March 17th, 2007
Interview with Maurizio Cattelan (Quicktime-Video)
What does the spectacle of a phallic pink costume, worn by the Parisian art dealer Emmanuel Perrotin, have in common with the spectacle of corpulent art dealer Massimo de Carlo being taped to the wall of his gallery? What does a wax pope, struck dead from a meteorite, have in common with a squirrel that committed suicide at the kitchen table? These works of art or jokes were all created by the Italian artist or fool Maurizio Cattelan.
He says that he became an artist because of the assured income and the attractive women. In fact, he came to art very late, at 30. His numerous and varied jobs have prepared him very well for the absurdities of the art world. Among other things, he has worked in the souvenir shop of a monastery, in a morgue, in a laundry and now as a world-famous artist. He frequently gets fired over his jokes. In his current work, he feels secure that he can do what he wants. This is what he is doing. Sometimes he does nothing, as for example when he opened one of his exhibititions with an empty gallery and no artist. Other times, he steals from an artist of a neighbouring gallery, claiming the artwork as his own. Has Maurizio Cattelan no ideas, a lack of creativity? No. The critics, art dealers and collectors say this is conceptual 
art. In conceptual art, you can create a wax grandma for a rich English art collector and put it in somebody’s fridge. There she will sit ’till the end of her days — or his days — or longer. If an art collector comes into a museum and appoints something “really cool” by Cattelan, she may get something cool, in the truest sense of the word. So what if Maurizio cut a caper as he got his pay? Anyway, he didn’t have to do that much work for the “Betsy” sculpture, because he always assigns professional craftsmen to make his works of art. In this way, the kneeling and praying Adolf Hitler, one of his most unsettling works, was made. Cattelan told the craftsman only that he wanted a 12-year-old boy with the head of Adolf Hitler. He not only employs others to sculpt, he also has someone else speak for him. In his rare interviews, he is sits beside his double, nodding to his answers. Sometimes there is only the double. Is Cattelan just shy, or is he suffering from psychosis?
Another conceptual art work by Cattelan looked like this: from November 10th to November 17th in 1999, he invited ten international artists to vacation in St. Kitts, West Indies. He declared this spectacle the “6th Caribbean Biennial”. Additionally, there was a little hurricane, which forced the group to stay longer. The participants showed nothing and discussed no art. They vacationed, exactly like Cattelan had announced.
Once again, the art critics, Read the rest of this entry »
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Vlog: Art and Culture |
February 6th, 2007
Interview: James Nachtwey (Quicktime-Video)
James Nachtwey : war photographer
It is said that as a war photographer, you either become cynical or holy. If there are indeed only these two ways of existing as a war photographer, James Nachtwey belongs to the holy. Nachtwey, a tall and elegant man, appears within the terror which he photographs as if he is surrounded by an aura of being untouchable. He has been everywhere where there have been wars and atrocities have been committed during the last decades: Somalia, Sudan, Bosnia, Rwanda, Chechnya, Kosovo, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq and many other countries. But of course, he is not untouchable at all. Serveral times he has been severely injured or illnesses have torn him down. Nevertheless he continues working because of his strong belief that his pictures can make a difference. Nachtwey, convinced of the effect his pictures have on viewers, has never stopped hoping to fight war, hunger and poverty with his work.
What Nachtwey has seen can hardly be described. It is bare horror. And his pictures convey only a part of it, because a picture can not reproduce the sound of a machine gun and the stink of a rotting corpse. These pictures, though, are so strong and overwhelming that they burn into the mind of the beholder. And that is what Nachtwey wants. Nobody should forget the atrocities going on in the world every day, and everybody should — according to his abilities — do something about them: a sublime ideal and a powerful motivation.
James Nachtwey. Chechnya. 1996. Ruins in the center of Grozny.
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Vlog: Art and Culture |
January 30th, 2007
Interview with Harald Falckenberg (Quicktime-Video)
The private collector
Collecting is a passion or according to Freud a compensational act – to be traced back to the detachment of a child from ist mother. And when the time of cuddly toys is over the grown up child can collect stamps or in the best case art. A private person collecting art, for which reason ever, has a big advantage over an institutional collector. The private collector can follow his intuition, trust his gut feeling. He doesn´t owe an explanation even if he decides to purchase subversive art: obscene, pornographic, violent – mind you - in an artistic context.
The collections of private art lovers are often more thrilling and versatile than the collections of some bank corporations or companies which certainly would not have discovered Jonathan Meese. Although courageous buyers are not always able to estimate quality, they are an extraordinary important part of the artmarket.
Keith Haring. Untitled (Nuclear Sex Series). 1981.
Harald Falckenberg, lawyer and private collector, lives in Hamburg. In his 6000 sqm exhibition space and warehouse there are genuine treasures of modern and postmodern art. Joseph Beuys, Keith Haring, Gerhard Richter, Nam June Paik, Martin Kippenberger, Jonathan Meese are just a selection of the artists whose art works are owned by Falckenberg. At 50 he started to collect and he is certainly not going to stop it anymore.
The infantil artist Read the rest of this entry »
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Vlog: Art and Culture |
January 5th, 2007
Steve Jobs tells three amazing stories from his life.
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ Jobs says
I am honored to be Read the rest of this entry »
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