CONNECT
iNTERVIEW SERIES BY ART CINEMA
06th of July, 2020
How do you stay connected with your creative constituency these days?
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how we programme classical music. Let’s say there’s an art gallery that only has a couple of paintings, perhaps a Michelangelo and a Leonardo. Two incredible works of art, but it’s not exactly a ‘gallery’ is it. The same for classical music. There’s great relevance to hearing canonic works in different settings and with different inter-relationships. Programming thoughtfully means there’s scope to be imaginative, to reimagine and re-contextualise.
How has the confinement altered the way you communicate with your creative constituency?
I’ve been using this time to communicate on a more cerebral level. Having exchanged my baton for a pen and paper these last few months, writing is a way to stay connected with the essence of a piece of music, without actually conducting it. There’s been more deep listening, and letting thoughts occur without rush or force. I’ve been spending time revisiting some longstanding creative ideas, inspired by Nabakov’s maxim “a good reader is a rereader”.
What are the new forms of the connectedness you are seeing emerge as a result of the confinement and do you foresee a change in the way we connect post lockdown?
The resourcefulness, optimism, and virtuosity of online performances during lockdown has been truly extraordinary. But orchestral music is essentially a live experience. Coming together to make music together is incredibly profound, and all of us—performers and audiences alike—need to be safely in the same space together. I’m interested to see how the digital develops post-pandemic, and also how the acoustic can interact more freely with this, but—realistically—the classical world is suffering. In order to move forward artists and arts organisations need government support. Art is not separate from life, it’s absolutely central to it.
What topics/people inspire your communication with other whilst in isolation?
A great deal of discussion about ethics, and how as a society we can look to share the responsibility for one another.
What is your personal experience dealing with the virtual world before and since lockdown?
As a conductor, with all the travel and the complexities of working within different cultural contexts every week, my work life usually runs very fast. Pre-lockdown, the virtual world was predominantly a means to stay in touch with family, or to hold meetings with colleagues in different time zones. Now it’s our primary means to connect, for both work and beyond the home. Instead of conducting, I’ve used this time to teach and mentor, all done online, which has been very enriching.
Has the lockdown made you more intorspective,and if so, in what way?
I’m introspective by nature, and find a great deal of meaning in my work and interests. If anything, lockdown has made me question more the external structures within which we live our lives.
Art has always served a medium of connectedness in society – how do you see it work under lockdown?
I’m reminded of a line by John Berger. He said something like: “that we find a crystal or a poppy beautiful means that we are less alone, that we are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would lead us to believe”.
02nd of July, 2020
When I was a child my father threatened to lock me up in a tower if I didn’t behave myself.
During lockdown, in my tower, time went by more slowly. We couldn’t run, leave, travel, walk up towards other faces, shake hands, touch someone else’s skin…
It gave us time to think, to take a break to search our limits, our deep desires, our truth. Time for questions ?
We had to find inside ourselves the strength to be disciplined and to organise our day without surrendering to laziness, reading, dreaming or Netflix. Is idleness creative ? Can we let time slip through our fingers like sand or should we act to be part of the world? What’s its necessity?
Before lockdown, I met every week with the art lovers and patrons who belong to the non-profit organisation I funded, Spirit Now! London. We invited a museum director, an artist, a collector or a figure of the art world to share a unique moment that stimulated us and fed our minds. In a privileged setting, we took the time to listen to our guest talk about his/her passions, inspirations, ideas. We dined with him/her… We enjoyed these moments together.
Today, as we can’t assemble, how can our community stay connected ? How can we make our voice heard among so many Zoom meetings and Facetime calls?
We have access to so many networks, so much information, but is there a real connection ?
We are deprived of physical contacts, of the feeling of experiencing things together as a ‘pack’, as a circle of friends.
In these unusual times, Spirit Now! London decided to create memories of these exclusive moments asking some artists we had met to make videos with us. Each video allows us to dive back into an artist’s world and features a special message for our community.
Some members of Spirit Now London (publishers, foundation directors, designers) also entered into the spirit of this project. Time has come to shed light on them and get the strength of our connection as a group back.
30th of June, 2020
What are the new forms of connectedness you are seeing emerging as a result of the confinement?
There are valiant attempts being made to connect to audiences by replicating concert events online – e.g. ensemble work to click track (some really good), concerts if partners and/or those in the household happen to be musicians. Artists are engaging with social media and confinement by exploiting its possibilities and seeking out new forms of expression and communication. Events like Wigmore Hall/BBC live concert streaming represent a tiny shoot of recovery.
Apart from the clarsach, I’m working with my friend and colleague, the saxophonist Rob Buckland on a new version of a piece for solo flute (Blue) for his solo recording project. I’m revisiting older pieces that never made it on the computer so I’m typesetting and revising: firstly a chamber opera I wrote with the poet Eve Salzman (One Two), then a String Quartet from 1989 and currently a large scale orchestral piece (Amethyst Deceiver) I wrote for the Hallé Orchestra in 1981. There’s no performance planned and it really is big (26 minutes and a large orchestra) so one one hand, it’s not exactly a ‘piece for our time’ but on the other hand, I wouldn’t be doing it if deep down there wasn’t still a sliver of optimism – and in any case, hope should never die!
26th of June, 2020
Lockdown is by essence the paradoxical fate of the artist: to stay connected with the world, in its beauty, ugliness, softness, logic, absurdity. And to withdrew into oneself to translate one’s emotions and thoughts.
Half of humanity locked up: an unlikely scenario that suddenly became our augmented reality. Did the world become crazy? Not sure. Maybe the world started to stop being crazy.
A new definition of time imposed itself, an abstract and ephemeral time. I watched a world of lonely tightrope walkers who staggered and stood still, hanging in the air.
The time to think had finally come.
I was guided by those who inspire me: relatives, people I admire and poets.
Lockdown emphasised what’s essential:
Life is short.
What counts holds in the palm of one’s hand.
We have to take care of our loved ones.
Our memory defines ourselves, our actions and choices.
We have to re-learn how to listen, read and look. How to express ourselves and communicate. The plague of this century is our poor listening habits. Means of communication have multiplied but we’ve lost real communication. Attention rhymes with intention.
I was happy while creating. Work was more intense, harder, truer. I felt closer to myself and others. Strangely free.
I started working on collages entitled The End of Language I, II and III or a series of White Pages. I’m trying to translate the beauty of authentic contact, of a universal language.
I intentionally didn’t switch on my computer very often.
I’ve developed an aversion to the virtual world these past years. It’s a masquerade where overflowing messages oppress us. Where we watch ourselves turning our lives into punchlines or new images on social media which are social in name only.
These are powerful tools provided one uses them wisely to complete certain tasks. Not to discover art. A viewing room is useful as a memorandum, an outline or a narrative tool – in the curatorial sense of the word. But the viewing-room is brutal, it doesn’t respect the geography of desire that is part of all exhibitions.
The word connect interests me as an answer, an intention, be it artistic. As a contribution to the world. I can’t be an artist without being a humanist first.
23rd of June, 2020
How do you stay connected with your creative constituency these days ?
Via my website, emails and the sort of informal telepathy through which my readers engage with my books without me having to be physically present. This process is immediately dematerialised.
What are the new forms of connectedness you are seeing emerging as a result of the confinement ?
I hope the sanitary crisis doesn’t last long enough to further dematerialise what has already been dematerialised to a large extent (I don’t have that many opportunities to meet my readers !).
What topics/people inspired you whilst in self-isolation ?
I took advantage of the lockdown to make the final corrections to my book on Corsica that my publisher [Grasset] still plans to publish in January (2021) if the world doesn’t stop spinning before that because of the virus. And I managed to write the fifth version of a novel that totally engrossed me. I stayed completely focused while writing. There was extraordinary strength and joy in the way this project occupied my mind.
While the majority of human activities, so vital to our survival, was paralysed, I had – I still have – the absolute conviction that what I was doing was vital, at least for myself. The economic but also moral tragedy (what am I doing ? Who am I ? Where am I going ) that so many people experienced and are still experiencing turned, in my case, into a radical confirmation : I think I have never been as personal as in this book.
What is your personal experience dealing with the virtual world before and since the lockdown ?
I didn’t deal with the virtual world before or during lockdown. I am sparing with the time I spend on social media which amounts to nought. Lockdown didn’t alter my relationship to digital technologies.
Art has always served a medium of connectedness in society – how do you see it work under the lockdown ?
I strongly believe that a book sanctifies an encounter between two temporary solitudes. This meeting can only occur when there is silence. It can happen in a public place (train, bus, boat…) but one has to abstract oneself from it to become someone else (the writer, the characters he/she has invented, the creator he/she has written about, the work he/she has analysed…) for a little while. Whether you are confined or not, it is always enlightening to do some research on the internet and find out about an author, read interviews or lectures he/she has given, go through critical reviews he/she wrote or that were written about him/her. But I don’t think the lockdown is going to change our aesthetics or our relationship to images the way the Iconoclastic quarrel or the Council of Trent did. There is a risk that the situation puts many libraries out of business, accelerating the decline of the book which is more and more marginalised in comparison with the image.
19th of June, 2020
16th of June, 2020
Isolation and the current crisis have not caused great change in my life, but I am very well aware that this shows that I belong to a group of privileged people.
Doctors and medical workers are the real heroes in this time of crisis, but also all the people who had to go to work every day in the past weeks.
I hope many lessons are being learnt from this heart-breaking pandemic. For example that in the future, countries must invest more in public health and that we also have to pay attention to potential new crises that lie ahead, such as climate change. But I am not optimistic about these issues, I think that we as a society need to learn better from the past. We need more solidarity in the future.
It has been inspiring to see how people broke limitations caused by quarantine using online platforms, live streaming, public talks and other solutions to keep creating content and communicating.
Still, for me, nothing can replace a face-to-face conversation or going to exhibitions, concerts and other art events in the real world.
I’ve used these days of isolation to do what I love most: drawing, painting and watching movies.
12th of June, 2020
9th of June, 2020
As a visual artist, I am used to traveling frequently to different countries for festivals and exhibitions. But when back at home, I was quite enjoying being alone and isolated. I must admit that I enjoyed the certain ‘absence’ Corona brought to our lives. The ‘addiction’ to overdose activity and our dominant ‘presence’ in nature was something I was questioning in my artworks lately.
My latest solo show ADA at Arter Istanbul in 2018 was based on films I have made about human absence, how nature is taking over abandoned structures. It’s a strange feeling for me now to observe this is happening in our reality.
However, this doesn’t mean that I like what’s happening to humankind now. We are responsible for what is happening, this is not the fault of a little virus but the vulnerable weak system we have built. It is up to us now how to fix this and not repeat our mistakes!
As an artist, creating and reflecting is a way of existence for me. But personally, I am not very attracted to virtual alternatives being developed. It is very crucial and important that we can stay connected, create and share online but I also believe that we can build a higher quality of connection with micro-politics in physical space.
As an example of this, I had an idea to project video-art on my windows to my neighbours (whom I did not know and didn’t have a real connection before) and to individuals randomly passing through my street.
I asked artists whose work I like a lot, and all of them responded positively and with a great enthusiasm. I have already made some new connections within my neighbourhood and met new artists and showed them on my windows, which is the most exciting interaction I’m having during this period so far.
5th of June, 2020
How do you stay connected with your creative constituency these days?
Well there’s no conducting going on right now of course – no orchestra, and no operas. But I am teaching. I am making videos of exercises for my students, teaching on zoom and even running group workshops.
How has the confinement altered the way you communicate with your creative constituency ?
It is all done online, but I use FaceTime and zoom much more than I ever did.
What are the new forms of connectedness you are seeing emerging as a result of the confinement ?
Yes, in a way it has. Some of us who have been so incredibly busy for so long now, have time to connect. Conductors are generously sharing their thoughts on music and even running masterclass.
Do you foresee a change in the way we connect with each other post lockdown ?
Yes. We will be much more comfortable with reaching out to people who are not physically close. I have taught students in Australia and US, and it never occurred to me that I could continue to teach them whichever country I happen to be in.
Digital connectedness -via social media, videoconferencing, digital platforms- took a much more prominent position in communication strategies. how do you think this will affect the culture of consumerism in the future?
I think it will have a lasting affect. However, I believe there is nothing better than live music. I see it as a way of connecting people, and introducing them to new ideas and art forms as well as appreciating artists performing in venues we can’t reach. But the real thing will be even more thrilling when eventually we are allowed to return.
What is your personal experience dealing with the virtual world before and since the lockdown ?
I am much more comfortable with it now. But sometimes it makes me sad as I miss the real thing.
Has the lockdown made you more introspection? and if so, in what way?
As a conductor I am used to periods where I am learning scores and don’t see many people. These are much shorter than lockdown so far, but it is not as frightening and lonely an experience as it is for many.
Art has always served a medium of connectedness in society – how do you see it work under the lockdown ?
It is essential. Art of all types. I am a musician, but a passion of mine is painting which I have never had time to devote to it. Since lockdown I have painting almost every day. I also listening to radio dramas, podcasts, audio books and watch live streaming of plays. I am finding music sometimes a little too painful as I want to hear it live, so other art forms are giving me real solace.
2nd of June, 2020
How do you stay connected with your creative constituency these days ?
In a few emails I sent to friends from the art world I shared lockdown thoughts adding images of what I was currently doing in relation to the pandemic. I also published a few posts on Instagram.
I decided not to communicate excessively during lockdown. I don’t believe in sharing my internal personal journey, my doubts and my small victories on social media. I need some distance and I don’t like to show my emotions or actions on these platforms. Many galleries and institutions multiplied virtual exhibition tours and artist studio visits or online presentations. I followed almost none: my lockdown routine was linked to parenting as I have two young children. The time devoted to work and web surfing was drastically reduced.
Moreover, I like what happens on the internet when it is about sharing information but I don’t like it when marketing becomes too visible. It is obvious that big organisations have hired some staff to do their PR and that social media do well in time of pandemic but they make people with less means look amateurs.
What are the new forms of connectedness you are seeing emerging as a result of the confinement ?
I have been working since last September on a new website. It will be a dynamic communicating tool. I am planning to use it to show the work I have done over the past fifteen years. I also want to create sections where, like I a curator, I can establish links between the different parts of my work. I will also add texts that I have written. I rely heavily on this communicating tool that I have neglected these last years. I want to show and exhibit my art on the internet according to my own criteria, my own tempo… It will then be relayed in social media.
I also intend to invite more people to visit my studio to allow for direct contacts between them and my paintings. I don’t think this health crisis is going to change anything beyond the growing awareness that we can make do with what we have at home. I can see people becoming more resourceful. But my impression is that as soon as this crisis is over, we will go back to normal, equipped with a few more remote work tools.
What topics/people inspire you whilst in self-isolation ?
Because of this crisis, we have been forced to stay within the family unit – in my case it is a typical family with Dad, Mum and two children. The fact that we were together hugely influenced my work. To be constantly with my children, taking care of them more than usual, having time to enjoy these moments made me want to produce work with them, about them and through them. Opting for this orientation in my work has been on my mind for a long time but the current situation made me naturally follow this direction.
I do not have access to my studio anymore for logistical reasons so I designed a new, smaller one in one of the rooms of the house. The sizes of my pieces have shrunk and I am focusing on ‘poor’ forms of art : drawings on paper, watercolours, small oil on wood paintings. There are so many uncertainties about our future project that we have lost our bearings. But we have also been experimenting and I think it is a very fertile response. This is no time for self-assessment. It is time to let go and listen to what is coming to our minds without too much critical thinking. I must admit that what is coming to me pertains to the imaginary more than to a reflective approach. As for reading, I went back to authors I love such as Rebecca Solnitt or comic book writers like Ralf Koening who ferociously mocks the stereotypes ingrained in our societies. I also looked at legendary artists like Van Eyck and Giovani Bellini… a form of return to the sources.
Digital connectedness – via social media, videoconferencing, digital platforms- took a much more prominent position in communication strategies. how do you think this will affect the culture of consumerism in the future.
I believe that nothing will spare us from the subjection to the market law. Nothing.
That being said, all these digital tools existed before the crisis and we already used them a lot to communicate. What changed is the frequency, the fact that we now use them non-stop. I think that these tools are available to artists in order to create a self-sufficient and fascinating media. It is just a matter of investing time and money. It is true that the time devoted to communication impinges on the time devoted to creation. I personally decided to invest time in sharing my artistic approach, in creating my own media. More than a marketing strategy, it is about sharing elements on the challenges and questions which are so central to my work. It is also about expressing my thoughts without intermediaries.
Artists have a lot on their plates. They are in charge of their studio, the admin of a company, the archiving of their work, the logistics of their exhibitions, the promotion of their art, submissions for open calls etc… On top of all that, there is a social demand for transparency and a voyeurism of the artistic practice. It is time-consuming and we need to be very strategic about what we show and what we do not show.
What is your personal experience dealing with the virtual world before and since the lockdown.
Lockdown has had an effect on my relationships to digital technologies but opposite to the majority’s. Digital education and communication tools like videoconferencing software have had a very negative impact on my body. I experienced violent headaches and an unpleasant impressions of dizziness after hours spent videoconferencing and teaching online. To me, physical human interactions seem more than ever the best way to communicate.
I know there has been a lot of buzz around art projects and creative content shared on the internet but I did not have much time to get involved. Taking care of my children was my priority. In normal circumstances, I can’t even deal with the huge amount of data created daily on the internet. I suffered in the past from a Facebook addiction disorder so I don’t use it anymore but I often check Instagram as its contents is not too prolific (you can’t click on links for example). It is a learning tool that I find very inspiring as it is a way for people to share personal thoughts for professional purposes.
It is weird: during lockdown, there has been a surge in phone calls and they lasted longer. I managed to paint while I was speaking on the phone. I have the impression that my friends were doing the same.
But as I said, I have not been very active on social media. I am suspicious of oversharing and outpourings of emotions online. I noticed that many online behaviours during lockdown were desperate calls for attention even though we are not visible anymore in the real world. The situation opened doors to news arenas in my practice. I will share them in due course, after stepping back and reflecting on this period which allowed me to take a break before going on.
I wanted to initiate a project during lockdown but it was impossible because the materials I needed were out of stock: I wanted to create VR artwork. I think we have reached a point where it has become easy to handle this technology. I can feel something coming, a revolution in the visual and sound experience. It is the pre-cinema stage. And that is where the future of shows lies. It is only an intuition and it is still very vague.
I am positioning myself at the two extremes of the spectrum: painting as a low tech and thousand-year-old practice and the VR of the future.
30th of May, 2020
We are deeply saddened by the recent and sudden passing of Ruşen Güneş, violist. Our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends. We had the privilege to count him amongst our connect series contributors. Here are his wise thoughts.
How do you stay connected with your creative constituency these days?
My main channel to stay connected is the internet at the moment, I also stay in touch with my entourage via emails and keep on reading the news.
How has the confinement altered the way you communicate with your creative constituency ?
There hasn’t been much difference so far. In fact I prefer this so called lockdown as I feel my encounters with people are less intimating.
What are the new forms of connectedness you are seeing emerging as a result of the confinement
I used to enjoy meeting people for a drink and a chat, unfortunately everything is virtual now, so I am missing those days but I can bare it.
Do you foresee a change in the way we connect with each other post lockdown?
I don’t think there will be any major difference communication wise, everything is virtual but as humankind we still need to find our ways to stay connected.
Has the lockdown made you more introspection? and if so, in what way?
Introspection ? I still write, read and watch. My only concern is that I worry about my kids, They are all adults, all 4 of them. I am also worried for my young friends it will be a huge ‘operation’ to return back to the ‘normal’ AGAIN.
Art has always served a medium of connectedness in society – how do you see it work under the lockdown.
You can never kill art.
29th of May, 2020
I co-founded AWITA nearly 4 years ago with the vision of building a supportive community of professional women working in the arts, and to support this community through networking, mentoring and professional development,
Some of the challenges thrown up by the current Corona (Covid -19) public health crisis are quite unique, and it is clear the we way work, do business and socialise together is changing. Initially I spent a-lot of time reaching out and speaking to women across the entire arts ecology, asking how they were feeling, what impact Coronavirus was having on their businesses, work and home life, and what AWITA could do to help. It immediately became clear that what people wanted more than anything else was to feel part of a community, that a collective sense of ‘we are are all in this together’ was important. We launched AWITA C-suites, focused 30 minute sessions led by senior arts professionals.
These have included Navigating a New Era of Social Media, Sales Strategies in a Time of Crisis, Project Planning without a Timeline, Our Duty of Care and Communication Strategies. I was a little cautious about scheduling too many of these, as we watched the cultural sector stampede to digital and I was concerned about the over-saturation of online content, but the reaction has been incredible.
I’ve been overwhelmed by the generosity of senior arts professionals, giving their time and expertise with immense candour and warmth. Although the sessions are closed, we record and edit the content and post these online with key takeaways for a wider community of female arts professional to access. We feel that now is the time to share and support with honesty and compassion.
This has been a time to pause and reflect, but also an opportunity for us to try new things and reassess our mission and values. We may now be physically distanced but we can still be socially engaged. I feel compelled, now more than ever, to continue to build a strong network that supports and cares for professional women in the art world. As borders close physically, it is important to extend our conversations collegiately and internationally. Our new familiarity with digital and virtual interaction has had some upsides, and means we can explore meaningful ways to build new relationships and online peer to peer mentoring.
To paraphrase Churchill ‘a crisis is a terrible thing to waste’, and as much as we can’t return to normal because normal was the problem, this pandemic has pushed us all to think about how we work digitally to create meaningful and content rich interfaces, and to consider who our audiences are. It feels like there are some fundamental shifts occurring in the way we want to work and live. Perhaps our workplace will no longer be a single location but an eco-system of a variety of different locations and experiences and we will make choices to support convenience, functionality and wellbeing.
Consumption has slowed down, there is no longer such urgency, and we have the time and space to pause and reflect. My hope is that we won’t race back to the old normal but that a different art world will emerge, and the global carousel of gas-guzzling carbon spewing art fairs and biennials that we were all spinning around on, won’t restart. Obviously I can’t wait to get back to Venice with a Bellini in hand, but with less of the artificial sense of urgency to see and be seen, to buy now and buy more. The fixed horizon feels less hazy and more precise. I feel I have a better sense of who I am, what I want and what I am good at, and what really matters. In a needs hierarchy where health and safety are priorities, it’shard to argue for the role of art. It has been interesting to see how artists have responded while in isolation – and wonderful to see so many working collegiately with care to support each other eg Matthew Burroughs #artistsupportpledge which has so far raised £20 million for artists through small online pay it forward sales. Keith Tyson’s Isolation Art School and Bob and Roberta Smiths art education are further examples alongside a more campaigning approach by Jeremy Deller, Peter Liversidge and Mark Titchener. Equally many artists are working quietly, in their studios and it will be interesting to see what emerges. Even if the work isn’t specifically about Covid-19, one imagines the stains or traces of this time will mark the work, even if in subtle ways, and historically this could be a significant period culturally.
26th of May, 2020
I spent the last fourteen years gathering visual material for an experimental documentary film about my relationship to the planet. It was a mostly pleasurable and inspiring process, but it wasn’t until I woke up, a few days into the lockdown imposed on us all by the pandemic, that I realised that now was the time for me to start turning my global collection of images and sound into the artwork I had imagined all those years ago. Banned from straying more than 1km from my house by the French government, I stared at my immobilised roll-aboard suitcase and thought of the connection between my post-apocalyptic images of the airplane graveyards in the Arizona desert taken in March 2017, and the daily news images in March 2020 of 96% of the world’s airliners now grounded. So many clipped aluminium wings showing me a way to live differently, to slow down and reconnect with my own immediate surroundings rather than constantly chasing time and space. I remembered that these surroundings were chosen by the very first artists; the Palaeolithic poet-painters of the caves at Lascaux and Peche Merle nearby. The connections I began to make in this new-found zone represented an opportunity to stop ‘making sense’ of everything and to abandon the idea of conventional narrative entirely. I found that my attention to detail had increased and my perception of my reality was open to so much more than I had initially packed into my initial ‘thesis’ which now appeared reductive.
So I look at the weeks and months ahead and find myself at peace with this new relationship, one which I fantasised about but never thought possible. There is more pressure from the digital, to the point that its infinite variety and complexity is at times overwhelming; as if the entire universe is multiplexed into a single piece of fibre optic cable which terminates in the bottom left corner of this 500 year old stone house, but I have found compensatory solace in watching the spring morph into summer outside. The baby swallows nesting under the eves of my roof have taken flight, even if the airliners still have not.
22nd of May, 2020
‘To live is essentially to live the life of another: to live in and through the life that others have been able to construct or invent.’ Emanuele Coccia, The Life of Plants. A Metaphysics of Mixture
The economy has brutally been subjected to a new priority. Purely and simply: life. We suddenly pay more attention to doctors than to economists.
I now feel that I am an interdependent entity, that I live in symbiosis with the ‘others’ in every sense of the word – other human beings, other species, the wind. I am at one with them and I love this sensation.
The fact that life can perpetuate itself by merging with ‘others’ makes me feel alive.
I suddenly have the same needs, the same schedule as everyone else. I am not ‘a’ plumber, ‘an’ escort girl, ‘a’ sailor anymore. Having to comply with the same restrictions as everyone else, I feel close to all human beings.
During my daily walks, I started watching every single tree I came across, examining how its leaves sprouted a bit more every day. I experienced the passage of time through the growth of plants. I have had to reorganise my time to make this possible.
I now make sure I take breaks when engaged in activities that really matter. I give myself time the same way we let dough rest when baking bread.
I have realised that making things in a hurry is not sexy anymore.
Inevitably, my new project for 2020 is linked to the strange situation we live in. All of a sudden, my problem becomes everyone’s problem. We are all facing a crisis without borders. It is a very strong feeling.
This forced pause allowed nature and animals to breath again. I hope this forced pause awakens us to the urgency of protecting ourselves and protecting nature which amounts to the same thing.
I am not only a content in a container. What counts is my interaction with the environment. I cross over space and I merge with the elements.
My new series of paintings is entitled Going out inside (Uscire dentro in Italian, Sortir dedans in French).
The circumstances led me to a provocative gesture. I imagined an outside space which has to be framed under glass to stay outside and uncontaminated.
How to translate formally the act of looking a landscape without standing in front of it, watching it through a window like animals in a zoo ?
What does outside mean? Can the outside become part of the household ?
All of a sudden the landscape is not an external space anymore. It appears to me simply as a space where I feel welcomed, where I can find my place.
And instead of getting rid of the insect crawling on my hand, I look at it.
We are in something with the same intensity and strenght as it is in us.
I wish each of us feels immersed in an outside that is like a home.
19th of May, 2020
The whole concept of connectedness is so central to thinking, to doing, to being a human being. Thoughts and actions really only have meaning when they have context. And that context is born of making the appropriate connections. In most human interactions, transient or more permanent, making meaningful connection is essential, whether achieved non-verbally, through body language or facial gesture or verbally through empathetic conversation. Without meaningful connection we are no more than objects. Not individuals. And we must remember that each individual, given the opportunity, has a view, a take on life, or an angle that might cause our thinking to move in a new (maybe more valuable) direction, or might encourage a deeper insight.
In these times of lockdown, most connections between people have to be virtual, so it’s essential that we try our best to discover the most effective manner in which to make these work. What we often miss are those subtle, non-verbal signals people are constantly sending out – signals that many can read instinctively, allowing connection and communication to take place in a subtle, sophisticated and many-layered fashion. In non-video communication of course you can’t see the person with whom you are communicating; and even with video connections (and the usual attendant problems) we need to rely so much more on what we say. The precise words we use and our inflection of those words with their (often complex) implications can have such an effect on the person who receives them. Lockdown has made me so much more conscious of this.
During this time, there has been much online virtual music making, which is wonderful. So many musicians have recorded and shared their performances. And there has been a vast amount of teaching, which has been successful in varying degrees. I’m enjoying my online teaching – and have done my first online Inset. I’ve been thinking hard about the strategies we normally use in these activities which need careful adapting to work in the virtual world.
But the virtual world is virtual, both in the sense of being both a simulated world and a world that we’re near, we’re virtually in, but not quite. There’s no doubt that it is a wonderful second best – but second best is probably as good as it can ever be. It doesn’t quite allow us to sense and be affected by the concentration, intensity of thought, and on-going non-verbal signals of communication that make life (in this case, teaching and performing) so powerful and indeed, meaningful.
This interlude has given us the time and opportunity to connect with ourselves – it has allowed us to think inwardly, maybe to re-connect with our core values and passions. So that when we do eventually reconnect with the real world, we can do so with even more energy and clarity. There’s no doubt that we will have learned much in this strange but curiously necessary episode in our history. And I’m sure we shall take the best of it to use in the future. But real connections must ultimately win over those that are virtual.
15th of May, 2020
Our current Covid-19 life has made us introspective in terms of how we wish to continue our daily life and our daily business after this pandemic.
Artists, Galleries, Museums, Art Fairs, Auction Houses and all of us Creatives are waking up to the new reality of how to make virtual and online business viable, as well as friendly and confidential, while still attractive to clients. The idea of re-invention or re-adaptation is making us push boundaries, innovate and also assess the viability of unsustainable practices.
Institutions are already adapting to the ‘new normal’. This week, FRIEZE NEW YORK launches its online viewing room. The fair is bringing us more than 200 international galleries online. There will be live conversations and curator’s highlights of the fair via video platforms.
The OTHER ART FAIR offers online studio visits in London, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Brooklyn. They plan to include online studios from Dallas, Chicago, Melbourne and more.
Auction House Christie’s conducts its ‘online only’ sale; ‘ANDY WARHOL: Better Days’, a selection of Warhol’s photographs and polaroids. Its competitor, Sotheby’s, teams up with Google and leading figures to launch an online auction to fund the International Rescue Committee in response to the spread of Covid-19 in vulnerable communities.
Online is not a substitute for the real experience of seeing art in galleries, museums, art fairs and auction houses. If anything it reinforces the need to see the real thing. The popularity of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre is due to its digital online promotion. But then we need to really see it, experience it, to be able to understand it and own it. Real culture is through experience. The experience of visiting an artist’s studio, going to a museum or to a gallery are irreplaceable.
For the moment, ‘Virtual art’ is the new normal norm but we are all longing for a real art experience again.
12th of May, 2020
I’m very introspective anyway. My natural default state is silent retreat, so this is actually very comfortable for me. I LOVE the quiet, the time, the presence of nature and the absence of pollution. As I heard someone say the other day, it reminds me of the Seventies!!
8th of May, 2020
How do you stay connected with your creative constituency these days?
The Royal Academy is an artist-led organisation. Founded by artists with artists still at the helm, lead by Rebecca Salter our fabulous President. Our Royal Academicians independently and collectively represent many voices and are involved in many activities at this extraordinary time . The Academy has a great virtual programme with life drawing classes, tours around some remarkable exhibitions such as David Hockney’s 2012 and 2016 shows and Picasso and Paper, activities for the whole family. And of course we are still running our Royal Academy Schools – the only 3 year postgraduate course which is free of charge for our students. It is tough not having them in their studios at the Academy but the teaching goes on virtually and we will still have their Summer show in June 2020. You may also have seen Grayson’s Art Club on Channel 4.
How has the confinement altered the way you communicate with your creative constituency ?
We are all virtual now! Emails, zoom, links of every form of communication to stay connected with audiences, participants alike.
What are the new forms of connectedness you are seeing emerging as a result of the confinement ?
Our digital presence has increased enormously. People want and need to stay connected and to participate in creative processes. Perhaps never more than now. This pulls together families and friends in shared digital activities, people in different locations who can create together or tour and discuss shows.
What is your personal experience dealing with the virtual world before and since the lockdown?
I am not wild about the idea of connecting forever through screens, I love people and personal interaction and the Royal Academy has a fantastic body of supporters and friends coming through the portal of Burlington House every day, I look forward to welcoming our Friends again.
However I feel very fortunate that we live in an age where we are able to stay connected in such unprecedented times. Imagine if we did not have this luxury! I have however spent more time ‘viewing’ shows virtually in different locations now than perhaps time might have permitted previously and have vowed to set aside half a day each week just to stand before the actual works – this is what I took for granted and what I truly miss.
Has the lockdown made you more introspection? and if so, in what way?
I have always been a bit introspective. I have worked for several years as a psychotherapeutic counsellor and being able to self-examine is a key part of this.
Art has always served a medium of connectedness in society – how do you see it work under the lockdown?
It is very challenging not to be in the presence of the actual works but I think the Royal Academy has such a brilliant group of supporters and friends and they have not only stayed with us but are also increasing their visits to our digital and virtual platforms in a way I might not have imagined. I know that there is something comforting and familiar in travelling with the Academy and we are all so grateful for the way in which we are able to stay connected with our audiences through our exhibitions and taking part in activities from the comfort of their homes. I have also had many email, calls and zooms with our Patrons and supporters.
