Scarica | Download - art a part of cult(ure)

I also wanted to create some kind of documentary sculpture, merely acknowledging the
fact that these places do exist. Maybe by presenting them as sculptures instead of
documentary photos I could heighten the sense of reality, or affect, in them.
F. L. – Can you tell me how much important was the residence at Brodbeck
Foundation and what kind of relation you had with Catania city?
C. A. – Before I first visited Catania, for a meeting with the Brodbeck Foundation, I am
sad to say I didn’t know the town existed. Now I do, and I grew very fond of Catania
during my residency and I plan to return regularly. In Catania, the mix of history and
modernity is in full view, which is very rare in a country like Sweden, for example. This
made me very aware of the concept of time, and I liked that a lot.
What the foundation is doing I feel is very important to a town like Catania, where the
input and production of contemporary art seems limited. Giving artist the means and
freedom to present contemporary ideas is brave and in the long run fruitful not just for the
foundation, but for the town as a cultural platform. Hopefully this trend will spread in
Catania and to the rest of Sicily.
F. L. – I like to know what role has the artist in these present days?
C. A. – The artist is a human being and art is his/hers chosen profession. What role this
person plays in society and in history is determined by its actions. You could work as an
artist in silence all your life and still be extremely valuable to the (cultural) society, or you
could shock the world by making an installation with 1000 dead puppies and force your
way into history. What matters is how the world now and later perceives your actions, and
how this is interpreted. Values, roles and judgements concerning art have always been
made by society surrounding the art and the artist. This is why the role of the artist keeps
changing, just as society is constantly changing.
Personally I think art could function as a non-space, posing questions instead of serving
answers. This non-space is not asking anything in return from the viewer, it just is. In a
commercial world where almost everything presented to you demands a favour from us
(to react, to consume, to progress), art can in its uselessness function as an important
air-pocket in a ship slowly sinking.
F. L. – Two of your works are about archives. Do you think that the value of
archives is going to be aumented rigth now?
C. A. – With a society where everything is scanned and stored the role of the archive
system is growing by the second. Everything we do is recorded (by ourselves and the
systems surrounding us) and we have a strange feeling that this is a way to stay alive. If
you update your profile on Facebook daily, you prove your existence to people around you
but mostly to yourself. We rely more and more on the Internet for information, an archive
of enormous proportions. At the same time we are secretly being tracked, filmed and
targeted in a much wider sense than 10 years ago. An increasing number of liberal laws
concerning personal surveillance force our acts and movements into more or less open
archives, and all this is done with our help. We just don’t want the archival system to
vanish, that is the sole reason for its dominance in today’s society.
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F. L. – Three steps to Rockefeller
presents five artworks that need
critic and theory support. Do you
think that art should be
understood without a support or
without explaining?
C. A. – I make art reflecting on topics
that interests and concerns me. I am
trying to present my ideas with enough
visual impact to keep a viewer
interested in my line of thinking. I do
believe that my exhibition in Catania