Cidade-Komatsu edit 2 July 7 2012
Conversation between Marcelo Cidade and Andre Komatsu
June 2012
Marcelo Cidade: I was remembering some comparisons between my production and your production since the exhibition “The Natural Order of Things”, in London, in which we both took part. We proposed an absence of authorship, and the works were not identified by the artist’s name; this way people would think more about the context of each work rather than who made it. This is something that caused some confusion: even today many people are confused about our individual works because of some of the shared themes and materials that we use. I’d like to know what you think about this?
Andre Komatsu: Actually, issues such as authorship and identity never really bothered me, because I believe that such comparisons are encouraged by the market (and not only by art market). The market tends to compare the production of one artist to another precisely as a way of undermining the other artist. It’s a comparison by subtraction.
MC: Is this a blanket statement?
AK: Not necessarily. For example, breaking down the identity of a work or of an artist can be, in fact, positive. It reminds me of those old conversations we had about this “search”, and of how not to remain in an anesthetized state, to not become complacent with regards to certain elements, situations or issues.
MC: Are you talking about media?
AK: About research and media. So a given subject doesn’t become boring and repetitive, or turns into a product easily assimilated by the market.
MC: It’s funny, this somehow reminds me that we met 15 years ago and it’s been a while since we had a conversation about our work. From my point of view, it’s increasingly difficult for artists to talk about concepts and to reflect on their work here, either because of the necessity of marketing, or because Brazil is enjoying an economic upswing. The fact is, we’ll never have that kind of practice that we had in college, when we first met, again. To what extent does this makes you feel uncomfortable, or is this something that is already accounted for in your creative process, and no longer necessitates this kind of conversation?
AK: I think the conversation and exchange are always welcome. It actually takes place as a systemitization of artistic production, and perhaps the development of concept becomes part of the system as well.
MC: Could it be that a reflection on artistic practice is over once the “professionalization” happens? Does this create barrier to experimenting with new things, even if they are temporary and don’t fit into the standards of the market?
AK: Please explain further …
MC: In other words, is it possible to remain experimental even if one is already inserted in the market?
AK: I think so. Don’t you think that’s possible?
MC: I don’t know, maybe I’m trying to believe in the meaning of being an artist, to reflect on this in order to create, to “think outside the box” and push boundaries.
AK: Thinking about art, or making art, is a way to reflect on our surroundings. It’s trying to question, or better, it’s trying to create doubts about the establishment. Representation is no longer necessary, since it’s exposed by innumerable mediums such as the internet. A internet possibilitou a grande difusão de imagens, idéias, dados e consequentemente uma dinamização em representar situações reais e difundir informações que muitas vezes promovem mais interpretaç˜øes de fatos , do que os próprios fatos. Com meu trabalho tento buscar referências , situações reais, através de vivências e experimentações . Dados na rede servem como um “start “ , que podem vir a ser utilizados no processo de trabalho.
MC: Are you talking about reference?
AK: About concept and production.
MC: Weighing the pros and cons, do you think thought is on the same level as production?
AK: Yes, of course. We’re not talking about A product let’s be clear; when I talk about “production”, I’m referring more to the process than to the finished object. A production without end…
MC: Yeah, I agree. It makes me think of the time when we studied together. Maybe we had, I don’t know, an innocent view about art production. If you look back, 5 or 6 years ago, there was no such thing as an art market “boom” in Brazil. Therefore, the motivation to produce art was not monetary. Is this being nostalgic?
AK: No, it’s the situation we’re living through. For example, we started to produce art even though we knew there was no market. We did it because we believed in making art. Even today, in terms of our “profession”, we produce equally and similarly to the way we did in the past, regardless of the systemitization of this process. We continue because we can’t stop to think about monetary exchange during the creative process. Otherwise, the work would become something ordered on demand, reduced to mere decoration.
MC: Not exactly decoration, but a production based on a request, and that is not an ordinary thought, a question, but something with a purpose of its own. There are many artists that work this way…
AK: Certainly, but it doesn’t make much sense to me. That’s why this year I decided to decrease my rate of production to reflect more on the process. This was because the general systemitization of art was beginning to trigger a loss of power, consciousness, and presence in my reflections on my own work.
MC: Yeah, I also feel a bit of this fatigue. In my recent production it was important to look back and check out old works of mine that I had not seen in a long time. This made me think of some of the issues I want to work on now, which was a good thing. Do you have a practice like that?
K: Definitely, I always look back at my notebooks, as a reference source. Not only to recognize what I’ve made, but also to remember who I was. By doing this, you have a better understanding of the kind of artist you are today.
MC: What do you like more, your old or your new work?
AK: I like both equally. It depends a lot on the moment and the given situation. For example, “Systematic Anamorphosis 2” (2012) takes me back to some older stuff I did, like “Milestone 1” (2006), which rendered the object disfunctional, thereby bringing up some key issues for my work.
MC: I like it when you remove a certain function from a banal object, like an ordinary shelf. I remember seeing this work and realizing that it looks as if you gave a karate chop to the object. I’d never have thought this work had Eastern roots. Does this makes any sense to you, or not?
AK: If it’s there, it’s unconscious. I think it has more to do with a specific situation, or a daily and ordinary action. If you think about it, there’s an invasion in every situation. Toda situação pode sofrer uma intervenção, mesmo as mais sólidas e estabelecidaes como… A crise economica atual mundial, ou mesmo a ascensão economica e política que vivemos pela primeira vez na história brasileira. ..
MC: What captures my attention in a sculptural work (or maybe it’s not right to define it as a sculpture) most is when you see an object that has undergone an action in time it almost becomes the remains of a performance… Like your work Dead Weight, 2011, which consists of a weight placed on a wooden sheet and how this weight continued in a … as if the piece were happening in a space-time and were not frozen. How do you think about this in relation to the work? This seems very recent to me, because in your past work it was more of a relationship concerning a record of a performance record or direct action in space. The shelves themselves have this temporal characteristic of freezing a moment …
AK: I can’t even explain much about it, because the work is still quite recent, and so its still like being inside a whirlwind. I think there are references, ideas, but I’d rather not define the work right now. This is one thing I’ve been thinking about lately: about defining things and keeping control in order to remain intact. Defining is freezing! And I’m trying not to do that. For example, an ordinary action that I try to continue is to be guided by flow, instead of guiding it; to abandon myself to chance and accidents, because the systematization of work …
MC: Like a production line?
AK: I’m trying to follow a path contrary to that …
MC: Because your work follows a routine, or because you’re no longer a young artist?
AK: I think it’s a way of trying to understand a systematic situation differently…
I’d like to ask the same question you did when we started this interview. Is it uncomfortable for you that our work is often compared? Why?
MC: Initially it bothered me because we used similar mediums, but eventually I realized that this doesn’t make our work the same or similar. Right now it’s more of an exchange, like when you suggested we both do some work with the same material but in a different way. Let’s take a specific material, brick, for example. You started using clay brick and then you shifted to concrete at a time when I had already worked with that material, but since my concern wasn’t in the same material form, and concrete was no longer my choice.
In Power Detour 1 (2011) you built a barricade with a wall of concrete blocks as a device, a space divider, while white ink on the floor beneath it disrupted its operation of limitation. Speaking of materials, you also use ink and wood in your work. My initial interpretation of it was discomfort, but then it changed. It’s no longer just the cement, but rather a dialogue about a way of breaking with verticality, as you proposed in Property (2004), or in Mourning in Fighting (2008), which used brick as a hierarchical, vertical structure. There was also a horizontal structure in Monoblock (2004), a work which auto-destructed.
Today I see our shared use of materials more in terms of a dialogue than discomfort.
AK: Our conversation passes from the verbal to an exchange through our work. A non-comparison or non-subtraction: perhaps another way to break free from the competition encouraged by the market
MC: Subtraction can annihilate both of us, if we follow that logic.
AK: If we grow and develop our work together, is that subtraction pointless?
MC: I remember some of your old work, like Y0K (2002). For this action you used your own body to break the white walls of a corner. Or Battleship (2001), where you went fell down a flight of stairs …I also did some performances at that time, such as Graying Process (2003). We used to have this young punk fury; do you think we lost that, or that we’re expressing it in a different way?
AK: I think we’ve transformed it, but the challenge remains, and that’s why we’re still producing art. Those direct and immediate actions were codified by an accumulation of information and experiences.
For example in Project – Home/Debris (2002), when we built various pieces of furniture with found materials abandoned in the streets (like fragments of furniture, walls, etc), and then destroyed all the vestiges of the work (with the help of artist Mauro Madurera) in a few minutes. The art space became as desolate as it was in the beginning.
Today I prefer to challenge and act quietly, without any ‘ spectacularization ‘ …
MC: This reminds me of the research we did about the idea of accidents.
AK: This was the theme of my last solo exhibition at Galeria Vermelho, which was called “Chance by Intention”. I explored the ambiguous relationship between an accident and the interpretation of this action in reference to rules of mathematical proportion such as rectangle aureus, as well as to historical and ordinary everyday situations. The contradiction from these elements produces the work process itself. It’s not possible to make art with absolute certainty ….
MC: There was a time when we were both doing more performances, street actions or interventions, and now our production is more object based. Even if we transfered these works to different mediums, they could still be labeled as the outdated making of products. Maybe an older generation would have this vision.
AK: Are you talking about the 60’s and 70’s generations?
MC: No, I’m thinking of people who don’t know our past actions and transgressions, but only the latest production. Is it necessary to know the entire trajectory of an artist or only his latest production?
AK: In my opinion, the only way to evaluate the work of a contemporary artist is to examine his trajectory. Because everything is a process …
MC: Lately you’ve been using drywall in your work. How did you come in contact with this material? It’s not commonly used in modern Brazilian architecture. Concrete is a material I’m more familiar with, which is completely opposite to drywall. You probably started thinking about drywall during your residency in New York City, right?
AK: Yes, I think I started to pay more attention to the material during my residency at the Bronx Museum in New York. I was in the city during the winter with no money, so I stayed a lot inside my apartment, and I had the impression that it was entirely hollow. I found it very weird in the beginning …
Then I did some research and learned that drywall is a common insulation material in American and European construction. And I came to notice the fragility of this architecture. Speaking of matter, the main component of drywall is lime, and lime is used for cleaning; lime kills everything! When Tiradentes died, they threw lime around his house to clean everything … social hygienism!!
I ended up choosing the material for my projects because of its symbolic character….
MC: Interesting how you bring this information from a foreign architectural construction…
AK: It’s standard material in America and Europe, but since here in Brazil drywall is still a novelty, it has recently been used in high-end and commercial buildings.
MC: I always thought of “concrete” as the most characteristic and symbolic material of modern architecture; it is now disappearing in new constructions. If we make a correlation between these materials, concrete and drywall, it seems that we have a confrontation between the solid and the perishable. But on second thought, nothing lasts forever, nothing is eternal…
AK: We’re going back to the old issue of entropy in materials, like in the work of Robert Smithson and Gordon Matta-Clark …
Mc: What does it mean to think of entropy in Brazil, nowadays? Is entropy present in the recent construction of Latin American urban centers? Is that an organizational influence that comes from the US?
AK: I can speak for São Paulo, the city where I live: a city with no memory of its own architectural history. Old buildings are demolished and destroyed, along with their memories and their history…
Mc: So this is like the failure of the modern concept of utopia…
AK: For sure. Just think of Brasilia.
Mc: Tragic! Today, the unorganized urban sprawl in the peripheral belt of satellite towns around Brasília is practically swallowing the original “pilot plan” of the city. The original urban function is gone, and there’s no symbiosis between these two different architectural spaces. They are two opposing forces.
AK: Actually, it’s impossible to reach agreement between these urban situations. While the modern utopia remains intact as a museum piece, satellite towns proliferate in a disorderly and continuous manner. This transforms the surroundings into an organic, and ultimately real situation…