domenica 17 luglio 2011

Interview with Johann Büsen





q)Who are you? Where are you from and where do you live now?

a) My name is Johann Büsen, I was born in 1984 in Paderborn (Germany), studied from 2005 to 2010 at the University of the Arts in Bremen. Right now I live and work in Berlin as an independent artist.

q)What is it that you do? What media do you use?

a) I create digital collages, printed on canvas.

q)What do you think sets your work apart?

a) The use of new media technics, contemporary topics and the visual language.

q)How long have you been showing your work for? Did you have a “big break?”

a)Since I've shown my early works at my first group exhibition in 2003 I have participated at about 70 exhibitions at home and abroad. More projects are in process.

q)What are some things that have inspired you?

a)You can find a lot of influences in my pictures. I work with topics and quotations from politics, movies, science, nature, art, every day live...

q)What have you been working on recently?

a)For my last solo show I printed 130 square yards black-and-white motives and painted the hole gallery room. -
http://gast.johannbuesen.de/galeriemitte

q)Do you listen to music while you create your work? If so, would you give some examples?

a)I like jazz and chill-out music. As well while working i often listen to audiobooks.

q)Do you do work in any other media? Other projects not necessarily related to your main body of work?

a)I do different kinds of other work - photography, animation, streetart, illustation, graphicdesign...

q)What advice do you have for artists looking to show their work?

a)Don't stop being creative.

q)Do you have any upcoming exhibitions of your work that you can mention?

a)The upcoming groupshow in september is called "open art space".

q)Where can people see more of your work on the internet?

a)At
www.johannbuesen.de or get in touch at Facebook.

lunedì 11 luglio 2011

Interview with Istvan Nyari







q)Please tell us your name and where you practice.

a)My name is Istvan Nyari. I work in Budapest and in London for an equal amount of time - 3 month here and 3 month there

q) Why do you make art?

a)Perhaps because this is when I feel well mentally and connected to other people and to the world. I am just doing my own job.

q) How do you work ?

a)If you are interested in the technical details I work with acrylic on canvas with brush and I use app. 20% airbrush to deepen the colours. It takes about 2 month for an average painting (150x200cm).

q) What´s your background?

a)My parents were fine artists and I went to an art secondary school at the age of 13 and then to an art university for 5 years.

q) What role does the artist have in society?

a)It depends. In terms of economics there is no role to play. In terms of cultural education artists might reveal important, sensitive questions and give responses which cannot be expected from others in politics, churches nor from philosophers or aesthetes.

q) What was a seminal experience for you ?

a)I remember the moment vividly - I was 6-7 years old and I saw two painting easels, my parents were painting in a room next to each other. I recall that one easel started to fall; my father kicked into it, my mother got extremely scared and pulled me away from the crashing death. We moved out the same day and my parents divorced soon after. This is why I have a painting titled " The wedding of my parents, ten years before their divorce".

q) Has your practice changed over time ?

a)Yes, it has been constantly changing but not in a usual way because it experience never builds up, the work never becomes easier. Every time I start a new painting I have to start everything all over again, I do not remember how I've finished the previous one. I start every painting if I had never painted before. There is no routine, no practised movements, so it is always a challenge to start a new one. In term of techniques I have a total short memory like a fish in a tank within its own surroundings who gets surprised every single second about the world around him. Perhaps this is an advantage or luck, you name it.

q) What art do you most identify with ?

a)Pop-art, realism, pop- surreal, lowbrow art,

q) What´s your strongest memory of your childhood ?

a)I was 16 when my drunk stepfather attacked me (I was with a girl in my room) and he got envy and tried to sexually seduced me. We got into a fight and he was staggering out of my room, picked up his gun and was shouting that he would kill me. I had to knock him to the ground and get the gun out of his hand.......

q) What themes do you pursue ?

a)I always search for topics and situations that could happen in the real life but for whatever reason they don't. I create and set these situations as a film director would do. On other occasions I try to call the lifeless subjects, puppets into life (as Pygmalion) so as they would be connected to human life.

q) Describe a real life experience that inspired you.

a)I was searching on the net when I found a picture of a beautiful model girl who was dead and had an autopsy. The picture was showing her from above (until her waist), her face was calm and beautiful and only that awful " Y" sign across her upper body ,made it clear that she had an autopsy. I was totally outraged by the picture and decided to bring her back into life. I have created a painting which is called " Hurray, her self-autopsy was a great success!"

q) What´s your most embarrassing moment ?

a) It was when I was sitting on a plane crossing the Atlantic and there was a huge storm. We were all sitting there, no stewardess nor stewards to comfort us as they were also shaking in their seats and it was very very dark, everything was moving around me, small items were falling from the cabin, everyone was praying, even I was praying altough I am an ateist, and trying to survive this. To be small, tiny little and slowly liking everyone on the plane, holding the hand of the person next to you until things began to calm and then finally we were arriving to JFK where there was stabil ground and then friends waiting for me with a rented limo with a chaffeur (funny surprise!) and we were happily driving to Manhattan...

q) What jobs have you done other than being an artist ?

a)Graphic design, fashion design, set design in movies

q) What responses have you had to your work ?

a)In most of the cases the response is that they are very well painted, satiric and at the same time scary (except for some) and they are difficult to live with, do not really fit into a "normal" living environment. They would rather fit into museums.

q) What do you dislike about the artworld ?

a)I don't like the fact that it does not function properly. Only those are visible who are established, recognised artists and some of them become famous and super-rich. There is no recognition for the less visible ones. Even the private galleries do not take on this reponsibility, not willing to search outside of their usual territory. The market might be far more and better than what is shown in the museums and galleries. We live in a globalised world, everyone can be visible on the internet. The role and responsibility of the galerists and curators would only be to find these less recognised artists on the internet, see their works, select the ones they like and then visit their studios in person. Then make them visible to others, broaden the horizon with them and their works.

q) What research do you do ?

a)Well, I always listen to the radio, read the horrifying news, see all kinds of films from A to Z, I go to see modern opera, alternative theatre, dance and I try to see the good, better and the best fine art exhibitons regardless of type, classical or contemporary. I am doing almost the same during painting I listen to the TV (cannot watch as I am working), listen to the films (cannot wacth as I am working) and listen to the radio.

q) What is your dream project?

a)It's been a great wish to work on a painting as long as I would like to - could be eternity or for years and years until I do not see the smallest technical deficiency and I would see my painting perfectly complete. The longest time I'd worked on a painting was 5 months, that was the "Killer Scene" and when I finished I still did not feel that it had been technically completed. Perhaps another 5 months or 1 painting in 1 year would have been the perfect timing! Of course, this would not make too much difference to the viewer who sees the painting completed already after 2 months or less!

q) What´s the best piece of advice you have been given ?

a)Do not worry about financial constraints, it is not important whether you sell your works. What's important to keep working, your painting will exist, they will live their own lives even after you are gone.

q) What couldn’t you do without?

a)The preparation phase: to find the modell, acquire all the objects that will appear on the painting, the photoshoot, computer drawing and painting. Without all these a depressive, deep sweet sleeping period comes.

q) What makes you angry?

a)When they tell me how well my paintings were painted and not about their contents, their feelings, their messages. It is my own private business how techniquely well they have been painted. This is more of necessity and not a merit. Art is beyond that. I also like very much the paintings that were created within a half hour, as long as they are honest works with clear contents and bravely painted.

q) What is your worst quality?

a)That I am fixing everything. Everything around me that goes wrong and it is senseless to spend my time with all these activities.

q) Dogs or Cats ?

a)Dogs and cats

q) Making art is a lot like being on Lsd. Know what I mean ?

a)Yes, I know what you are talking about. There is a "blessed" time during the painting. For me this time is right before I complete the painting. I feel like a jazz pianist who plays on the piano; I paint a little bit of here and there, the composition is ready and under control no more discipline, heavy work or routine, there comes the joyable part, making highlights and digging into deepness, playing on an instrument, journey on the painting and nothing else but a huge sexual cum!

q) What does “ copy” mean to you ?

a)I do not understand your question, therefore I am not able to respond....

q) What´s your favorite cuss word ?

a)Shut a Fuck up!!

q)your web site...

a)www.istvannyari.com