! And I am very happy that Monica is doing great with her things!! send her a big hug from me!
she is very good and passionate in what she does!
big hug
stefano
15. July 2018
Dear Heyer,
It’s 1 in the morning and I am writing to you on my phone.
The keys are so little at 1 in the morning …
I also like our conversations and I am curious about the social side of it. It is a very interesting subject, especially because I don’t understand it.
Art is an excuse,
this excuse gives us a reason to talk about things, art things, and other things.
The only relevance of art lies in its irrelevance.
I am repeating myself, but that’s what I do better; I don’t like talking about generic subjects in my work because I don’t like generic subjects, and because I don’t have anything to say about generic subjects. You know what I mean… art is such a generic subject, and generic subjects sell well.
Doubts… that’s the only thing that makes art interesting, not problems, not solutions, but doubts. That’s what I have to offer.
What do you think of doubts? *8
22. august 2018
dear stefano….how are you?…. melted away in the high temperatures of summer?
i spent the most time in the shadow in nature, close to the waters and in the darkened house or studio…….
crossing yellow burned lawn areas in parks on my way to the studio i often had the question of your last mail in mind: what do you think about doubts?
I like your statement a lot, saying that Art is an excuse, and this excuse gives us a reason to talk about things, art things, other things.
I am sure that finally this is the point, art as reason to think about what ever, with other words, to protect the world from being seen just as a technical, functional challenge…….also to protect us from being too sure…..or, to use your terms, to protect us from being without doubts……
I think in terms of old greek philosophers, noticing that real relevant knowing(about what ever) always goes along with the field of not knowing (that keeps us in the mode of astonishment and saves us from scientific arrogance in what field ever)…
doubts maybe keep the things mouldable (and save them from getting too fixed and controllable)…..
I guess that we do agree in this question
—still then there are differences in our art and life praxis asking for discourse and invite us to move thinking for this purpose……this is the beautifulness of differences, they ask for discourse and conversation…..
—me, as an example, I always think in scientific terms of the unfolding of history…mainly in the history of consciousness…I have my reasons to assume that human history in long-term is the history of developing the tools (mental, artistic,social,handicraft etc) for
individual based self-responsibility to realize an ethic based individualism (you also could call it respect-based individualism or how ever)
—trying to find a way in developing tools for the purpose of this is what I go for in life and what is the base of my art
—to me it seems you are also concerned in the societal, but in a different way also your art relates to the social, personally as well as societal…..but differently staged
—how you would describe the relation of your art work to the social, stefano?
or how far there is no relation towards the social but the works’ interest is just in the existence of itself? *9
big hug from rotterdam
heyer
23. august 2018
Hi Heyer!
Goodmorning, it’s very nice to read from you.
These days I am staying in the studio working and listening to old Italian songs from the 60. I like them very much especially this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aErvx90Ls-g
you were asking about my relationship with social… I have to say I am an antisocial person. I don’t like “everyone”.
Art, as much as any other form of “communication”, is social by nature, it relates to the viewer, listener, reader, whatever, no matter how many they are: one or the entire society.
But I don’t embrace art-as-a-social-work. I don’t like self-declared “social art”.
My question is, how does this kind of art relate to society?
People say “art is the mirror of society”…
I say Bullshit.
Art cannot change society only by reflecting it.
Society should be the mirror of art, if this does make sense. Only then art would matter something more than it does now.
“society is the mirror of art”, that’s what people should get used to say.
Art is not a society changer and it never was.
It might sound “conservative”, and this is exactly what I am when speaking about this subject, formally and in terms of engagement.
Let’s be honest. What are we looking for really?
Why am I saying this?
Because the main relation we have with the public through our work, happens on a “direct fruition” level first. and this level is aesthetic.
Sorry if my examples are a little bit messy, but to put it simply, it’s a relationship based on immediate “like” or „dislike”, “curiosity” or „indifference”. It’s important to like and dislike things, there’s nothing wrong with it. There is no need to be educated to understand art. It’s the fact that we like and dislike things that makes them happy, that makes us curious or indifferent towards them.
“Popular” is not always good. “Things” in general need to be liked and disliked in order to be good… And if I dislike something I am [ somehow ] making it good…
have a super nice day
stefano
23. october 2018
Hi Heyer…. how are you, what time is it there?
2.30pm Here.
On Sunday Kimi Räikkönen won the US f1 grand prix. It was the best race of the season. Fantastic.
I had various conversations with people about art in these weeks, all of them useless and not to the point.
I ask myself often if there is something very important I should talk about when I talk about art? *10
Triviality is my answer.
I want my art to embarrass me. When it does, I am proud of myself and happy.*11
A big hug!
Stefano
24. october 2018
dear stefano
It’s nice to know that you are there………i have not forgotten you at all…….. it’s just that my program is too busy these days……..i hope for november, to continue our conversation which i like a lot……..
until then big hug
from a toooo hot Italian part of switzerland (OnArte. building up the exh. on photography3)
heyer
Heyer Thurnheer
Heyer Thurnheer is a contextual artist and organizer of contemporary exhibition platforms and (art and societal engaged) discourse initiatives such as OnArte (CH) and Borgerstraat publication collective (NL).
Stefano Calligaro
Stefano Calligaro is an artist, racing-driver and quasi-poet based in Cluj-Napoca and CALLifornia. According to Calligaro, the difficulty of art lies not in its complexity, but in its irrelevance. The fundamental attitude of his work is the act of questioning itself: questioning art’s appearance, its morality, its aesthetics, its functionality, its usefulness.
http://www.galeria-sabot.ro/index.php/exhibitions/stefano-calligaro–petanqfuck/