ART Habens Art Review // Special Issue

ART

H A B E N S C o n t e m p o r a r y

A r t

R e v i e w

HANA JAEGER MAKSIM KUZNETCOV DORIA SHARRA JEAN-MARIE GUYAUX ANTE KUSTRA HAIM LEVY DIEGO BERNASCHINA MAX LEACH ALTERA ART COLLECTIVE

ART

ART

H A B E N S C o n t e m p o r a r y

A r t

R e v i e w

Haim Levy

Hana Jaeger

Jean-Marie Guyaux

Ante Kustra

Doria Sharra

Israel

Israel

USA

Serbia

Israel

United Kingdom

Sculpture is a very wide field, and as an artist constantly looking for excitement and renewal, comes the moment when the artist in me also tries to deepen and understand that the woman's body is a source of inspiration for most of the world's artists, without mentioning famous names. The artist in me is attracted to discover the hidden body of the woman, and create something new every time I approach this kind of creation. The creation of " Temptation " was created with precise work on details and precision that I often dislike, but the importance of accuracy has increased in my work in art related to the woman's body. That an artist like me deals with art, sometimes I deviate from the general and accepted, and creates from the heart.

Talk. That is what I do in my paintings. I tell a story, short and simple, true and sincere, devoid of flowery language and superfluous words. We are so familiar with all the things that exist here and now in our close surroundings that they are taken for granted, sometimes not worth a second look, certainly not worth painting…freezing moments devoid of splendor yet, in my view, sufficiently important for me to paint them bustling with life…glorifying them, bringing them to the forefront and highlighting them. With no cynicism or overt criticism .I am "celebrating" the injury.

And, like in expressionism that has brought to the fore the underdog, the anti-hero, the weakling, the lonely, the afflicted and the injured – I gaze and peep at people living their life on the margins, imbedded in a concrete expanse, situated in a personal limbo, lacking facial details and imbued with low-level and antiheroic prosaic features.

For over thirty years I have been shooting editorial and advertising work that runs the gamut of still life, fashion and celebrity photography. As an artist I am fascinated by the domain of New Media Art where the few thousand pixels image of the original maker are subverted to such transformation that its original content or genre will only be serving as a construct to a new physicality. My series of iconic imagery originates in the raw data of a picture that is manipulated and distorted via non-photographic software so as to reappear as a new layer of pixels and create an abstraction leading to the reinterpretation of the visual imprinted in one’s memory. By confronting the present, exploration of past and future are left to the imagination.

My installation entitled: "My favorite prisons" and consists of several objects, dimensions variable (approximately 3 x 2 x 1 m). One object ( "Modesty") stands on the gallery floor, and three ( "Paradiso", "Vanity Fair" and "Finally freedom") on the gallery wall, above the other objects that are placed on pedestals of different heights (80, 100 and 120 cm ): at its highest is "My most favorite the prison". Items of which the objects are made in the form of geometric sculptures: cardboard boxes for shoes, Styrofoam, filing, wooden picture frames, cages for birds... The tension between the objects and poor materials with the theme expressed by (the fundamental emptiness of human beings and pathetic effort which is trying to fulfill or camouflage) produces a voltage in spiritual space of installation, a dose of humor and self-irony that space refreshes and makes it easy. In my artistic work gladly use this juxtaposition of metaphysically hard and physically light; my vanity is whispering than that my aRTsceticism leads to arte poWera.

Like an Elvis impersonator who knows full well that his fantasy is his own creation, yet the reality of it stays fresh and vivid in his mind till the very moment when he releases his body from the tight suit that became known as the rock legends second skin, my work explores the thinness of the line that we tend to draw between real life and fiction. I believe in the subversive power of pleasure, whether it is derived from beauty, humor or sexuality.

Employing such artistic tactics as appropriation and parody, my work is at the same time deeply committed to traditional drawing and painting practices. My practice is intensely involved with the theme of transformations and fluidity.

By using real life stories and images, my work explores the means by which drawing and painting can be used as performative tools, which allow for imaginative interpretations and alternative narratives to penetrate existence, in an attempt to claim reality as their own.

In my work I always try to find answers for existential questions like: is there beauty and joy in our lives?; why do we enjoy living if our strongest memories are of negative experiences?; what is the meaning of life itself?. I see human life as a sequence of emotional states (mostly negative) that we can barely comprehend and make sense of them, drifting from point A (birth) to a final destination - point B (death) which awaits us just around the corner. I tend to think that moments of happiness are so rare & elusive, unsustainable and deceiving - yet are so needed in our lives - that we seek the meaning of our lives from them. If they are carved out from one's experiences then nothing but blood, despair, misery and emptiness are left. I am trying to look deeper in these states, dissecting them, and represent them in my art. The ultimate question I want to answer can be phrased in the following way: Is there an ethically justified place for us conscious human beings - in the existential climate of our perceptions of life, the very meaning of life? Emotions and experiences linked to reality, in their purest forms, are my subjects of interest, which I try to express through abstracted figures.

Agustin Ciarfaglia

In this issue

Max Leach

Haim Levy Ante Kustre Diego Bernaschina Hana Jaeger

Jean-Marie Guyaux Maksim Kuznetcov

Diego Bernaschina

Vered Snear

USA

Chile

Israel / USA

In my work I always try to find As the artist, I have been answers for existential questions investigating the ways in the like: is there beauty and joy in our social art, focusing on at lives?; why do we enjoy living if social reality, where it’s our strongest memories are of negative experiences?; what is the interpreted as the prejudice, meaning of life itself?. I see human the disinterest and the life as a sequence of emotional disgust towards the states (mostly negative) that we communicative perception, can barely comprehend and make sense of them, drifting from point and their different creative processes of the artistic A (birth) to a final destination point B (death) - which awaits us production: paintings, digital just around the corner. I tend to art, photography and think that moments of happiness videoart. In this respect, the are so rare & elusive, unsustainable and deceiving - yet question of art, from the are so needed in our lives - that we social and cultural. It may seek the meaning of our lives from therefore be concluded that them. If they are carved out from the question from multiple one's experiences then nothing but different angles is that we blood, despair, misery and have failed to come up with a emptiness are left. I am trying to consistent message. From look deeper in these states, there, I can see and feel that dissecting them, and represent them in my art. The ultimate the work of art is a possibility question I want to answer can be to demonstrate this, to phrased in the following way: Is question our way of view, to there an ethically justified place for us - conscious human beings - interrogate the gaze in the the artistic behavior, it’s that in the existential climate of our perceptions of life, the very you can get a critical meaning of life? Emotions and approach to our ways of experiences linked to reality, in perceiving the reality before their purest forms, are my subjects of interest, which I try to express the excluding world for the art. through abstracted figures.

My artistic practice is rooted in the observation of the construction of my identity in relation to the constantly shifting cultural and political landscape of Israel, the country in which I was born and raised. For my generation of Israelis who grew up during the late 80’s, as the country transitioned from socialism to capitalism, from zionism to post-zionism, the zionist dream was challenged and criticized, and a previously embraced dominant narrative of nationhood and cultural pride was put to question. I experienced this transition through popular media: television, movies, magazines, etc.

It impacted me deeply and lead to my current critical perspective how ideological frameworks impact not only the society we live in but our very own formation as individuals. I am committed to explore at large relationships between media and ideology, to challenge dominant ideas and to better understand representation as a tool that articulates subjectivities, bodies, affects and desires. Working in video, photography, performance and installation, I use text and visual language from popular media such as YouTube, news broadcasts and TV as source materials for my work.

Maksim Kuznetcov Doria Sharra Izabela Mašić

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Special thanks to: Charlotte Seegers, Martin Gantman, Krzysztof Kaczmar, Tracey Snelling, Nicolas Vionnet, Genevieve Favre Petroff, Christopher Marsh, Adam Popli, Marilyn Wylder, Marya Vyrra, Gemma Pepper, Maria Osuna, Hannah Hiaseen and Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Edgar Askelovic, Kelsey Sheaffer and Robert Gschwantner.

ART Habens

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Max Leach

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Max Leach Max Leach (b. 1993, UK) is a Visual and Media artist working and living in the UK Max's practice encompasses a post media approach, enquiring society and reality, taking in site, installation, performance and online platforms, with which to he uses to navigate issues of identity and anthropology in relation to behavioural cultures and systems within the post internet era. Leach examines thePost Ford-ist society via exploration into service culture and screen cultures. He aims to create arresting work that reveals the absurd and uncanny within societal norms and systems. Engaging with contrasts between the perception and physical experience of space in his video sculptures and installations. An exploration of diegetic and nondiegetic sound his work evokes the spectator’s relation to their surroundings and the virtual.

The role of the institution and environment is always something that I’m conscious of, as it’s the point of dialogue for artist and spectator. As an artist, sharing a creative environment for many does promote a fluid and effective work ethic, but I believe a hands on approach is more productive. I like utilising my time and resources to investigate and research, standing around in a studio

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Max Leach

‘Umming’ and ‘Urring’ whilst everyone is telling you how good something is doesn’t help me. I’m more interested in what’s shit about the work so I could do something about it. I make artwork from experiences, whether that’s backpacking with a camera or simply walking the dog, its those experiences of the everyday where I conceive my work. I find personally that doing is better, reminding myself of this by remembering to “shoot first, ask questions last” the original quote may be from a ‘Waka Flocka Flame’ song, but the same rules apply, and this way of making disables the cultural substratum.

Occidentalism for example manifested itself from experiences I had during a residency program in Thailand. Using the available materials and sounds I had a much more minimalist approach to making, this divide of cultures challenged me as an artist and I had to adapt my methodology to the environment, and question the ways in which I relate myself to Art and filmmaking in general.

textured and tactile surface, influenced by a lot of the structural films in the 1970’s.

A constant investigation into society and reality lies in the underbelly of my practice, but this investigation is sourced from identities and the developments of people, culture and society. These themes connect a lot of my work together but the most obvious interlinking aspect has been my style. My manifesto of making gives the work a

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Max Leach

ART Habens

state of globalisation within Thailand. This became the leading concept for most of my residency work, due to the obvious influence and mimicking techniques. The making of Occidentalism involved taking an obvious aspect of their society and turning it on its head, having to adapt to the environments resources and shooting a series of products that would be familiar to the spectators but with subtitle differences, to convey the attempted translation to successfully

Occidentalism’s origin initially begun as a response to an artist residency in the village of Sam Rit Thailand, being exposed to the culture of rural Thailand it was a great way to uncover hidden ideas and the contemporary

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Max Leach

illustrate this autonomous aesthetic. Showing the contemporary production of globalisation, by using marketing strategies to attempt identification and representation of the western world. It exposes the Eastern attempts to mimic the ways of western culture, to promote themselves to the media lead ideology that westerners lives are considered ‘better living’. It also questions the use of this autonomous aesthetic, as there are a lot of different religious, social

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and cultural differences that in this case damages the authenticity of culture over time and cause offence to some.

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Max Leach

ART Habens

this is sometimes deliberate but I try to never encourage it, as I find a political point of view isn’t appropriate or relevant to the subject matters I deal with, as my subjects are sourced from the by-product of a political standpoint. I try to use universal subjects and imagery for the audience. I see art as just an instrument to expose an object, idea, emotion and concept in different mediums that make it a communication tool, or in my case people have said an abstract warning sign.

I fine the relationship between sound and image a difficult interaction, sound intensifies the visual and can magnify and focus the attention towards a chosen aspect of the work and this is why I exploit it so much. My methods of making sound is to utilise it as a primary starting point when it comes to structuring anything, I prefer to build a narrative from the sound first and then this provides a guide for generating visual media.

Immersion is very important in my work, there is always a push in the development to evoke the spectator’s virtual relation to their

My work contains a lot of sociopolitical criticism both visually and theoretically, and

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Max Leach

surroundings, both movement within the work, and the transgression of different media. I want the work to be able to stand in its environment, in-group shows I want it to be the loudest, in cinemas I want it take control and either in a gallery or on a monitor I want it stare down audience. An example would be a film called Taste of Oxidation, a film that enquires into reality and society; it is constructed through sequenced fragments to create a mosaic montage. Transmitting the work to engage between the perception and physical experience of a space, creating pollutant visual within a cacophonous environment. I have used the public spaces a lot in my work because my work investigates the everyday, it should be projected back into its original environment for testing.

I have my films on forums such as 4chan, video networks and even porn sites, I want my work to confront the audience both in galleries and online, attacking them from where they feel most comfortable. My films deal with a post Internet era, online platforms, screen cultures and need to be made available to the mobilised spectator, I don’t want the work to be obnoxiously restricted to a gallery because its categorised as art, the work is a message more than an object and is most effective, shocking and revealing when you come across it browsing your favorites “teen anal compilation”.

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Max Leach

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Max Leach

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Max Leach

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I don’t think the role of the artist will change but I believe the growth within communicational technologies will adapt the role of the artist. Taking a more independent managerial position, as well as a creator.

These days through technology you are able to reimagine what is possible with both the context and material platform of ‘new media artwork’.

In response to Angela’s quote I imagine building work like building a fire, there is the build, the spark, the burn, the flames which becomes the spectacle, but its the ashes that remain after the spectacle where the real work is conceived, the sour taste in your mouth and hole in your stomach that the work leaves after you’ve left the gallery, often due to a change in an event, time or development within the concepts.

I support this statement within my theory of my work, I see the role as not only to reveal, but expose the truth of certain situations and concepts. Sköll was an interesting piece to make, as I took as director rather than creator. I was in Thailand for a month long residency and whilst filming the locals from the village I approached them to collaborate in making a sculpture from left over building materials from a small hut down the street.

Through the nature and environment there was a dialogue in the making and

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Max Leach

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Max Leach

ART Habens

understanding of the work, even if it was through broken English.

As I crudely exampled earlier, audience reception is a crucial component but not necessary. Whether its online or in person, as long as the work is in a space, then its doing its job, people can walk past the work and ignore, but you can’t escape the sound without interacting with the piece in some form.

I have a lot of projects in the works for 2017/2018 involving the development of my research into spectatorship and some larger print based projects at the end of the year. I have also been travelling for a couple months now and I’ve been using these opportunities to investigate and explore how moving image is used in other cultures.

Thank you very much for this. :) An interview by and

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, curator curator

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Haim Levy

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video, 2013

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Nance Davies

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Haim Levy

have helped my father in the field of carpentry, which was his profession, and here the issue is definitely existential and real survival, and helped in the basic existence of the family. This field is very technical and imprints in me a stamp and practical capabilities alongside the development of three-dimensional vision. From here to art, the road is very short, And found myself trying to find and categorize any complex object to

Hello and blessings to abens, Since I have known myself as a child, I

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Haim Levy

give shape and some of the elemental elements. The leading artists you mentioned did indeed notice my abilities and taught me how to combine technical knowledge into art and thus I was more restrained and creative in both artistic and style perspectives. In a modern and communicative era like ours, my Israelian wandered and met external worlds and was influenced by them as well. It is true that in my youth I was hidden around the local art, but soon I was exposed to the international art world and wide fields. The first area where I develop is painting. And from the very beginning I find myself moving from a realist base to paintings that have parts of form and complexity in which I enjoy and "swim" in the fun.

In fact, everything I created at the beginning was very realistic, apparently this is the way of every artist, to go through the real world and find his truth, but I quickly became fed up and bored.

I have created a direction of thought for myself, every object and form can be moved from their natural place to the point of a new position, which is not necessarily logical and obvious.

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Haim Levy

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Haim Levy

The idea from which I drew strength to create was simple: A kitchen knife for spreading with a round tip and not dangerous at all, in a pastoral painting of objects in the kitchen that include this knife, creates a pleasant atmosphere in such a pleasant and sweet painting. In contrast, the knife that is not threatening to be drawn close to a person's throat makes the painting very threatening And not at all pleasant. So that any object in a situation other than the normal can give other influences to the viewer in the work. In fact, all my work in the field of painting in the beginning and in the field of sculpture later, was done in advance pre-work, sometimes sketch or writing and even deep thinking.

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The sculptures you mentioned, indeed stemmed from a deep thought, about how to give another dimension to the work, for example: A Women's profiles, the clay sculpture was carefully done to the face of a gentle queen without hair (as the Bible tells of the ancient Egyptian queen "Nefertiti"), and then I just spread the clay into equal slices, the clay slices became worthless, Instead, I moved them on the depth axis. What I got was a new figure with a number of expressions or faces, so simple but very complex. a sculpture "carved" in wax to reach the image of a dancer in an irrational position, even though the male dancer holds a dancer in the air, it is possible that every minute the dancer will fall because of the unnatural and logical position. Thus, the observer "seems to be waiting for the moment when the dancer in the air will fall, or he admires the famous dancer with his dancing skills.

During the painting or sculpture of the work, changes were made even until the completion of the work in which I am a happy artist and ready to sign the work of art.

My art includes works from the realist field, in which a change is made and a twist that makes them modern and contemporary. Not all of them are clear and absolute, but they were made in a modern artistic spirit. I always think of the viewer as an art consumer, how he will feel and what he should receive in return for taking part in my art, since without a viewer who understands art, the artist has no real feedback and can not stabilize his own style. Of course, what leads me is my inner truth as an artist with a modern realist style.

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Haim Levy

ART Habens

That's exactly the point I'm looking for in almost every piece, to give it a twist. To give a simple and obvious element, a twist and thus to become something else

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Haim Levy

ART Habens

in the viewer's mind even after he has finished seeing the work in the exhibition or visiting the gallery. Indeed, the viewer has great importance in the life of the artist, and my opinion is directed at all the artists in the world, the viewer creates criticism that makes the artist rank on his level, in relation to the relevant art and fields. The greatest artists in the world were ranked as breakthroughs by critics and art lovers, the artists themselves created the magnificent works. But if these great artists were living on an island or far from civilization, their art might never have been exposed to the world, and the breakthrough would not have occurred despite the existence of the works. In conclusion, the viewer must come out with an impressive experience that will bother him and make him think again about the work, sometimes it is easy and sometimes have to give a lot of explanations and interpretations of the work, and here I try to let the viewer get by alone, the situation may be interpreted by some viewers completely different. It is possible that certain works do not create any stimulation and enjoyment for the viewer and here the artist must understand his artistic status.

In my opinion, this is also part of the art.

Any viewer can interpret his own creativity much better than any artist, especially when the work is interesting and stimulating.

that is perceived as unreasonable or controversial. My conceptual stimulus is created both in the mind of the beginning of work and in the process of doing it itself. The idea in the specific sculpture "The Butterfly Woman" is based on the figure of a woman who opens her hands wide, the figure is connected only at the foot of her foot to the base, the delicate balance of the woman's position creates calm and gentleness. The woman in the figure sets aside her head gently, as part of the same peace of posture.

Until this moment, I found myself burrowing and searching, what is still lacking in the image so that the "twist" I wish to pop up ?, and so I thought, a butterfly or a bird are creatures that suddenly pop up and sit on the edge of a branch or a flower. This is what I lacked in the figure, wings, and then the connection between the human and nature comes up, that is what attracts the viewer's eye. I guess that's what I wanted from the beginning, but it was revealed to me only in search and creation.

As I mentioned in the artist's statement, I try to give the viewer an unforgettable and special experience that will remain

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Haim Levy

ART Habens

overnight that crosses continents.

Everything that is learned "yesterday" is no longer relevant "Today", young artists are looking for new cheap colorful and contemporary art, which will break the borders these days and not after their deaths. In this sense, I think of myself as traditional and classic in my opinions, but at the same time looking to break boundaries that will create a style identified with my works, that every viewer will feel a thrill of love and anticipation of seeing more. Although I crave figuratively but I try to drag my style into new and bold new areas. All the time between design and creation in clay is designed to improve and create a unique style of my own.

Sculpture is a very wide field, and as an artist constantly looking for excitement and renewal, comes the moment when the artist in me also tries to deepen and understand that the woman's body is a source of inspiration for most of the world's artists, without mentioning famous names. The artist in me is attracted to discover the hidden body of the woman, and create something new every time I approach this kind of creation. The creation of " Temptation " was created with precise work on details and precision that I often dislike, but the importance of accuracy has increased in my work in art related to the woman's body. That an artist like me deals with art, sometimes I deviate from the general and accepted, and creates from the heart.

Every piece of my work I research before and after: Did I meet my own requirements? Have I advanced to the desired style? Do I get real feedback from the audience and viewers? Am I on the right track? Yes, I am sometimes sinful and captivated by realistic and real charms, and creates exciting works that evoke love and sympathy. This can be seen in the following works: Dancer in the wind Disappearing woman Dancer on one leg Love These works are part of my learning process and the foundation of my personal style.

The new age in which we live, the media and the Internet create exposure

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Haim Levy

ART Habens

the show in exhibitions or galleries. For example, in my last sculpture series, I created 9 sculptures that express movement, emotion, love, kinetics, relationships between characters, ideas, balance, stigma, etc. The sculptures were made in the studio and were not exposed at all.

As an aspiring artist whose works will be exposed to the audience, in the literal sense of public spaces and of course museums and galleries. I have no doubt that this task is difficult and tedious that requires investigation and total investment in art and creativity. In such a thought I created the following sculptures: Detach from reality Lincoln Puzzle Bootlegging Thoughts Woman's faces Artist's self portrait Constant exploration and search for excitement and innovation are the property of the artist in me.

The local audience (including my friends from the social networks) are very fond of the series, and I enjoy an encouraging audience, including these days, when I expose another sculpture every time.

Recently I try to present in international exhibitions around the globe, Miami, New York, Malaga Spain, Italy and of course Israel. I'm researching new ideas for a series of future sculptures. I am considering accepting a proposal to build a monument. I seriously think of combining painting with sculpture. I am engaged in art with all my strength and energy, as long as there is breath in my nose, I will create art.

The audience is indeed an important component of my recognition as an artist in the local and international community.

Throughout the interview I mentioned that the audience is important to any artist who declares himself an artist. On the other hand, my investigation as an artist is private and personal in the studio where I work.

An interview by and

, curator curator

The audience is not part of the creative process but is an indirect partner, after

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Lives and works in Split, Croatia

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Ante Kustre

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video, 2013

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Lars Vilhelmsen

4 03

An interview by and

, curator curator

My study of World's literature and sociology in Zagreb, and my specialization in Montpellier (relations between literature and film) had relatively minor influence on my later artistic work. I have to say, my studies in Zagreb had influenced my work a bit more than my Montpellier experience, especially four film semesters at my literature studies, where I learned to delve deeply in movie structure and analyse it critically, and that was particularly needed as counterbalance to my inebriation by movies that I’ve wildly enjoyed since my early childhood. In 70-ties and 80-ties, I’ve used to watch averagely 150 films per year and I kept detailed evidence on each movie as well as each book I read (40 books per year). I guess I

Ante Kustre

am the only Croatian who read Joyce’s “Ulysses” and Dostoyevsky’s “Idiot” three times. In these times, I was a “double addict” inclined to casual “literature and film overdoses”. Nevertheless, every addict should face the reality shock eventually. Mine occurred in 90-ties, when war in Ex-Yugoslavia started and Croatia got overwhelmed by anticultural and anti-intellectual mentality, from the bottom to top of its societal pyramid. Many books became politically inappropriate

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Ante Kustre

overnight, removed from the shelves or thrown into garbage bins: some due to ideological reasons, (ie Marxist literature), and some fiction just because it was published in Serbian language. My personal response to these general attacks to books was series of performances in public spaces in which I burned inappropriate books: “Pretty books, pretty flame” (as a paraphrase of the movie “Pretty village, pretty flame”). I sold books by kilos in performance “Liber – libra” and thrown them into the sea “One book per capita piscis”; and in the performance “Fahrenheit 451” I glued the red plastic folium sign “F 451” near the door of the main bookstore in Split ( which definetelly closed, few weeks ago, as last one bookstore in the town!). .In these years, poverty knocked my door strongly and books from my own library helped me to survive – I used to sell them in antique shops when I ran out of money. As you can see I am fond of flashbacks in my narration, but I need to get back in my answer to your question; actually to Zagreb, which was culturally a very alive city, in the European context, and I was “provincially” hungry.

Shortly, I was swallowing books and movies in Zagreb, music and paintings. But I didn’t get fat and my taste stays the same: I still love fat) books and slim women. Zagreb was also the first place of painful rejection and no recognition of me being a visual artist. In that time, hyperrealism was in its peak of popularity and in the bottom of my personal taste.I came to an idea to make a hyperrealisms’ exhibition of portraits: using framed mirrors of different sizes! I would have exhibited one auto-portrait: I would be standing, one to two hours, in the gallery in front of one mirror. There would be a group portrait with the dog too: before the big mirror, I would have tied the dog and the group of spectators would see the group portrait. I presented this proposal to the curator of the SC Gallery, which was a salient spot of contemporary and experimental art at the time. He refused my idea with the explanation

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Ante Kustre

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Ante Kustre

that it was just a wit, and I left with my ashamed..

turned to the nearest kiosk with newspapers, not being aware why I was doing that. When I told the seller the name of some daily newspaper (that I never buy before) like hypnotised. Camera in my mind was shooting all of this from above, and the cameraman was

A few months after this trauma, something weird happened to me while I was going to the University: in a second I stood as frozen,

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Ante Kustre

asking why. When I read the foto-news from the world, I learned the answer: some American artist exhibited mirrors of various sizes in some Los Angeles gallery ( or it was San Francisco? ) and achieved a great success.

The last sentence I read:”All mirrors were sold out for enormous prices” almost killed me. I came back to the very curator and showed him this news. He explained stammering, “I know if I had approved your idea for exhibition, I would have been called cunt, and you’d be labelled crazy”. This guy was never crazy courageous for such move, and I was and I am still – as an artist – bravely crazy ( which I proved right many times in years to come later, trying to communicate my world ideas to creation provincial audience ).

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somebody’s excellence. But we were more East than West in that time.

At the end of the day, I can say that my artistic production and style was the mostly influenced by inner and outer Split experience. I became fully aware of that since 2003 when I moved to my atelier, located in the heart of Split, in Diocletian palace, in other words since I literally live in the split of Split. I actually and factually became a central split-artist then.

Therefore, Split as such is actually my central artistic idea, following by few others: eroticisme, lonelyness, identity, roots, shadow... Split is the city of extremely intense, even painful contrasts of too intensive light and strong darkness, as in physical as well as metaphysical dimensions. The life of artist in (irregular) square of Diocletian palace (that is actually the stone womb of Split ) is constant drama. So the artist always needs “to solve the mystery of squaring the circle”. This is eventually the mission impossible, but with assistance of some supernatural power, it's possible.

I experienced Montpellier like “French Split”, but of course on higher level. My french experience helped me to step out from the film critique to the role of film director, in similar manner to French New wave authors, who were initially film critics in Cahiers du Cinema.

After my return in Split, I co-directed my first short feature film, based on my own screenplay, “Da capo al fine”, 16 minutes long.

This film fully had a documentary approach, and spectators realized in the ending credits that it was actually fictional movie construction. If I remember correctly according to my knowledge and memory being a film lover, that quasi documentarist approach was the first in Ex-Yugoslavia, and even wider. In my case, to be the first one in something meant to be the last in my own professional niche. There is a custom in the Balkans to punish all those who lead or protrude. The colleague of mine, the film critic, who worked in the same newspaper as I did, intentionally cut down my debut in his entire article, except in the first sentence (unintentionally) where he said: “In the crowded cinema Golden Gate the film projection was held….”. Objectively observing it was the big compliment to my artistic charisma: to fill up fully the Split cult cinem” to the last seat, with my de-facto experimental film: in the eyes of every western headhunter it would be the evidence of

I’ve been living my personal inner split, which was necessarily manifested under the pressure of outer one, in form of the conflict of my name and surname, of spiritual and biological, upper and lower, heavens and earth: either Ante or Kustre!! That’s why I put two exclamation marks. Alternate victories of one and the other were Pyrrhic victories: neither of these two was strong enough to defeat fully the other one. That exhausting state of inner war lasted until 1999, when at the opening of my collage exhibition “There is no Split like Split”, the manager of Croatian National Theatre Mani Gotovac (theatrologist and writer) said loudly: “London has Gilbert and George, and Split has Ante and Kustre“! That was a formula I’ve waited to start alchemic process of my synthesis: Ante and Kustre,

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three of us with &!!! That’s why I put three exclamation marks. During the following years, I really became „United Split Artists“ ( shortened form: „USA“ ). Mission Impossible Accomplished. That process, understood metaphorically as very long and complex sentence, got an exclamation mark at the end – it was my solo exhibition (the one before the last) “SPLIT HAPPENS”, that I posted last year in male and female toilet in one of the wellknown Split restaurants. As far as I am informed, no one ever exhibited in such place.

My transformation of the restaurant’s bathroom into the gallery was radical step in the approaching of contemporary art to conservative public.It was also an act of protest of the postmodern artist in pre-modern society, which treats contemporary art as toilet paper, and with it cleans its dirty ass, when it’s really needed. Thus, it is not surprising why Croatian society suffers of constipation.

world history of wars, one war ship was shelling the city that wears its own name.

Hence, everything is connected and awareness about that should keep our conscience and feeling of responsibility awake. It is the most applicable on artists, as “life imitates art”, doesn’t it?

Everything that happens in western world happens in Split as well, but I dare to say that everything that happens in Split consequently happens in the world. Or it's a sign of what will happen elsewhere. For example: we had Trump before Trump, few years ago! It was the major of Split, Mr. Kerum, who is same type of personality as Mr. Trump. He tried to become the major again, few weeks ago, but he has lost the election with a thousand votes of difference . His slogan was: “Yes, I can again”.

I started to make the documentary “Citizen Kerum” before five years but I was stopped Indirectly but brutally from his then deputy. My movie is paraphrase on “Citizen Kane” and I’ll show – at its end – what is “rosebud” of Mr. Kerum. I hope to finish shooting and editing this year. Living in Split, as you see, is the form of performative arts by itself; similar to tennis matches of Goran Ivanisevic, which were not only tennis but also performances and uncertain drama until the last sets. Just after he managed to overcome his inner split (because of which he used to lose even certain matches), he won Wimbledon tournament. If he didn’t shine as a star on English grass, he would have been (psychologically) swallowed

by Split’s darkness – there is no middle options here! Either we are overexposed, or underexposed; either our eyes are dazzled by sun reflections coming from the rocks and sea surface (reflections sharp as Roman swards), or we are step or two further, already in deep shadows of the narrow streets of Split.

Art could be a purgative as it helps societal organism to digest, although it keeps art as indigestible. With my next exhibition of graphics „LOVE HAS NO AGE“, in the end of last year, my new artistic life has started, which was preceded by my artistic death in the toilet. Split audience, eventually understood “SPLIT HAPPENS” exhibition as my public suicide. However, I interpret this as final compression into the point of great density, prior to explosion (of Supernova?! ). I see split everywhere: between rich and poor, between obese and hungry people, between South and North, between Ulay and Marina Abramovich, between words and actions, promises and fulfilling the promise, political elites and masses, ideologies and practices and after all between EU and UK. According to this, split is the biggest world problem; problem that expands and deepens before our eyes wide shut, threatening the humankind with total cleft and self-destruction ( total split ). What happened in Split yesterday could happen to the world tomorw. What happened in Split in early 90-ties was that ship destroyer named “Split” bombarded Split. For the first time in

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Nevertheless, the Dalmatian Sun stimulates lucid and critical thinking in talented individuals; innovative and concise expressions in all media, as well as radical conceptual approaches and humour, particularly black humour (the bold son of Split night). Split state of mind: either you are a

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genius or lunatic (genius loci or degenerated and dislocated one)!! Anyway, they are twin brother; genius differs from lunatic because he knows what to do with his craziness, and lunatic does not know what to do with his geniality. Nowadays, it is the most difficult to

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meet someone normal, balanced human being: a question of balance is the most important question of the world ("The Moody Blues" anticipated that long time ago). People of Split are by definition, unbalanced, and there are more and more tourists from all over

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abstinent, but it was a time when split dominated over me and not me over it.

the world in Split every year. Thus, there is more and more split people in the world, and it is worrying. British journalist and blogger Natalie Chal , in her interview in daily Split newspaper, claims: “Split way of life will become the world hit!” What makes happy ordinary people and tourist workers, concerns me as an artist.

Most of my pieces of arts are expressions of my concerns for future of my city, society and world as whole. And for future of myself and other Split artists. Political structures in Split treat us like suspicious elements, sometimes like traitors or just like parasites. So, we are the last minority in the state which has no protection and which is marginalized and underestimate completely ( as we are some kind of Jewish people ). People in Split uses, by centuries, the name “Get” ( which means Ghetto ), for almost all living space in Diokletian’s Palace. So, I am living and working in the conditions of Ghetto, which is not surrounded by wire but it is by massive and high ideological and financial walls. Maybe from this experience came out unconsciously the idea for the installation “My favorite prisons”?! Or it's time again for the refrain of the Elivis Prerslery's song „In the Ghetto“?Anyway, since I was a child, I used to feel the world as disintegrated and that explains my constant need to glue its parts in collage ensemble. This life delivers me on daily bases plenty of materials for various forms of artistic connections and binding, which frustrates me as a man and makes me sad, but on the other side, it stimulates me as an artist.

Objects and materials used in my intalation/s I found not searching for them: on the street, in the flea-market, in the containers … When you are consiously looking for something the worst thing that can happen is that you really find it!

Then you are in the danger to become the master of your piece not seeing that you are a slave of your idea from the beginning. Then your art piece starst to be framed by the borders of your concept, which nurtures your tyranny. In that kind of approach and process there are no surprises and happy conidencies , nor for you or for the consuments of the art piece. In the relationship between me and the found object/material a certain affection ( need, sympathy or love ) is necessary; that material wants and needs me (to prolong its life) and I need it ( to intensify my artistic life) .

Recognition, of which there's all about, happens in a part of second, in there is no palce for consciousness (it comes later). So, there becomes a vibration of the unconscious that decides which object I wil take in my atellier. I love to call those objects „“ les objets retrouves“ because I have a feeling that I had to lose them first to find them again in the right moment. Sometimes happens to me that (fe in the work „My last prison“) the fusion of the two objects from different galaxies/conetxts conjuncts them into the new unit/text almost already after finding them, and sometimes it takes even years to get to the real match (like for the series of the collages „Just another wall paper on the wall“, for which the matrials I found in London 1997 ( near by Charity cross). So emerged object I call "ready-made in Split". Installation “My

My artistic process is preceded by accumulation of all these painful stimulants, sometimes until the edges of my endurance.

So, in these moments, there is always some trigger or some drop that overflows the glass and there is no other way for me but start working. I admit that before such moments, I try to find some other easier way out but, sooner or later, I accept my artist’s duty and enjoy in it. In my younger age, I used to oscillate between “arto-holic” and art-

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favorite prisons” was created in a small bang: after connecting of the mirror and the bird cage, the inner flash showed to me all my favorite prisons and I recognized them, half finished, in my studio. So I turned my sleeves and grabbed the job.

My self in that process I experience as a mediator that mediates among different objects and makes their wish come true – the one for mutual fusion. Surprises that I come to refresh me and make me connect things even more. I like to talk and to write about serious problems in an easy and funny way, fluidly.

Therefore I use cheap and rejected materials and thrown away objects to art-upuncture the neuralgic points of the collective body. That playful relation of the easy and heavy, low and high, temporary and lasting etc. Gives me possibility to maintaning inner balance easily, which is always threatened more or less on this unstable teritories that generate historical, collective and personal, discontinuums.

Because of so much sharp edges, breakups and splitting (which are here the product of a social and political enviroment) I always come back to the technique of a collage, since my adolescence. You have to always and again stick together all those piecees of the ripped reality. For dadaists to have something to paste, the butchery of The World War One had to fall apart before that. After the end of Yugoslavia in a bloody war neo/dada knocked on the door of my atellier and I had to open them. It came to show me that my life is happening between two wars: World War Two and its sequel here in the 90ies (or it was World War Three - small size?). In the 90ies I made an exhibition of collages „Stop smoking War/lboro“; too much smoke from war devastationing was in front of my eyes so, wanting to make myself and others cry of laughing, I arranged an audition of exhibits by principle – who offers less! When the situation is too serious and the pressure too tough, humour give me wings to fly above that what pushes me down.

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Someone said ( it was one German theorist whose name I forgot) that an artist you become, and like a critic you were born. I'm the son of the mother of all critics ( to whom the mother of Marina Abramovic looks like Tito compared to Staljin ). So it was inevitable to become sharp film critic, whom rarely titles could satisfy („My mother was never satisfied“ – Prince). The story about my mother's influence on me in my chilhood exceeds with its weight and deepness well known story of Marina Abramović about her relationship with her mother. The consequences of our similar raisings, under the shining Red star, therefore are of the same caliber, with that that she extremely worked to become planetary popular, and almost the same amount of effort I took to stay hidden ( diving in my blue submarine ) and limitedly mobile ( living in Split-isolation). She decided to be in the mainstream after all, my choice was to swim in the painstream. That way needed to be: the queen moves in all directions, around all chess board, while king can take only one move forward-backwards or left-right ( as I move myself in Split ). Marina really is the world queen of the performance. She quiets: "Artist is present", Ulay says: "Artist is absent" and I am between the, as split-artist; so, I am present and absent. To be absent is sometimes the strongest way to be present.

So, the title of my next performance must be "Split artist is present and absent". Critic component in my work is the one of the constants and varies from the open one and

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radical to camouflaged and subtile; the first component meets antiaircraft bursts here and the second one goes under the radars of the middle. Beuys's advice: „ Show your wounds, artist „ in me it has found strong „Yes“.

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Showing – through the artistic works and actions – my wounds to the society that caused me them, I face it with that picture of itself. Our souls still have a lot of old wounds of history, especially in the Balkans. Many of

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them are not cured and new ones are already opening up. This burden of the past is hard pressed collectively unconsciously, so the artists are obliged to consciously dismantle their society: to bring all this suppressed and traumatic into the light . Playing to be an alive mirror I risk the aggressive social reaction. Sometimes it causes boycott of the social institutions and media but also more heavy reactions: refusal of the financial support to my works.

One graphite was on the wall of one Split's monastery: „Art has no alternative“. Like D.J.Toumin says: „ If you are looking for hell, ask an artist where it is. If there is no artist, you are already in hell.„ In contemporary society art has the lead minor role: to say all that leading actors (politics, ideology, religion, science, business) can't, won't or doesn't know. „Art is always something else" , says Croatian artist Josip Kozaric. Its spiritual mobility makes her look like God's spark. Sometimes it is invisible, although before our eyes; and sometimes it is absent where said to be in. „Time is more than money“, as I stated on one T-shirt from „AK-55“ colection (which is a label composed of my initials and my birth year), and time will show what art is and what we only thought it were. It knows to be the guardian of truth and beauty, critical thinking and expression, anticipation and warning (ie Articipation), but also a whore ( saint one?).

Siren's call for money and business is very seductive, and many artists do not resist it and start dancing on the dictatorship of the market.

Gloria Moure, a renowned art historian from Barcelona ​(who recently visited Split, where she was to exhibit Jannis Kounelis), says: "I think the art market is completely crazy and harms art, but worse, and culture as a whole. Culture and art are values ​in their own right and they should not be reduced to cash equivalents. " Split had impressed her, as she said, "with specific beauty, specific story and specific history". The fourth specificity derives from these three; this is the specific art of Split artists, and I see it as the fourth dimension of this 4D city (small but very thick, condensed). Because of treatment from the capital Zagreb ( in which all political, financial and cultural power is centralized ) and its

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geographical eccentricity, Split never represented Croatia on some important international exhibition, except for one; at the Venice Biennale in 2005 ( when Mr. Zlatan Dumanic was but one of six of the team of Croatian artists ). He lived near me in the Ghetto and died last year. It’ s Split's artists experience: the authorities reveal and acknowledge us and society accepts us after our death. In the meantime they help us to die as soon as possible. Just as this is written, the war for the living space of the art association " Adria Art Annale ", which the owner of a hotel recently constructed, who took away a whole room (of course, unlawfully, as usual here), and the entrance to it was blocked by a concrete wall of 50 cm. Members of the association tried to return their room by demolishing that wall (in the form of collective performance), notifying all local media and video documentation development regularly on Youtube, inluding the recent conflict with the hotel owner. In the force of their legal arguments he was backed by the arguments of force, ie two steel rods in his hands. So some blood is spilled. Marriages between ravenous capital and corrupt politics bring up children predators who, vithout scruples, attack the weakest but they are very surprised whenthey come to a smart-art and strong resistance.

In a society of spectacles and global overdose of informations and sensations art is sometimes the oasis of calmness, contemplation, healthy asceticism and deeper consciousness. In every case it is all that for me; sometimes more this, sometimes more then. But as you see, this position is endangered by greed and aggression from the social environment. They are particularly pronounced here on the eve of the tourist season; when they scent the smell of easy money and the normal ones turn into predators. My atellier I feel as not only the shelter from the too noisy and agressive world of , but also as a spiritual womb, from which I am constantly born from. During Split salon 2016. atellier was exhibited as the work of art, as 4D instalation ( in 4 rooms, with around 400 exposed artefacts), in which you shold spend 4

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days and nights to really see in whole, in all it's four dimensions. Still there hasn't been an artist or a custodian or the art-lover that would dare to experience that, but my call is still on.

to the antagonistic forces, so he is constantly obliged to choose between truth and lies, actual and apparent, authentic and surrogate, real and imaginary ... The authentic truth and the truth of authenticity are not imposed on man, they are only offered to him. Such is the art, it is offered to everyone, being exposed to the risk of rejection and disenchantment, and freely accepted by the one who wants it.

Dostoyevsky says that beauty would save the world (when people stop believing in truth and goodness). I believe that he was thinking of artistic beauty, because natural is already created and is self-renewing. In performance "Art must be beautiful, the artist must be beautiful", Marina Abramovic is saying something similar, and I am trying hard on both of these plans. Beauty is nutritious! I know this from my own experience; when I'm surrounded by the beauty, I almost never feel hungry; and when I am surrounded by uglyness, my appetite becomes too strong. Contemporary life has, in some aspects, become so ugly and empty of real meanings that it is no surprise that there are so many overweight people and bulimia. Art has also other powers: to change and to health: Quantum beauty photons penetrate us and make us more beautiful and healthier inside.

To me life is unimaganable without art, and I also believe that without it human life cannot be what it is. It just wouldn't be called human. Lets remember who is the only survivor in a Stanley Kubrick movie „ Odyssey 2001„; astronaut who draws, in his free-time, portraits of his collegues in hibernation! Artificial intelligence of evil omen, computer HALL, killed all other members of the crew, except that Artonaut. So from Altamira to space-ships and galactic travels, the art is the priceless companion to a human, and who talks about the death of art talks about the death of the human. Its sliding on thin ice to only being design or just another sensation in the society of spectacle carries danger of death.

But the art won't die at least while I'm still alive!

And afterwards will still live because: „All people are artists, except Mr. Joseph Beuys“, as I ironically found on the shirt. On the other hand, I do not believe in the democracy of art, so I express my attitude to the slogan " ARTISTOCRAT" on the other shirt. This was also my reaction to the degrading status of contemporary art in Split and Croatia too. I wanted also to remind myself and colleagues about the dignity of our vocation. Artistocrat may be poor but can not cease to be artistocrat;, it is a question of spirit, talent and decent value. His arte poWera derives from his poWerty.

The world became so media-centered that the borders between reality and its representations are blurred. It is as virtual really exits, it alternates more and more, and people are more and more in the virtual worlds, so seductive with their ease and speed. It is as if massive, spiritual migration is happening in a virtual way, gathering more and more people's attention, so that „real“ is becoming neglected and therefore abandoned; like a garden that has lost the gardener's attention. Today "Datapeople" as I caall them ) is all around, disconected with the Nature, look at theirs screens what is natural for them. They will not recognised the three in the fornt of their eyes, they'll see and understand only the images of it on the screen. Recently, a very sexually-styled girl-robot has been constructed in Barcelona, which can, during sexual intercourse with her,

An endless way up and an endless way down is open to a man. I think that man cannot make a step forward in physical dimension, without metaphysically jumping upwards beforehand.

Otherwise, he is sentenced to go down and backwards because standing on the spot is impossible. In his liberty, man is always exposed

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show what she wants you to do, how to kiss her etc. It is a radical product of the trend to replace a man with his robotic copy and as such is inhuman, because it ultimately expresses the attitude about the man as something outdated and redundant.

Perhaps it has to be that way, perhaps a man must really reach the very end in the process of selfalienation and self-abolishment, so that, being just at the edge of the abyss that necessarily opens, he could return to his original, authentic being. I see surrogate as a seductive bridge between existence and nothingness, one is free and the other is paid, so it could be said that, the smaller the actual human need for it is smaller, the surrogate is more expensive. It seems to me that the fear of the own freedom and authentic living is the deepest reason why the various surrogates have such a massive response. By using them, people feed their own vanity, the illusion that they are the lords of their lives and destiny. By playing with these two levels in my works, especially in collages and photo collages, I try to warn myself and others of the dangers lurking on this path.

Yes, I have several. A few years ago I printed the "Brothers in Arts" T-shirt and shared it with some of my colleagues Regularly I use the most democratized media of expression in my art, for example: as an installation, at the exhibition "New slogans for New age". Louis Bunuel, Sam Peckinpah, and Akira Kurosawa are my older brothers from the film world. Humor and the surrealist process of first, master editing and recording of the same scene with multiple cameras of second, the poetics of movement in the frame of third, are my constant inspiration and the guidepost. The younger film brother is Lars von Trier, with whom I share this range of complete artisticity of the film form (his debut "Europe" ) to his dirty approach to shooting at Dogma principles ( fe "Idiots" ). As hommage to the oldest conceptual brother, Joseph Beuys , I will perform this summer the performance "How to explain the art to a living Croatian politician?" Marina

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Abramovic is my older sister with whom I agree in most cases; fe her work "Art has to be beautiful, the artist must be beautiful." Barbara Kruger is first cousin, with whose work I discovered some conceptual similarities to post festum - after I've made a lot of collages with text messages. I'm very close to the sensitivity of Tracey Emin: at Adria Art Anal 2002 I introduced the installation: "Tracey, I'm comming! ", as a hommage to her ( reffering espoecially to installation "My bed" ). During my working nights I listen to music, most often the voices of Scott Walker, Jacques Brel, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, Amalie Rodrigues and Mercedes Sosa, guitar of Pat Metheny, the trumpet of Miles Davis, the acordeon of Al di Meola ...... The piano miniatures of Eric Satie have been discovered in my 20's and have been following me ever since, captured by the gravity of my melancholy. Since the early Dadaist influences I have never tried to free myself. Magritt's surrealistic, stiff-looking compositions and human figures depicted from the back can be found in my photographs and photo-llages: and I have recently noticed the discrete influence of Kurst Schwiters on my assemblages. From the contemporary I am closest to Maurizio Catellan for hir provocative humor and playfulness; This man really has a nose to sniff the right theme and problem.Of Croatian artists, I have some touch points with Boris Bucan and Mladen Stilinovic. I share the most time and the biggest part of sense for humour with my friend, split painter, Jadranko Runjic: our spontaneus verbal perfomances are the sweetest delicatessens on the Split intelectual menu.

collage 15 years ago. Maybe I use them fairly often for fear that I will lose ( what I'm so inclined to do)?! Behind the symbols, there are always great stories, some important narratives, and this is perhaps the reason for their avoidance in today's artistic production. This is the time of small, personal stories and testimonies, the time skeptical of the great words and gestures that have disappointed us so many times; We all float today - or swim - in the ocean of signifiers without the significance.

It's OK but sometimes we need the symbol as the lighthouse, especially if we get drowned. I think symbols always remain, sometimes invisible, somewhere in the background of other layers - psychological, metaphorical, narrative.

In composing my individual works as well as in introducing more complex entities, my aspiration to narrative is obvious, sometimes - I think - too much, but it is deep in my nature that, in whatever medium I am, at the end of the thread, I tell a story. To say something worth telling. Probably this stems from the influence of literary and film narrative in my artistic formation. But sometimes it does not make sense to me, or I have no one to say , so I am silent then ( like in performance " White Silence " at the Almissa Open Air Festival 2015 ). Zadie Smith says that autobiography has now become the main determinant of all artistic expressions, not just literature. I am inclined to agree with it completely, and how would not I, when my work was so soaked with autobiographical content.

"The Symbols Show The Way," that title of an English journal Ihad cut out and glued to my

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Yes, art works in themselves contain something mysterious as it is open to change and which is gradually growing in front of our eyes, almost like something organic Or it is about growing up and about the artwork as a spiritual mirror in which we see how much we have grown up in the meantime and changed our perceptition, understanding and sensibility. sensibility. This may be due to the fact that his work surpasses the artist himself. It always contains more meanings and layers than the artist's intent and awareness involves. It is a very interesting and refreshing experience to me when faced with some of my old works, so I can see how new and current they are right now. They sometimes resemble the letters or postcards I sent to my and collective future consciousness, which took 10, 20 or 30 years to reach the address and be read and understood. It is surprising and inexplicable to me but also fascinating and revitalizing.

Creating something that did not exist before and in a new medium, or a combination of media, always leads to a sense of happiness, anxiety even. This living child in the artist is delighted with the new toy, the game itself, or the good result in it. It should be; artists are still enfantes terribles, right ?! An adult in the artist, with knowledge and experience, will often come to terms with reconsideration or deconstruction of an already existing one, which by his overwhelming moment mumble and provoke new combinations of old codes.

So in my opus there are a lot of hybrid creations: verbal, pictorial, photographic ...

Light, hilarious, and fluid freedom in the postmodern society, where everything goes (to put everything in place?) is too seductive to resist her. So, I turn to the global supermarket of ideas and signifiers but never come out of it with a stuffed basket. Measure matters!

Sometimes I also play the role of ekleptic; the hybrid of Picasso's "real artist who does not borrow but steals from other artists" and kleptomaniac. I do that for easier, because one of my motto is, "I will accept every good idea, even if it was my own." But at the end of the work process, I see that my originality always

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comes out of my work, as a source from the earth. This clean water is the most important!

The role of artist in today's society has and has not changed, as the world has and has not changed. The artists have become far more mobile, their visibility is greater and the amount of art on the planet has grown enormously. Thus the conceptual work of the Croatian artist L Galeta " Noart Earth Day", made 2008., makes a lot of sense today, though it was not recognized or supported yesterday. New technologies and media have enhanced the possibilities of artwork and their reach, enabling everyone with creative potential to express themselves, eg filming a movie on a cell phone! So that the world is today reloaded by artistic events and festivals.

And now, we have a serious problem: artists are threatened with the risk of superficiality (due to surfing on the surface of things and phenomena) and losing their main role in playing somebody else's role (such as the role of sociologists, anthropologists, researchers of everything ). In short, this horizon of art, ie horizontal art, has become the line of the dominant trend, and the vertical art is blurred.

The new sensitivity, what it meant, opened up to a multitude of partial but no less important topics, but also global as ecological, and it’s OK. I would say that it is a huge influx of ethical dimensions into the field of aesthetics and that is good as well. But you should not lose the aesthetic dimension of art. The beauty from which one can die (as the Croatian poet Tin Ujevic wrote) but which also revives.

Sometimes I say, to joking with someone, that as an artist I have “ A revival license: 009 “.

My friend with the nickname Rabbit, who is a top mathematician, occasionally recites Shakespeare's verses in which, even then, with genial artistic intuition, Shakespeare describes the space strings, black holes and much more that quantum physics has just discovered.

Rabbit jokingly calls me Quante and I replied: “ I am not Shakespeare, I am not Dante, I am just Kustre and Ante”.

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works come to them without redundant cargo, that necessarily arises when it’s too much of thinking about oneself and about others. It’s best to think only about the work as it is created. The love that the artist has for all people makes, invisibly and silently, that his work is embraced by others. Or rejected.. Art, like love, does not impose itself. It is accepted. Or it is not accepted…

Maybe I'm a old fashion artist and maybe I just put an "art maker" under my name in one of four types of business cards. I like it, it reminds me of shoes maker, movie maker, of someone who does something concrete and necessary or, at least, fun and profitable. It seems to me that whatever and in whatever material or medium I work, it strives to become art or, better to say, it is transformed into art. Only then I quit with that work. And when I was writing film criticism, they were incensed towards an essay or a short story or a hybrid of that two. In the last stage of film criticism (driven by this inclination) I called my section in the newspaper "Reading the Movie". I have to say I had no problems of understanding and acceptance of readers, on the contrary. As a film critic I was just thinking minimally about their taste and expectations, just adding in my text a bit of a spice that came to the their palate.

Not then and especially not later, in my professional art stage, I never really wondered if my work would be accepted of somebody and whether they would be most understandable to anyone. I did not even care about it; with my work I want to satisfy only the actual self (in which the critic never sleeps, only a little bit shivering sometimes ). Even more of that, I want satisfy one, imaginary and ideal Reader/Spectator. It seems to me that all of my art letters and postcards are addressed to His/Her address. Of course I am satisfied (more often in last time) and happy when they, by the way, meet and others people who communicate with them, enjoy and appreciate them. I am inclined to explain these happy meetings of my works with the audience just because I do not even think about it in advance. That is why my

Summer 2015 Special Issue

First, in the coming month, I will complete the "Adult Picture Book"; art - book of 110 collages on black paper, measuring 35 x 25 cm, in which I have covered all the hardest and most lenient social and political issues (most Croatian, but also European and worldwide), all the burden and garbage that the medias daily deliver. And which I can not and I do not want to consume, even reading only headlines and watching photos. I just composed all of these collages (using newspaper titles and photos), with a large amount of black humor, passages of visual poetry and conceptual folders, defending myself from their poisonous content. The collages I have mounted associatively-surrealistically, so that they can be viewed and read as a film that is listed. The line of the fabula is snaking but has a clear beginning, a jazz crescendo and an unexpected, poetic epilogue. When I finish, I'll be delighted - and then look for a publisher in Croatia for printing it. In September, I am waiting for the solo exhibition "NEW ARTIST IN TOWN". It will be my most complete presentation so far; four sections ( “Nation In Transition”, “Re/think Market”, “T. Sex" and “My Favorite Prisons"), four media (collages, photos, video and installations), four gallery rooms and four heteronyms (as my discret hommage to Fernando Pessoa ). For the 40th Split Salon I make the performance "ADOPT THE ARTIST", in a lazy cage in the abandoned Zoo on the top of Marjan hill above Split. I hope that by the end of An interview by , curator the year I will be able to complete the recording and editinig of the film curator and "Citizen Kerum". And then, when it's all over, catch the writing of the

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video, 2013

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Diego Bernaschina

Hi, thank you for interviewing me, and it's the first time the interview not Spanish. First thing, in the life of higher education in Chile was not easy. For a long time I have dreamed of being a visual artist when he was a kid, but before entering the study, I decided to choose the graphic design. However, it would be difficult to obtain the working world. They didn't serve me for anything at being a professional designer to support the inclusive society at that time. Finally, my parents had taken decisions to enter that private university at the Universidad Tecnolรณgica de Chile INACAP (INACAP Technological

University of Chile in Spanish). So I started studying the Pedagogy in Arts and Design during 5 years of studies. After graduating, it was a long road and difficult to accept a new life of artistic education towards a role of the inclusive teacher.

Then I postulated a Fondart Scholarship to continue a specialization study of design, since there was in several software programs of digital art. It served them a lot to benefit the artistic programs when the Macromedia and Adobe companies decided to merge. That

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Diego Bernaschina

complicated me to learn a good designer.

That's why I needed with more experience of artistic education. Save time in the physical work to create in various projects of graphic design and multimedia. Subsequently, I took a small course at the Universidad de Los Lagos as a good apprentice of coding to create the art on the web.

That's why I learned in many things about the life of social exclusion in Chile. The life’s very hard to reflect on my own works of art, since I was not prepared to expose my aesthetic criteria. It was a bad move to be an incapacitated artist, that's to say, he didn’t opt to include a role of visual artist on the artistic trajectory. It was a low profile, always it was removing the reality towards an elite art or the culture of the reputation; but give importance to creating the own work of the imagination and free thought. Almost all the life that it observed in a malaise with the political situation, poverty, marginalized, social discrimination, labor impediment towards the social diversity. That's why, I came up with the idea of projecting images over the video art to manifest and interpret the social reality so crude. Thus a paradigm change in the artistic and social context to improve the people living on the miseries of everyday life.

creates its thinking about the problems of today's society in Chile, of course, the portraits of inexplicable memory about everyday life.

Only my mind’s recurring to produce in different proposals, observing it my own works.

Very difficult to speak the readers, especially artists, curators and critics, without having a word about the shared work. For many of them have an unstable relationship. Not always to have a good quality of projects dedicated by

This’s about an approach of different projects dedicated with the social art —also with relatively environmental art— such as painting, digital art, photography, video art and web arts. So my mind always plays and

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the social art. But neither the best projects so creatively and originality. Impossible to achieve a new production of author. So I’m an educator through art to connect the need to reflect on social discrimination. I have seen with many works of Chilean artists that they link the history of the past. I can't clear that up and they’re very sensitive. That’s why I’m not interested the history of the past, but I’m concerned about the future to improve the

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cultural life. Thanks for the course of the Diploma in Aesthetics and Philosophy of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, I learned the new things of the philosophy of art and aesthetics. It’s too demanding of the study of aesthetics and philosophy in art about the relationship of the human being throughout the world conditions to the history, and it influences in the art. Thanks my mentality changed completely. So my

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mentality should change an artistic approach to be able to reflect a new project in the future. However, the life of the arts was not enough to recognize a good prestige. In fact, my work facilitates a greater need for register and show the finished works. Also the publication of articles, essays, monographs, etc., whose relationship with a social context to understand the importance of "thinking about the situation" of today's reality and its

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psycho-sociological perspectives. Just as I’m an artist of a kind of disease or limitation. Too intolerant for those what they don't think a good work of art.

Every time I update in my own autonomy of the works produced. I’m only interested that they know the work done to exchange the dialogue and the philosophical reflection on

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When I was a course in the tutorship of artistic research of Cancha Santiago. An academic was surprised for having selected the Competition Juan Downey at the 12th Biennial of Media Arts: “Speak in Tongues” in 2015 via email to congratulate my first work of video art Conversación en silencio (2015).

Then she asked me to see my work. From there, she recommended me to do in another proposal of video art without the need for put a sketch. Therefore, I decided to edit a series of original and non-original videos to transform it into an authentic way. A good manipulation of explosive and abusive scenes of different images to react to the confused and rejected viewers of this work of videoarte.

For so much the play of the images on the real or unreal mixture.

Many people obsessed and mocked that they acted like monkeys as if they were a zoo. A great joke for me and for the whole deaf community. These fears and suspicions also affected many years by the discrimination at that time. So, it occurred to me to project the images that recounting that story of the voice by the silence on the absence, the solitude, the guilt and the rage... as the childhood and the adolescence were broken, I could no longer communicate with the non-verbal message —the idiom of the gestual tongue communicates with his hands in a natural way— for deaf people. All deaf people have undergone many changes in their life, many communication problems for them. Many hearing people didn’t understand the obstacles that they prevented speaking a good gestural communication. Therefore, I began to introduce the manual alphabet of the Lengua de Señas Chilena (Chilean Sign Language in Spanish) at different frame rates to cause the confusion of images to the viewers unaware the gestual tongue. Just as

the relationship between artistic knowledge and social practice.

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the gestural production’s attracted by aesthetic thinking about the message of gestural writing. So much the discrimination of the gestures that were manipulated.

There’s no good culture to recognize the practice so habitual. That's why I chose some scenes about the visual analysis of images.

There’s a great similarity of customs between the story of the time past and present. It exists when it occurs to the problems of corporal punishment; of the mockery by the auditory disease; of the quarrel over the negative consequences of school learning; of the abusive business by the cochlear implant; and of the annoyance by misspelled of that obsolete term of "deaf-mute". So it shows the history of past-present- future time. As a different approach to the story of time to determine the daily consequences through social life in situations of hearing impairment.

As much visuality as a visual perception corresponds a series of images of the people affected by deafness at that time.

I always get used to seeing the screen, and almost the whole life of watching news, movies, videos, photos, Internet, etc. that appear the subtitled texts and the sign language interpreters. At the end of the twentieth century (or during the 1980s and 1990s), there were no standards of accessibility to public information and digital communication to focus the needs of support towards an inclusive culture. It’s too late to start a new generation of inclusive society in the current century. As well as a provocation of the works, since nobody fulfilled to keep a good social life more accessible. So much the frustration of distancing information.

However, my work relates a codification of

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the hands through the message in silence, without sound. Nobody understood each other your strange message. So much the struggle to improve the subtitled texts, because there’re different Chilean channels via television media of audiovisual form as the rupture and the conflict of the central news through a small picture of interpretation in sign language. In that picture’s too small; it’s

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impossible to see the sign message to observe the image of public information.

Hard to understand the message signed through the live TV screen. Sometimes the picture of interpretation in sign language disappears. Meanwhile, the news program continues to broadcast live during the absence of sign language interpreter in several seconds or minutes. For that reason, I

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observed the black paintings of Francisco Goya through the outstanding works of the "Quinta del Sordo" (Villa of the Deaf in Spanish) to reflect a masterpiece of that Spanish painter. My inspiration from the surrealist works of Salvador DalĂ­ and Roberto Matta as a madness of thinking in the philosophy about the dream interpretation of Sigmund Freud, to manifest a provocation of

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a non-verbal message. So the video art show’s to break down the barrier of incommunication between deaf and hearing, because the deaf who don't listen in the other way of understanding and live in reality to communicate in difficult times.

codification signed in various scenes of his obsolete life. Always done it’s going to be obsolete at that time. Nobody explains that obviously the methods used as the digital technology to transform the new media art.

The important thing is that the viewers can visualize objects in their mind, as well as the ability to imagine an object in different manipulation techniques through the mass media, for thinking the reality as a recurring joke. Just as a situation so crude to express the provocative emotions of the spectators, although I'm always late to hear that their inability to control; although not even his viewers had believed the fake video artist, and they always thought that the work of Código de señas that could be incommunicado with the rest of the video.

And even that many Chilean journalists made the mistakes regardless of the wording supervised with the incorrect terms. All the world of "deaf-mute", but it’s too serious and oblivious for Chilean journalists. Thus deaf people're accustomed to correcting the misspelled words. They don’t adopt the changes of those insignificant terms. There’s no time to negotiate the terms used. Nor repair the errors. It was a shame these people were picked up by all the media. Too late for indignant people about the appropriate terms to refer to the people with hearing impairment.

Difficult to conceive a chosen project. When I studied at the Universidad Tecnológica de Chile INACAP. From there, I take the divided courses into three areas of arts, design and education. Before entering these courses, during my childhood and adolescence, I dedicated myself to painting and doing research related to abstract painting. As well as a great myth of surrealism. Subsequently, I entered these courses, I changed my life radically. For me it’s not easy to admit that the good technique to work in different discipline artistically. Thanks to the academic group that I learned in several basic areas no matter my qualification, only my effort to learn and experience the new ideas through graphic design, color theory, photography, video and technology.

Of course, there’s the part of the personal memory and the experience of the deaf community in Chile. That’s why, whenever I’m influenced me with the social art to manifest the provocation with the same height of hearing people no matter who it is, most deaf people failed to become a good leader to maintain the power of visual-gestural contact.

My work corresponds to the reality to convey

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Not always the best student, nor the best artist. It only took advantage of knowing and exchanging the works of the chilean plastic artists, contemporary Latin American and some artists from Europe and Oriental: surrealism style (Roberto Matta, Salvbador

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Dalí, Paul Delvaux, René Magritte, Paul Éluard, Max Ernst, Man Ray, André Breton, Luis Buñuel, etc.); Oriental, European and Latin American artists (Frida Kahlo, Henri CartierBresson, Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol,

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Yayoi Kusama, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Joaquín Torres García, Carlos CruzDiez, Nam June Paik, Ai Weiwei, etc.); Chilean and current artists (Juan Downey, Matilde Pérez, Nury González, Alfredo Jaar, Voluspa

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Jarpa, Bernardo Oyarzún, Iván Navarro and many more.). Thus I was interested to observe the works to transform the experience from the visual to the technology.

This allows you to connect the different

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spaces to create the roles and situations in general. Impossible to have a single discipline, but also can vary in different projects dedicated by family art. In every time I’m ready or I’m not ready the new

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production. When I think of a call to apply for the call for proposals in a multidisciplinary project of the website. Obviously, I quickly promote the new works produced. For me it’s not easy with the remaining time to work in

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different discipline of painting, digital art, photography or video art. In addition, I don’t have importance of selected or rejected work.

Just a game to record my selected works. A great challenge as the role of being an hard of

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hearing artist. I barely learned it how to draft the english translation. Quite complicated for me, because many deaf people have difficulty in writing. The fault was the educational system had failed to improve learning for

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special students. They’re unforgivable the errors in writing. I decided to translate into short and simple text for readers in the visual arts world. However, I have had few opportunities to learn explicitly how to

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improve the translation without help. It was a miracle for the readers. Then I took the time to design the personalized web in bilingual text to be able to register the finished works.

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Thus the writing corresponds a way of writing the art with visual sense. It’s the only way to obtain the confidence of the selected works in English, or relatively in Spanish. Therefore, they’re updated every day to contemplate the

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bilingual writing, also to demonstrate the works done.

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sociocultural analysis to readaptate the recognition through a change of direction in the future, but in this sense, the greater concern of that artistic research on the language like social art. Thus the social responsibility in the art, to deepen the social shortage in the new generations within the cultural context and artistic production.

It’s difficult to speak politically. I only exclude myself with the sociopolitical criticism, but a demonstration of power in the society to react and intervene in any situation that it may seem detrimental to their reputation and their political-economic interests; and they also have too brutal indebtedness of the Chileans and the wage dispossession of some members of the middle class family (the people cohabit in a family space, impossible to distribute their indebtedness), includes in a high degree of economic inequality among the young and older adults.

Good question! I could say in both things.

First, the environment’s related to dirt such as the environmental pollution, fecal and acoustic (or sonorous), because the homeless people living on the street and hunger strike.

They don't care about the health and wellbeing of their people in street situations. Too much danger of human life. My country’s very accustomed to calling young volunteers to support people in the street situations. I don't always have something important to keep learning and improving the will of them. But it only needs an artistic space to reduce the ecological and socially.

And that struck me much by the social manifestation on the poverty, the gender inequality, etc. However, I’m far removed from the way of thinking the political question. Whenever a new research within the humanities arises. As well as a priority task to carry out a reflection on the social problems today. Just a demonstration of those images to express and embrace that real situation. I cannot comment on the issue of cultural policy, nor is the work linked with the critical power of contemporary creation.

It's just better not to say. And it’s precisely the opinion that characterizes the philosophy about a change of direction in the future.

Obviously, it’s not just a question of the crisis, but it’s a matter of time (about the present and the past), of custom, of necessity, or relatively of being more fashionable, that's to say, there’re different factors sociocultural of risk in the Chilean population. This seems the most logical thing that the visual culture’s characterized by a threatened sociocultural context.

And second, the psychopolitics corresponds to a practice without consent that relates to the politics and the psychology towards a power of the unconscious mind. Very difficult to refer to the social situation to contaminate the needs of projects in video art. Although it allows us to create it and influence it their foreign behaviors, without a doubt that something worries me about the speculation to the artistic image, and how a challenge of imagination-reality. No one knows he's capable of doing anything. That's how it works the elite politics to get dirty the image of them. Everyone knows that my country’s full of luxury at the power of the unconscious mind. Impossible to benefit them.

It’s not necessary to know the diverse social experiences, although not always the

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Obviously my country’s for life. With the time of dedicating to the work of the artistic education, (inter)cultural and technological.

To realize things aren't easy occupationally active towards a role of the inclusive teacher.

Thanks to a hearing friend, she’s also a visual artist, and she offered me an interview with an officer of the National Council of Culture and the Arts —Chilean government agency responsible for arts and cultural policy— together with a deaf artist on the approach of art education to promote and improve the quality through creativity and cultural training of the most vulnerable students. However, I’m already interested on hiring you. This is a good opportunity for reflection on oneself if someone who gives a good situation humanely; with a thousand breaths to play a good performance of working life in the artistic world. But the life of teaching’s very complicated, because it could not talk so much in several minutes or in several hours.

So, the time was written on the blackboard or in dispositive as didactic support, and also to reduce the annoyance of vocal sounds. They simply thought that our voice’s heard different like a strange recording, or sometimes they said my foreign voice. I felt a compliment, because I could not stand in a thousand years that they repeated in the same phrase of "you're talking like a foreign (sound)..." That I felt uncomfortable to put it.

As I was born hearing loss in both ears and I learned to speak with the native language since my childhood. Parallel, I learned to use with sign language. But formerly, I divorced the world of the listeners, and the world of the deaf. Too shocking and confusing for me. I almost ruined my life in isolation. I was only interested with the listeners to obtain the stable communication. I didn't realize it and it was stupid of me. For that reason, it avoided controversies by the distance of the deaf community.

At present, this situation has changed remarkably. A new beginning of social life has been formed to challenge definitive inclusion.

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Therefore, the life of the arts needs an open space and be positive to change the face through an augmented reality.

Unfortunately. I can not know, nor comment on that direct participation of the viewers in the audience, I have not traveled to those festivals either. I did not have time to attend.

I was very busy in several outstanding projects. I just registered an application form for that call on the website of the Festival of Spain. Then I got an email about the selected result. This way we manage via email to request the details of production materials and assemblies. It's the simplest. I also registered up for the Miami New Media Festival through the digital form.

Subsequently, an email arrived to notify the selected results to that festival of medial arts.

Thanks to the advance of technology in social communication to visualize the digital conversation. And also, thanks to the academic mentors of the course of the tutoring of artistic research of Cancha Santiago, I was taught the basic forms of artist statement to be profiled as the authorial works.

And sometimes quite doubtful and complex to give it the certainty and the demand of a neosocial art, in judging by this philosophical

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research, it’s complex to study to be able to use the philosophy of conceptual art or the philosophical thought of contemporary art.

Just as the current situation on these selected works could be understood. However, it’s very difficult to get the attention of the public about the general questions because my illness of hearing loss, by the way, quite complexity of hearing and thinking towards a specific answer. On the contrary, as simple as the viewers read and observe my own explanatory texts of each work. Thus it's adapted as the operation under the observation of the works done.

Therefore, I find it very reasonable to avoid and warn the confusion of the answers outside the issues addressed in the artistic project, or a misunderstanding.

I appreciate it especially to the magazine about the first interview written in English. I'd like everyone of the visual and new media arts, I could count as the guest artist to know the works, depending on my own disciplines, since I’m not good at speaking English. Maybe I can write in English as the "conversation notebook" to be able to observe and dialogue their own experiences through the works done. So they could share in different projects. As always I have dedicated to experiencing the new ideas through art socialization in Chile. I also would have liked to participate in another Latin American artist, of course, the artists of Europe to analyze aesthetically through the current society.

An interview by and

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, curator curator

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Lives and works in Tel-Aviv, Israel

Untitled 2012 oil & acrylic on canvas 120X140

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video, 2013

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UntitledIssue 2013 mixed technique on carton box 33X23 Special

Hana Jaeger

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Hana Jaeger

Please allow me to make things clear. I first studied mathematics and economics for a bachelor's degree. I then went on to earn an MBA in communication and only later did I get to art school. During all these years I'd been dealing with craft, which made me well prepared for working in art. Many people see my turning from mathematics to art as a surprising deviation, but I think that there's a great deal of creativity in mathematics, just like in art. Nevertheless, what has captivated me in art is its infinite freedom. Here there are no strict rules like in mathematics. You're free to do anything: "We painters have the

same freedom granted to poets and the mentally ill." said painter Paolo Veronese. I came 'tabula rasa' to my art studies, like a child taking its first steps, but with much more maturity and a rich life load. I feel that this combination has contributed greatly to the nature of my creativity both in my essence and in my handwriting. Without being aware of it, and as someone who grew up in the home of Holocaust survivors, a melancholy chord has permeated my works.

The house I grew up in was a normative and

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Hana Jaeger

dedicated home, but only ostensibly so. It was a wounded home. Perhaps that's why I deal more with the marginal and the weak, contemplate the day-to-day people, those we don't see, the transparent, and document the moments that pass us by unnoticed, but I bestow full splendor on them all. I bring them from backstage to the front of the stage.

At the beginning of my career I painted an abstract work which, on looking back, turned out to be for me an excellent exercise in composition, colorfulness, application of paint and brush strokes, etc. I worked on bird's eye or actual frontal views of brush stained paintings and gradually I began to sharpen the stain to something concretely figurative.

And the paintings flowed out as if they'd been waiting for years to see the light of day, to feel the fresh air, and with them the subjects. Somewhat like Degas peeking at dancers behind the scenes I peek at people (mostly men) in everyday scenarios. The subjects of the paintings are without pathos.

They're of a prosaic anti heroic stature.

They're of a kind that are sometimes not worth a second look. But I see them as worth painting and brought from behind the scenes into the foreground. The paintings are low key, at times exposed and other times radiating acute feeling. With no cynicism or overt criticism the paintings turn a spotlight on them. The palette of colors is accordingly of minor and major half tones. The people in

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the painting are antiheroes, underdogs, weaklings, vulnerable like in the German expressionism I use for inspiration. There's a social expression in my works stemming from an intimately non-defiant place.

All my works are untitled. Open, unraveled reading is very important for me. They say that an artist knows what he wants to create but doesn't know what he has eventually created. The moment you have completed your work and exposed it to the viewer it is expropriated from you. The subjects in my work are universal, and it's so interesting and surprising to hear from people how each one connects. Each one with whatever he's brought from the load he carries, from his life, from his world. There are those who see sadness in a certain work and others who sometimes see humor there. Work should be multi-layered. The title "Death of Superman" was taken from a story written in 1992 and broadcast on television. And it implies the absence of a superhero that can save us in these times. A hero we're sometimes looking for both on the personal and on the national levels. The yearning for something like that.

Among the figures portrayed in my paintings you definitely won't be able to find anyone that fits the bill. Superman is dead. Or maybe he'll break through one day ...

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Hana Jaeger

Untitled 2012 acrylic on canvas 120X150

I actually agree with Bob Dylan, who's just received the Nobel Prize. According to him, the artist's role is to deal with his work, to bring out his art. Otherwise, if the work is didactic or tendentious, it doesn't work well.

It loses its sincerity. In painting I deliver my

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Hana Jaeger

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Untitled 2014 oil & acrylic on canvas 120X150

own self as a person who's very much involved in what's happening all around. I've thereby created some sort of statement, politically and socially. As an artist one can't live in a bubble, detached from the environment, otherwise one's work becomes irrelevant and, in my opinion, also boring.

And I, as an opinionated woman, certainly expose my opinion on that subject in my art

as well. For the political realm is the sphere of human activity that deals with the forces operating in society and that's what I'm dealing with, only from the small personal angle.

And I don't connect it particularly to the part of the world in which you happen to be.

Emotions like compassion, morality, and social justice are universal values that

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Hana Jaeger

Untitled 2014 oil acrylic & graphite on canvas 160X180

nations and political systems lack to some degree or another, some more and some less. It's very hard for me when it comes to a severe total eclipse in certain places. Of

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course, what happens around me and is exposed to my eye affects my creativity even more. If only things could somehow come close to perfection in most parts of the world.

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Untitled 2015 oil & graphite on canvas 180X180

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Untitled 2014 oil acrylic & graphite on canvas 150X180

important in order to complement the emotional and aesthetic totality, even if it's in a minor key and I agonize so much over it until I'm satisfied in heart and mind. The texture of my painting emanates from the spot, the stain. In my work it takes precedence over the line and together with it the brushstrokes that vary according to the subject.

My palette of colors is as low-key as the subjects of my paintings, like half tones. And the colors are mostly cold; gray and its hues, and together with them a more strongly prominent colorfulness combines in creative counterpoint. For me, colorfulness is

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Untitled 2014 oil, marker & graphite on canvas 150X180

Although I tried ... I wasn't quite sure I got to the bottom of the question. Therefore, with your permission and if it's OK by you, I'll talk about a number of images from the repository of images that relate, among other things, to Christian iconography and which

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Hana Jaeger

Untitled 2015 oil & graphite on canvas 180X180

appear in my exhibition "Death of Superman." In the painting of the couple in the hospital standing on tiptoe and peeking anxiously through the small windows of the

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surgery theater-cum-delivery room, these windows have turned into halos (auras) around their heads and by doing so have rightly conferred a somewhat tortured

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untitled 2013 industrial paints, oil & acrylic on plywood 120X120

holiness on them. The ultramarine blue color of the coat worn by the woman is the color of the garment of the Holy Mary. The painfully pitiful figure in the other painting, the one of

the sick man inside the MRI machine, refers to the painting of Andrea Mantegna depicting the dead Jesus after his removal, wounded and bruised, from the Cross. These agonies

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Hana Jaeger

Untitled 2014 oil & graphite on canvas 150X180

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are accentuated in my painting by foreshortening of the body and by the protruding legs at the foreground of the painting.

Another example is the pieta pose that appears in the "Golden Legend" (legenda aurea). The particularly touching pose depicts a superhero compassionately cradling in his arms another superhero, like Mary cradling the broken body of her son, Jesus. There's also a reference in my paintings to the Classics. In his poem, Ars Poetica, Horace coined the term 'deus ex machina', which is alluded to in the painting of the automobile mechanics under a car, who're in a situation where humans might find themselves praying for help, with no exertion, from someone, anyone, not connected, not expected outside source – maybe Superman?

A well-known Israeli artist Pichhadze asserted that life is like a snowball that rolls and in time more and more life stories stick to it and in the end enters the studio. My biographical background certainly resonates in my work, whether I like it or not. I paint things that are here and now. Everything is close at hand, simple small scenes and I tell them my way.

Even though my father's Interior Code Painting, an autobiographical idiom that appears and reverberates in my paintings, the scenes seem to be universal ones and convey such familiar emotions that anyone can relate to them. My inner self is expressed in the way the stories are presented, in the characters, in the places, in the interaction between them, in the composition, in the colorfulness that I choose, and even in the manner of applying the paint. In my opinion, good art can't be detached from direct experience. It's got to burst out from the artist's bowels.

The world represented in my works calls for thinking about the voyeuristic experience of painting. It is a world in which peeping turns out to be an impossible, unfocused contemplation of a kind that is trapped in the contours of fantasy. The works direct the gaze toward the back of the subject of the painting, the forbidden gaze echoing questions about its ownership, about the prison of the gaze. The painting suggests the toughness of disorder, the liquidity of the sign, dirty in one world but clean in another.

The power of the painting is in the looking at the heart of existence, in order to make its perversions reverberate.

Body language is most important in my art.

The face is physiognomy-free, or by virtue of the composition it isn't visible at all. It's important for me to convey things with a

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Hana Jaeger

Untitled 2015 acrylic & graphite on canvas 160X180

minimum of details but with everything exposed.

This includes the work process, trials, mistakes, odd compositions that don't obey the "laws of painting" and that sometimes cause dizziness, tension and even an acute

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sensation. For what's the work of the painter who's entrusted with the ownership of the means of production of images? In a world where one mostly controls only the workforce, is the painting's function to keep one's eyes open or to close them? Are the

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Hana Jaeger

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Untitled 2015 oil & graphite on canvas 170X180

assets of painting enslaved to a process of vindicating the void? Can one only contemplate with closed eyes? The subjects of the paintings don't change their gaze but don't they rather gaze back? The forbidden gaze produces a disproportionate world in

which the question of the gaze's ownership reverberates. There's no sight as dreadful as fantasy. It doesn't set things in array but rather in disarray, it's treacherous and faithful, law abiding and transgressive. It's not obligated to sight or to light and flickers

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Hana Jaeger

teasingly between the private and the collective.

here we could publish some photos from your recent exhibitions) I would much appreciate having some photos of works from my recent exhibitions published. Thank you

Perhaps this is the place to mention my work on cardboard boxes. In addition to my paintings on large size canvases I like to paint on cardboard boxes because who else are connected as much as they are to the subjects of my paintings being everyday items, always available, transient, marginal and unimportant. I collect them from diverse parts of the world and give them a renewed life. They're not used only as a bed for the painting, they're an integral part of the painting. The cardboard boxes are of various sizes ranging from the miniature, for mobile phones or jewelry, and up to the very large, for refrigerators, etc. And in effect they're more than paintings, they're objects. In 2013 I lived for several months in Berlin and then spent an Artist's residency at the Cite' International Des Arts in Paris for about six months. Because of the size of the studio and the inability to work in large formats, and because the bedroom was part of the studio, which prevented me from working in oils, I painted on paper and small cardboard boxes.

These works can be viewed on my website.

When I returned to my studio I switched to very large formats as if to release the energies accumulated in Paris. I continue adamantly to paint on both, canvas and cardboard boxes, since they stimulate and challenge me in different ways.

The subjects of my paintings share a common secret. A secret known to everyone among secrets that are common knowledge.

The common secret, all or nothing at all, is disturbing, not comforting. Beyond the secret's exposure the possibilities of discomfort are immense, little troubles, serious troubles, and immediate dangers.

And the little person, or on the global level the nation, searches for its Superman. I believe in directing the spotlight to the place and stepping on the blister. Here I'm aided by the patches of figures with their bodily gestures, and with their colors on a chromatic scale of half and quarter hues intertwined and creating a misleading message. The figures are enclosed, each in a world of its own, as if they're unaware of their place in the described event, as also are the free expressive and unplanned brush strokes.

While I'm working I don't consider the issue of audience reception, but when the work is completed I'm deeply moved when I hear what the viewer has to say.. This dialogue with the audience takes place frequently during the presentation of the exhibition and also through the social networks. (if you like

Summer Special 2015 Issue

An interview by and

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, curator curator

Hana Jaeger

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Untitled 2013 mixed technique on carton box 33X23

Lives and works in New York City, USA

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Jean-Marie Guyaux

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video, 2013

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Lars Vilhelmsen

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An interview by and

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Jean-Marie Guyaux

likend it to a shade of grey, the prevalent color of the Belgian skies…neither here nor there. Studying math and science at St Louis where I wasn’t a particularly diligent student, in my mind confirmed my disdain for the dominant conformism of the culture. The arts weren’t much in the genes of my family and they weren’t included much in the Belgian educational system either. In my teens I remember being impressed by Rene Magritte and his

I grew up in Brussels, a city of one million people, culturally and linguistically divided Flemish and French speaking. It was a challenge as well a source of enrichment. I

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Jean-Marie Guyaux

bowler hat pieces (The Son of Man, 1964, et al.) as well as by a Peter Paul Rubens painting, Four Studies of the Head of a Negro (first half of the 17th century), that

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graced the 500 francs bill. While at St Louis I was influenced by an ex schoolmate who had studied art and opened a photo studio.

He suggested that since I was a lost soul

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Jean-Marie Guyaux

with a fertile imagination maybe I should turn to art, more specifically, photography.

I could intern to learn the photo business. I became a photo assistant. It was

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momentous. The heavens opened and those grey Belgian skies were turning blue.

I soon met a Belgian painter whose name I have forgotten but who impressed me with

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Jean-Marie Guyaux

his international recognition and whose NYC subway paintings and portraits of United Nations statesmen had been exhibited in New York galleries and other

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venues. His words of wisdom: “If you want to be a successful photographer go to NYC and hang out at Max’s Kansas City Bar”. I flew to NY and for the next three years I

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Jean-Marie Guyaux

was a NYC photographer’s assistant by day, building a portfolio and polishing my technical abilities while expanding my art appreciation by night, attending classes at

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School of Visual Arts (SVA) and the New School. All the while I was embracing the new music of the time and I fell in love with Pop Art, especially Andy Warhol and the

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Jean-Marie Guyaux

banana album cover he produced for The Velvet Underground and the zipper that graces The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers.

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Jean-Marie Guyaux

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Jean-Marie Guyaux

Becoming a photographer was a dream. The epiphany that I could be “Me”. “Me” coming into my own power, free of the proverbial shackles of my upbringing. A few days after this momentous realization (decision) to become a photographer, I peddled a portfolio and… lo and behold, got my very first assignment. A quarter page still life for Harper’s Bazaar! That the fee was $75.00 was of little consequence. I was on my way!

Thanks to this glorious start, those around me wasted no time letting me know that I was a star in the making. As such, I had to let Harper’s Bazaar know that I would consider no less than a fashion shoot as my next assignment. Filled with my newly acquired sense of stardom I said as much to Ruth Ansel, totally ignorant of her stature in the magazine world, and thus essentially brought an abrupt end to my glamorous life as a fashion photographer before it even started. It was a harsh reality, but one that spurred me to dig in and re-think my approach to my goals and aspirations. It would be, in part, this hard-learned truth that ultimately spurred me to the build a successful career that would encompass not only fashion, but sill life and celebrity photography as well. (http://www.jmguyaux.com)

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Jean-Marie Guyaux

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Jean-Marie Guyaux

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I always thought that to be satisfying an image has to leave one perplexed. When my camera successfully captures a moment it must be a moment that is at once graphically arresting while simultaneously triggering in me a personal if not visceral emotion. It can often be quite complex, frequently ambiguous, or even distant from the recorded image that is by then frozen in time. It becomes a cinematic still out of an unwritten script open to one’s imagination.

It is my intent to expose the viewer to an aesthetically pleasing but transitional moment that prompts reflection.

I flash on images that trigger in me an avalanche of visual possibilities, of concepts to explore. What could have been an accidental visual for somebody becomes a spark to my imagination. As a child I could never follow the instruction manual of the erector set. The creator in me needs to take visuals apart and reconstruct them according to my own sense of esthetic.

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Jean-Marie Guyaux

Away from the constraints of commercial photography, the images that piqued my interest tended to reflect symbols of the human condition, the state of pervasive violence present in American society, and the deliberate and gratuitous acts of violence by individuals bent on tearing down the present without any intended thought towards a viable solution. Often already altered by such vandalism before my intervention, “Slash” with its remnants/fragments of subway advertising posters containing primarily facial images “slashed” by human forces, enables me to enhance, re-frame and create personal portraits of reference out of the mysteriously exposed layers of the past. A new beauty, often misogynistic, at once at odds yet beyond the original message. In “Slash” beauty that is addition by subtraction is introduced. The rough, jagged edginess of Clyfford Still meets the contemporary city-dweller Jean-Michel Basquiat.

While my photography in “Slash” as well as in my “Crash” series captures an abstract reality that is the up-close remnants of the subject as it dissolves into an abstraction of color, line, and picture plane, my digital art manipulates the raw data of an image to create abstraction. In my “Icons – Americana” series I explore the world of our most well-known and memorable imagery and subject their digital content to non-photographic software. In so doing, I create new layers of pixels that generate a hybrid and mind-altering visual. The outcome is a mystifying re-interpretation of the image, recognized and transformed, imprinted in one’s memory, a journey of changes. With a smile some have called it Pop, Neo-pop or even Nouveau-pop.

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Jean-Marie Guyaux

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The surrealism of Rene Magritte impressed and puzzled me in the years of my youth.

Later, in the era of analogue photography, the work of Jerry Uelsmann in particular had the same effect. At that time, Uelsmann’s work represented creative and technical feats that I was not ready to tackle. With the advent of digital software, similar work, not always of the highest quality, is now achievable by many with just a few clicks of the mouse. For my representative and realistic work, digital software has become my darkroom.

Processing manipulation is kept to a minimum. My approach to the contemporary object is not “look at how beautiful that was” but “look at what a beautiful thing it has become.” I save it with respect as I discovered it.

What sets my ”Icons” representation apart is my ability to intensively manipulate the pixels of an image with a mix of photo and other non-photographic software. I create new layers of pixels that generate an abstract and mind-altering hybrid visual.

The mystifying re-interpretation of the

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image imprinted in one’s memory is meant to trigger a journey back in time. It is the viewer’s familiarity and recognition of the original that forces the exploration of the new. My visions of the physical and the virtual are about confronting the present and exploring the past while the future is left to the imagination.

In the book New Media Art, Mark Tribe and Reena Jana named several themes that contemporary new media art addresses, including computer art, collaboration, identity, appropriation, open sourcing, telepresence, surveillance, corporate parody, as well as intervention and hacktivism. For my Icons work I create original sources (Mac & Cheese), buy rights to sources (Zipper) or alter Internet sources (Mickey Mouse). Whatever the source from which the work originates it bears my author's style and personality. It is original and thus protected by copyright.

In “[Cariou v. Prince] it is stated that when the transformation results in an artwork that can be perceived by a “reasonable observer” as transformative, it is considered Fair Use. In this I am in

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agreement with Marcel Duchamp.

L.H.O.O.Q. anybody?

audience although I do not want my work to be an open book. I want to provoke by incorporating a layer of mystery. It’s all about “I’ve seen this but never like that.

How did it get there? What happened? ”.

Getting my style of digital art considered and commissioned, by the Vanbarton Group, NYC a real estate and investment company, for the creation of murals branding one of their buildings, was the validation of my foray into New Media Arts.

The size of the work brought forth the beauty of the underlying texture and it’s public display the satisfaction that it would be exhibited to an audience for years to come. When working as a digital artist at times I feel like a painter or a composer.

The pixels become both pigments and notes. I mix the pixels of my images or images from others to create either a form of pointillism or samplings as found in Hip Hop music. My digital work expands the imagery of iconic portraits of people and products with new interpretations and symbols of universal human feelings and sensuality.

By incorporating non-photographic software to my creative process my projects explore performative exchanges across visual and sonic disciplines. They challenge conventional expectations of meaning and objectivity, as well as the boundaries between the rational and subjective. To achieve my intended tonality and texture I alter my source and adjust the parameters of the applied software until I reach an aesthetically gratifying result.

An interview by and

As a visual artist I believe in the importance of communicating with my

Summer 2015 Special Issue

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, curator curator

Lives and works in Barcelona, Spain

Empty Virgin In Sadness

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Maksim Kuznetcov

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video, 2013

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The Self Illusion Special Issue

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I have always valued types of artists that speak to the audience, or as in many cases just to themselves, with their works in a very archaic, subliminal powerful language; and those artists that pose difficult philosophical or humanistic questions but taking them to the subconscious with the power of their artistic language. I suppose the biggest (and probably most important) task modern visual artists face today is to develop a language as powerful and informative as written literary works. The only way I think it can be achieved successfully and in full is by talking to the subconscious – and this is the advantage of visual art over literature.

Maksim Kuznetcov

For example, take the centuries old problem of a belief, say religious belief; an artist can take religious symbols and confront the audience with an inner intrinsic doubt that every believer has. This would be a bold

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statement for the audience if it were expressed in a language that speaks to the subconscious via simple forms. Artists like Vadim Sidur, Henry Moore and Francis Bacon were very successful at finding such language and discussing very powerful and nonprimitive questions through their artworks.

Aesthetics in art by itself is not very interesting to me, unless it’s used as a means by artists to express an idea versus mere elicited pleasure. There is so much more fulfilling beauty in the intellectual or spiritual dilemmas expressed in art than in, for instance, a perfect drapery technique of Dutch painters of the 17th century. Maybe visual art will never be able to explain the laws of the universe but it can, without a doubt, answer ethical and life-long existential problems, contributing to the development of our society.

All the subjects that I produce are very personal; my incessant thoughts and conflicts I see around me in real life. Often, they are triggered by discussions with my friends or readings of philosophy as well as fiction and non-fiction literature. So, the images that form, coming from my subconscious, are rather loaded with cultural or philosophical concepts or symbols. These images are usually a representation of my understanding to a solution of a spiritual, emotional or

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philosophical issue. I attempt to capture these in my sculptures. I don’t do sketches on paper, but rather I go directly to find the balance of curves and lines in a 3D object. I find this way of working much more natural for me to land on something that looks ‘right’ to me. I try allowing my subconscious to lead the sculpting process, rather than having a strict conscious control. Sometimes, when working on a series of sculptures with a common subject arc, I prepare small plastellin sketches before I start working on the full-size pieces.

Before coming up with the realisation of Empty Virgins, I produced a series of works simply titled Virgins. I wanted to see if I could tell a story of emotions though simple slightly abstracted human figures. I have ended up choosing women as the carrier for my emotional metamorphosis experiment.

Although when I finished the pieces, I found that they are lacking the ability to speak to observers via the subconscious (as I mentioned before). I wanted to reinforce the message and make it less anchored to symbols such as female sexuality or fertility, even very reduced facial characteristics were distracting, I noticed. I aimed the sculptures to talk not just from their positive surfaces and curves but to allow the message to come from within them, from inside. Through a series of experiments, I have come up with ‘doppelgangers’ of the original virgins, which in my opinion have a much more developed language that is hardly to be understood

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Empty Virgin in Despair

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Maksim Kuznetcov

consciously, but if allowed, they are telling something on a rather unconscious level.

While reducing the realistic form of the women I left a few marks and shapes that undoubtedly suggest their gender and human nature.

For me, abstraction is a necessity of my artistic language. The necessity comes from the need to increase subconscious awareness of the subject and the message in a particular work, not to overload it with realism anchors that distract from subconscious analysis and the evolution of the observer’s imagination process. From my experience of public exhibitions of my works, the majority of the general public are much more drawn to these realistic anchors, such as those that are associated with sexuality (nipples, penis, curved groin area) or even facial traits, such that the observer’s attempts to re-read the work becomes nearly impossible under the conditions of such distracting conscious brain activities.

That is why I try to reduce the symbols, but not to the point that human figure stops being human. That would make it impossible for the ‘human’ language to work; this is where I am trying to find the balance.

As I give my answer this question, I realise it sounds so controlled and conscious; however in reality I let other, less conscious, parts of my brain to lead most of this rationalisation I just shared here.

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Maksim Kuznetcov

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Empty Virgin in Dreams 21 4 06

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Empty Virgin in Dreams Special Issue

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I enjoy working with clay. It is one of the few materials that allows me to work freely and does not usually distract from the process of sculpting. There are known limitations of clay and for complex pieces that cannot be moulded as a single piece, I use plastellin. At times, when I want to achieve effects of statue-like solidity of the forms, I can have choosen plaster and carved the model.

Since I paint nearly every sculpture, which changes the surface texture and colour balance a lot, I am not particularly concerned with fine texture of the finished piece, after casting, unless it is metal, of course.

Well, I am ambivalent about the statement by Thomas Demand. I agree with it in the sense that art should develop more into the psychological area, although I do not see that these two approaches, i.e. symbolic and psychological, are mutually exclusive. We have been learning how to perceive reality since our early childhood, via objects, symbols and abstract ideas – these are all symbols. The power the symbol can be characterised by the degree the symbol evokes a profound and rich psychological effect. I think the key here is to use symbols,

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Cristianity Burial

Cristianity Burial

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Maksim Kuznetcov

in a minimalistic way, to achieve the desired psychological effect rather than a cacophony.

It would be an interesting experiment to model a society that has a developed conscious perception of the world but lacks any rudimentary ontological qualities. Would art be of any use in such a society?

For me, personal experience is an indispensable part of art. Yet, I think the creative process can easily be disconnected from an artist’s past or present; and we can witness this too - LSD or other drugs can be used for this purpose. The qualities I value in art do not usually emerge from a purely disconnected production (or capturing) process, unless by a mere accident.

For me, the human element is the key in many works; through the human body, whether distorted or realistic, I can introduce the observer to the messages of my works.

Quite often I need to establish human-tohuman connection to be established first, as a prerequisite, and then evolve it to express the problem, ethics or emotion that I want to convey. Although it is possible to convey a mood or even emotion through pure abstraction, when a multi-layered complex message needs to be passed, the human object is of much help as we relate ourselves to it with greater ease.

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CARABOSSE AND LILAC FAIRY Special Issue

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I do not see much of incompatibility between Tradition and Contemporariness. That which is usually referred to traditional (or classical) art is the art of Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, The Dark Ages, The Renaissance. The difference, but not a contradiction, in my opinion, is that artists for thousands of years had to obey rules and regulations of the Christian state, or other mono- or polytheistic doctrines; the repressive laws and ethics of the times that inevitably restricted the dimensions of freedom of expression that artists could develop. It is a great virtue of our time that artists, as well as other members of the society, are free to try and fail, to experiment, to copy and make attempts in high parody. The millennia of the past has produced much artistic wisdom, and many achievements and artistic struggles that we should learn from. These tools should be at the disposal of modern artists, whether they choose to use them or not.

We should not forget that there are still many places on the planet earth where artists cannot freely choose the subject or the style for their art, where societies are not free. And this is rarely due to the myopic attitude of the artist, but rather often due to the dogmatism and tyranny that governs such societies.

Could Andy Warhol survive in modern day North Korea?

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Maksim Kuznetcov

Art is a very flexible and fine language; a tool that can be applied to many areas, starting at self-analysis through to public propaganda or benign meditation, or simply relaxation and joy. We can tell stories with art, such as in my work of Carabosse and Lilac Fairy - the classic good versus evil dichotomy. Art can produce symbols or feelings that are destructive or malicious. The relationship of art to public space is of a similar potential to that of literature and the spoken word. Art should participate in the war of ideas, just as literature, philosophy and science do.

These art fairs were very interesting experiences indeed. For instance, I have discovered that many people of the general public have difficulty in recognising abstracted figures (Empty Virgins was a particular challenge). I noticed a high contrast of responses from young people compared to adults (20+). Kids read my artistic language much easier than most of the older people, that seem to be far less sensitive to it.

The development of most of my works has not been guided by any expectations of the reception that they would receive by the audience. I did consider to make a few experiments, to simplify the images and make it easier for the audience to interpret, but so far I have been choosing to work with the language that helps me better convey my ideas rather than for simplicity. Let’s see what future brings, it’s a journey for me with the future unknown.

The challenge here is that the language of art is so diverse that it requires some practice or openness from audience to be able to understand the message. I think our society needs to develop its abilities in this area quite bit before its efficiency in art communication is comparable to that of a written language or a spoken word.

There are so many great artists, if I had to nominate them all, it would be a very long list, but just to give you an idea of the artists whose works inspire me, I would say these key names: Wassily Kandinsky, Francis Bacon, Hieronymus Bosch, Vadim Sidur, Pavel Filonov, Henry Moore, and many more.

Conversation between people seems to be the only efficient way we can exchange and collectively develop ideas, knowledge and contribute to the development of our society.

I am planning to work on a series of sculptures that discusses the psychological challenges and successes between people.

Stay tuned. ;)

An interview by and

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, curator curator

Searching For An Answer - I

Lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel

Bright Light City

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Doria Sharra

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video, 2013

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Itsy Bitsy (for the Dinosaur) Special Issue

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Doria Sharra

Hello and thank you for the warm welcome!

I was born in New York City and came to Israel as a young child. Growing up my family maintined a close connection to both societies - American and Israeli,

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Doria Sharra

and I believe that coming from a dual background is the cornerstone of my fluid approach to various issues.

Experiencing both together, and realizing their mutual influence, caused cultures, languages and locations intermix in a way that made me much less prone to binary divisions. This is an approach that I carried through to my work, wherein, for example, I`ve always found the separation between theory and practice to be superficial and extraneous. This allowed me great freedom in perusing my own ideas regarding beauty, especially my perception of beauty, as well as of humor and sexuality, as artistic instruments that can convey the subversive power of pleasure. This sense of freedom also enabled me to search for my own aesthetic, believing that traditional figurative drawing and painting techniques can find relevance in the contemporary post-modern discourse, and it`s also what motivated my diverse academic pursuits.

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Doria Sharra

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Youth #1 (After Matalon - Concentration) Special Issue

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Doria Sharra

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Many collueges and friends of mine observed that walking into my studio is like entering a world in and of its own, and I believe that there is certainly some truth to this. My walls are covered with a multitude of refrences and sketches, which together form a dictionary of sorts, of various elements of my visual language. I usually work in the form of coherent projects, which I collect images for from different sources, that eventually occupy my time and fill my studio. I often find that certain motiffs shift from compisition to compisition, so I always examine a new sketch in light of the whole series and the narrative I`m currently working on.

There where many times at which a random sketch that was drawn instinctivly and simply to try out a visual element, evolved into much more - into a drawing that is deserving of attention and precision, so nowadays I tend to choose my matariels more carefully.

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Doria Sharra

friends, I took on the role of a motherly yet colorful charachter, who dispenced helpful albeit at times kinky advise to my wonderful daughters, two of which were male. A head of an alternative family like in Paris is Burning and a fashion icon in the middle of the wilderness like in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Bruri taught me what I always knew at heart to be true - that it`s perfectly ok to be a pink sparkly Elvis impersonator and a female drag queen, at the very same time.

My practice is deeply involved with the topic of transformations, and I think that it is the underlying theme of most of my artistic production. I am intrested in subjects that bring to light questions regarding gender, sexuality and parallel, imaganary and family narratives. I usualy start with an image or circumstance that sparked my imagination and propeled me to construct a conceptual structure for a project. More often than not, these are influenced by the socio-political attitudes that I find are prevalent in relation to the subject matter at hand.

My current project - Sideburns and Quiffs part 2: Bruri, is an indirect continuation of a previous project titled You KLI is Wonderful!, in which the images of Elvis and Elvis impersonators palyed a central role. My current project beagn with a photograph of myself as a young child, cradeled in my Mother`s arms, in her mother`s appartment in NYC, right before we moved to Israel. Observing my shy and content expression, I imidiately felt an urge to adorn my younger self with Sideburns and Quiffs - the rock legend`s famous hair style.

I agree, many artworks can be considered political, even if they don`t deal directly with specific political conditions. My decision to address questions concerning gender and sexuality, and especially sexual pleasure, as a female artist, definitely constitutes a political stance.

The poroject`s protogonist - Bruri, is named after a nick name and alter ego of mine, from when I went to high school in the desert area of southern Israel. Within a close knit group of

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I owe much of my political awareness to my Mother, who was involved in the

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The Super Happy Phallic Man

Lipstick for Him

Doria Sharra

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work engage me in an intriguing way?

Does it make me want to step into this artist`s private universe of interests and references?

civil rights and feminist movements.

The subtle socio political criticism in my work that you refer to, deals mainly with the hetro-normative, binary inclined patriarchy, and its effects on the most personal and intimate aspects of our lives. Since I believe that power it at its highest when it`s transparent, I try to bring forward issues that are silenced, in order to create a conversation about its mechanisms.

My current project tells the life story of one person - Bruri, from birth to death.

The world that I`m building for the protagonist is filled with a multitude of metamorphoses, such as that of objects, of landscapes and of gender.

The series also allows for transformations of the libidinal energy, which travels from one body to the next, of the main character. Indeed, this character changes genders in order to facilitate the fantasy of how one`s intimate relationships would feel, when experienced through different bodies.

I believe the role of art is multifaceted– - it can take on many roles, and surely more than one role at once. Therefore It`s important for an artist to be conversant with art`s rich history, the current discourse and the countless avenues for expression it can offer, in order to make well informed decisions.

So in this case, the actual events that took place in my real life are secondary to the story lines and plots that my imagination is weaving, since in reality I can only live in the current body I inhabit. None the less, I still consider these narratives to be part of my direct experience, since they take up an important part of my inner world.

For me an artist’s personal and direct experience includes their Imagination and curiosity. Whether a certain event took place in real life or not, is not as important as how much an artist managed to use what fascinates her or him in a compelling manner. Does the

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Doria Sharra

The formalistic issues of drawing and painting are important to me, and I find them inseparable from other aspects of the artistic research I set out to do. I build my compositions according the narrative I`m dealing with, and I employ the tonal composition - the contrast, the placement of the lights and the darks, etc. to serve the way in which I want to deal with the subject matter.

I usually choose my material acoording to the conceptual framework of the series I`m working on. In my previous project Your KLI is Wonderful! for example, I was exploring questions related to desire and to the act of collecting and therefore I chose to use sharpened charcoal on papaer, that can give a very sensual and carnal effect.

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Doria Sharra

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Doria Sharra

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Like in previous projects the main character in Bruri will bare my facial features, and some of the storylines and images are taken from my own life. However, the narrative is not autobiographical. At the same time, though it contains many fantastical flights of fancy, it`s also not complete fiction. This character is not necessarily me, but rather is used to explore the thinness of the line that we tend to draw between reality and fantasy & fiction. By using real life stories and images, my work explores the means by which drawing and painting can be used as performative tools, which allow for alternative narratives and imaginative interpretations to penetrate existence, in an attempt to claim reality as their own.

My artistic influences are quite varied and go beyond the realm of visual art.

When I was in high school I had the habit of sitting in the back of the class, during math or physics, with my head buried in a Shakesper comedy. The gender bendering of the plays together with the way the parallel plots intertwine still delight and mesmerize me. Shakespear`s Sonnets are on my nightstand, and I enjoy revisiting their

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Doria Sharra

intensity and depths of emotion when in need of inspiration.

David Lynch`s Twin Peaks still enthralls me so many years after the series premiered. The show was a captivating example of an independant yet communicitive artistic language, and I was intrigued by the transformations the charchters expirienced.

The first painter I admired as a young teen was Klimt, and I still hold him in high regard. I feel that he is much more than the "decorator" it seems that art history at times reduces him to. Of course there are many other painters that are important to me, such as Frida Kahlo, Caravaggio and Michaelangelo.

The Israel Museum in my hometown of Jerusalem holds a magnificent collection of Dada and Surrealist Art The Vera and Arturo Schwarz Collection. It is a true tresure that I`ve had the privlage of getting lost in for hours at a time.

I also have great intrest in the work of artists that push boundries, such as Linda Bengalis, Carolee Schneemann, Santiago Sierra, Maurizio Cattelan, Kara Walker, Roee Rosen, Andrea Fraser and others.

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audience reception is not something I take into consideration when creating them. I think it would be impossible for me to work that way. In the Artist Residency I recently took part in in Sardinia (the Premio Marchionni Residency from MAGMMA Museum), I gave an artist talk to a group of young students. Since they study different subjects, they had a myriad of ideas regarding the involvement of the audience with art. Their views were quite varied, and it seems to me that this is a question that is important to for one to consider early on.

Since we are living in a time wherein we are exposed to thousands of images on a daily basis, I have to say I agree art demands a certain kind of effort and concentration. It doesn`t matter if the work draws the viewers in slowly, or takes over them all at once, almost like love at first sight. If a piece is compelling, it will linger in their minds and raise interesting questions for them to contemplate. I strive to create work that makes that connection and sparks that inner conversation.

Thank you for having me, it`s been a pleasure discussing my works with you!

I have a few programs coming up, and in my studio I will focusing on two series from my current project. The first is inspired by a major new trend in adult toys emphasizes design that might cater to one`s lifestyle, replacing their previous main selling point, which used to be functionality. The result is a multitude of beautiful objects, which one might not know what to do with at first glance. The second deals with questions related to discipline and power exchange.

The audience is important to me in the sense of the cultural conversation that the works and myself are part of.

However, that being said, the issue of

An interview by and

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Suresh Babu Maddilety

ART Habens

video, 2013

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Suresh Babu Maddilety

information. Thus, I may have collected a lot of information from my childhood. If a situation reacts in a particular way in reality and provides the information, my work is realized.

Of course, my surroundings play a big role in creating that situation. My living place of physicality is congested and very spiritual belief-conscious. Different ideologies and everything related to them, no doubt have a great impact on me, and maybe my nature of spirituality blends with every belief system. So, my nature perceives what it wants from these.

Hello, abens. What you are doing is also a kind of art. You people are making good artworks. Thus, I am one of your artworks. I wish your work should be appreciated by everyone.

There is no particular influence for my work. Maybe it does not depend on a particular time and space; it depends on a whole lifetime and space. My subconscious is built by my nature. So, when it shuffles in reality and reacts to reality I get

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When I got this idea from subconscious it was vague. But, of late, I realized that it manifested as a multidisciplinary form.

Here we don’t have multidisciplinary culture; we prefer to use the form of painting more and to some extent sculpture.

In my post-graduation, I did only painting, our mentors did not encourage this type of work, they preferred only craft work, and we were taught art history in a cursory way. I don’t have anyone, with whom I can share this type of work. Moreover, I don’t have knowledge of western culture, particularly this kind of artistic work.

People, who I know, do not understand the concept. I am a happy-go-lucky guy I just love art. I relate my thoughts of subconscious with scientific thoughts that support me every time. So without knowing anything, I developed this as a multidisciplinary form. I have struggled to find works of similar nature and studied to find out any reference of such crossdisciplinary art forms in the world. Maybe still I am struggling to present this concept in a proper way.

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Social liquid series is a thrilling project to me and I have experienced the excitement growing as the project evolved. I had not expected much before the work began. I gave the name ‘social liquids’ after finishing the first work. This utility substance has power of forming an emotional connectivity towards them. I realised that even I had developed a certain emotional connectivity with the subject. Thus started my journey of ‘social liquids’. I have a lot of ideas in my mind, but I don’t know when they will be realised? Let’s wait…

My father has inspired me a lot. He was a signboard artist and a rationalist. He drew me towards science. One night, when I was young, he pointed at the stars in the sky and said, ‘each one of them is like our Sun.’ That set me thinking. I was trying to seek answers to a plethora of questions arising within me. 'Innovation,' the idea of this word embraces my nature, why? I don’t know. My dream worlds are in that 'innovation' only, now through the art I travel into these worlds, enjoying them visually and conceptually. Maybe, we don’t see this 'innovation' with spirituality (respecting everything). The relationship between Art and Science is that both thrive on innovation. The one, who pursues relentlessly is transported to another world. Art process has rather a freedom; It needs no explanation, has no time restrictions; we can go fast forward.

Whereas in the scientific process, we have to be rational, logical, analytical and so on.

So, my science is rather artistic and my art scientific without the burden of the scientific process. Science is my interesting topic for me from my childhood

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days. But I didn’t understand those formulations in my academics. Maybe I like the end result more than the process of science in my childhood days. Art might be entered here. Art might be taken over the first stage of my process science. In the future, I guess maybe ‘art of science’ leads the art world….

We have a great history regarding the evolution of artifact and its impact on mankind. Contrary to our expectations, it does not decrease our strain, but, in the long run, it decreases our immunity and happiness.

We have been infused by a belief system and follow a set pattern in our lives, lifestyle, thoughts and actions, without questioning them. We give more importance to them, for those, we create priority and hierarchies. I, through my work, invade their comfort zones and disturb them by shattering their conventional lifestyle and smashing their beliefs. I am breaking the imaginary foundation of the traditional creativity and am diverting that purpose. This, in the art world, is an accepted phenomenon.

Maybe, my diversion is somewhat different. That is my intention.

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Here, I don’t intend to confront anybody, this is not the political act. I don’t want to be judged by my work and be painted as man with a particular political doctrine. I would rather, let it go without any title. I am dealing everything with the Spirituality tone. Sometimes, I am not controlled by an emotion, that’s why I say my opinion. In contemporary art, the artists have their individual choices, and freedom for their own creation. Our response to such works are spontaneous and not a part of a wellplanned strategy. Of course, with other aspects, individual stands, political, social and cultural slant, influences the way we deal with the art form. Art does not only stand for strategies, it is the concept of omnipresence.

What she said is true to a great extent.

Change, is a constant and is bound to happen. There will be shifts and drifts as long as there is creative urge and the ‘restlessness’ and ‘impatience’ to selfexpress and make a statement persists in the society. That way it is a ‘Revolution in the process of Evolution.’

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When I work, I am the artist and I am the audience. I am so deeply involved with the work that I am not aware of my surroundings and others’ reactions. It is as if my unconscious, subconscious and conscious all work together. I’m impervious to external perceptions, influences and responses. This is totally experimental work. After completing my work, it seems strange even to me. I have doubts how viewers receive this. It takes some time even for me to understand the work. After seeing my work, the viewers have freedom to accept, appreciate or reject it. I respect them for their own interpretation.

What he said is true, it is the ground reality. I find that no matter, how immune one feels to the happenings around oneself, they do influence us. In fact, artists are more sensitive and respond strongly to the happenings favourably or otherwise. India, the country I belong to has a rich tradition of art, culture, history and spirituality. They do influence you either in a positive and dominant way or as an undercurrent of exasperation, but, they are there.

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To me viewers are artists too. If the viewer understands, feels and appreciates the artist's work, it means he has the qualities of an artist, leave the negative thoughts.

The artist does not have in mind the viewer when he works, for him, work is primary and produces art out of his body.

Even the viewer does not have in mind the artist, when he sees the work, for him work is primary and he perceives something that emerges in the brain. But there is definitely a very minuscule part; that is conscious of the viewer in artist’s subconscious. So, it all depends on how an artist’s balances these. Art is a form of expression, a means of communication that we only we have to feel. This is unique to our form of art and not the case with other fields. Every time a new character is added to the art, continuously. That is the art.

Thank you very much. The response from people like you and your keenness in my work is very encouraging and gives me more confidence to continue experimenting. I am forming more ideas of art. Let us see what happens.

Thank you once again, Art Habens.

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