Questions for Andrè Komatsu
– ABYSS/ABISM, is the title of your new solo exhibition. The etymology of this term comes from the Greek ἄ-βυσσος, bottomless, what does this word represent for you? Does it have a positive or negative meaning?
The Abyss can be a way of deconstructing reality. In my exhibition, the “bottomless” can have a negative meaning of no hope, a dystopian atmosphere of darkness, as a reference to the period of social isolation in the world by covid-19, or for us in Brazil, the experiment of a government that used in the last 4 years of agenocidal policy to manipulate, convert and control the population. Despite the misery suffered over the last few years, remembering the term “without a background”, we can also understand it asa constancy in continuing to fall, floating, moving and therefore alive… Like “Leap into the void”, when Ives Klein manipulated the image to create the leap into nothingness
– Are there artists who have influenced your work? If so, which ones?
Many artists have influenced me over the years, mainly the artists of the decades from the 50’s to 70’s, but I always try to look for new references.However, I believe that the most present references are my day-to-day experience as well as the readings of books on philosophy and sociology.
– In the works shown in the exhibition, the poetic and multifaceted use of materials and fragments, derived from everyday life, stands out. Why this choice?
I have been using everyday materials for a long time. At the beginning of my career, the usage came from being easy-to-use materials that I could get for free or cheaply. Soon, I began to understand them not only as everyday material, but as fragments of everyday archeology. With their anonymous stories, with their bodies already worn out and discarded by the Market’s programming. Beyond that point, I wanted to establish a raw language of the works, without makeup. the material itself and flooding it with metaphors by placing it as a subject and not an object. I think that perhaps the use of these poorer, raw materials comes as a result of a counterpoint to the classic materials used throughout the history of art such as bronze, marble, granite or even oil paint, which for me arrived with a certain distance and abstraction. As well as the references to classic works of art, which I obtained through books and magazines, the information already arrived not through the real environment, but through an interpretation of its representation.
– How has the lockdown period influenced your production?
During lockdown, I lost my studio and had to adapt to working from home. Isolated, and with little space and resources, I found myself experimenting with oil paint for the first time. The first instance I saw it as an exercise, a diary portraying the dystopian reality that surrounded us, due to the pandemic, and of course about the collapse of the vision of a democratic society in Brazil (In 2018 the extreme right candidate won the election, and went on to running the country as a necropolitical strategy).
Thinking about it, the slow time to dry the ink, a natural time against a complex machine, the acceleration of the natural order. I remembered during this painting process, l’avant-garde Realism of the 19th century, the first movement that began to portray the value of the ordinary, of the common.
Creating a dialogue between these two references, I started the series Sobre o amanha a Alvorada/ on the dawn of the tomorrow. An appropriate phrase from an article in the old Brazilian magazine Manchete, which wrote a critique of Brasília and the construction of utopia with the construction of the new capital bringing modernity.
With this series, I tried to establish communication and even criticism between the past projects of a country with a developmentalist interest from the 1950s and its legacy after the military dictatorship and the rooting of neoliberal policies.
– In the contemporary era what do you think is the artist’s task?
In Latin America, art still has to be political. Art can be a way of reflecting realities, it is still a true manifestation. Still out of control.
Since 2016 I started participating in some art collectives, such as Aparelhamento, Ali (Itinerant Free Art) and Galeria Reocupa, as a way to be more politically and socially active. The interest started when we saw Dilma’s coup (2016) and then the beginning of the deactivation of cultural and social programs by Temer. For many years, the Aparelhamento network was active creating actions against the coup and the Bolsonaro government (2018). One of the most important and lasting actions was the creation of the 9 de Julho kitchen and later the Galleria Reocupa. A commercial art gallery inside the 9 de Julho building in São Paulo. A social occupation, organized by the MSTC social movement.
The strategy of creating an art space in this location was to build yet another barrier against the government’s repossession. In addition to assisting the maintenance of the building with the sale of works of art on display. This gallery only exists as a way to hack the art market, as it does not generate profit. All capital earned is reverted to the struggle of the movement and aid for artists. For the law, if the building is locked and does not pay the municipal tax, it is not fulfilling the social duty with the city. Therefore, the MSTC organizes the occupations of these places, in order to return to the city the original function of the building. When occupied, the property is completely adapted for social housing, which maintains, preserves and optimizes the site, returning society to its social function. Ali:leste was a project we started in 2018, in the face of obscurity that would come with the Bolsonaro government. The project was conceived and developed by plastic artists, with the aim of establishing an affectionate, educational, artistic and social bridge from the center to the extreme east of São Paulo, Cidade Tiradentes.
– Untitled is a work that emphasizes how the market is everywhere and distorts our understanding of realitỳ. Can art and the market dialogue without corrupting the ideals of the former?
Since the implementation of a neoliberal economic policy, the market has become omnipresent. Whether in schools, institutions, social networks, government administration and even in what we understand as free will.
Art in my view is more connected to a thought, a manifestation. And not a consumer product. The product is the materialization of thought. The echo of a manifestation, which exists as a potential. Not that the product is inferior to the manifestation, however it already enters another category of consumption. Thought can be consumed, but having a more volatile character creates greater difficulty.
I think that art can be a way of corrupting the general idea of the market, of self-disposal, of self-consumption. Like what I said a little earlier about the gallery reoccupies. Hacking this system for the common benefit of the collective. An opposite path to accumulation for its own sake, capital is transformed.
What are the upcoming projects you are working on?
After this show here in Rome, I’ll return to São Paulo, where in addition to classes and coaching for young artists, I’ll resume the projects I’ve already mentioned.
For the reoccupa gallery we are planning a large exhibition that will take place in 3 places, in the occupation building in são paulo, then in the incofindencia museum in Ouro Preto and later in another museum in brasilia. The exhibition held in a horizontal and collective manner between artists, curators, residents of the occupation has as its theme the idea of refoundation, understanding .this as a critical proposal to the statusquo, whether in the written history of Brazil, or in the aesthetic, political and even gender field. Another project is the continuation of the actions of Ali:leste, which for this purpose we will hold an auction with works by us, young Cidade Tiradentes, east side of São Paulo, artists and other supporters of the project. The purpose of the auction is to raise financial funds to continue developing and connecting the social, political and economic extremes in the city of São Paulo .