Continuando a entrevista...Mais em Sight Oracle
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Continued from an earlier post, this is a transcipt of my chat with artist Isabel Lofgren from Rio De Janeiro who will be joining us soon in Singapore.
RJ says: So how much longer do you have to finish your MFA Isabel? Are you going to correspond with your supervisor from Singapore?
isabel says: I have one semester left to write up the dissertation. I will keep in touch from Singapore.
RJ says: What do you plan to do beyond that? Are you planning to expand on your work just now?
isabel says: yes, my main production is my artwork..it is a continuous practice.
isabel says: I will definitely produce a lot in Singapore, and also hope to show some.
isabel says: My professional objectives do include teaching, however. And for that matter, i hope to give some lectures in Singapore...about whatever art people in Singapore will be interested in knowing! For example, I would love to lecture on Brazilian art which I am sure is quite unknown in Asia (except maybe for those of international acclaim).
isabel says: And it is such wonderful art, so inventive and different from American or European art for example, without being the least bit "native".
isabel says: Anyway, i would love to bring a little bit of my culture to Singapore...
RJ says: I want to quickly ask you about the art world in Rio and what kind of support there is for artists.
isabel says: there is little institutional support for arts in general...but we have a very active art community here.
RJ says: How does it thrive? We in Singapore have got too used to governmental support and are losing our way somewhat...
isabel says: we do things more at a grassroots level, by forming art collectives and creating alternative exhibition initiatives
isabel says: I was very impressed by the Singapore visual arts budget.
isabel says: It is higher than the culture budget for all of Brazil, and Brazil is huge in terms of cultural variety, music, dance, performance, architecture, cinema, arts...
isabel says: here in Rio we could only dream of having as much gov't money for the visual arts.
isabel says: i think it's actually good...artists should do art! Here everyone has other jobs and other professions and do their art whenever and however they can...we get no subsidies for shows, maybe sometimes we get some little money to produce the works...
isabel says: But we have to really hustle in general.. it makes us really active and creative in terms of the art system
isabel says: I am part of an art collective where we create these "exhibit situations". We pop out a theme and we then go around trying to find space to exhibit and then call our friends to participate.
isabel says: we do that in order to build résumés, have an excuse to do more work, travel around, and make more friends.
isabel says: Last year, my collective toured 5 different Brazilian cities and Bogotá (in Colombia) with a collective with 200 artists.
isabel says: And all 200 works fit in one suitcase!
RJ says: Brilliant - Perhaps we can learn this from you here in Singapore..
isabel says: I would really love to do an edition of the Nano-Show in Singapore...
isabel says: every time we tour a new city, we invite a local curator to bring in local artists into the show.
isabel says: We only have one restriction...everything has to be smaller than 10 centimeters.
RJ says: Tell me Isabel what influences, choices and incidences in your life made you want to be an artist?
isabel says: i always preferred pens and paper to other toys...
isabel says: my mother was a sculptor back then and everyone in my father's family paints or photographs as amateurs
isabel says: so i always around it somehow...i had no doubt that was going to be my object of study, vocation and lifestyle...
isabel says: it also made sense to be an artist since i wanted to travel around so much...and llive in different places.
isabel says: being a doctor or lawyer doesn't give you such freedom.
isabel says: and art is my passion, above all...
RJ says: I guess nobody does art for its monetary rewards but pecuniarial matters can push you away from your passions. How do you cope?
isabel says: coping is an art in itself!
isabel says: i do internet consulting, graphic design, illustrations...the usual.
isabel says: i try to keep to the visual realm. i just recently started working with a gallery, which puts an entirely different spin on 'making art' .
isabel says: it doesn’t affect my creativity at all, though.
isabel says: it just adds to the movement, which is actually great. but then one has to deal with the funkiness of the art biz...
RJ says: I want to ask you a tangential question about street art which I am heavily involved in. What is the street culture like in Rio and how is it shaping the visual arts there?
isabel says: but first, what kind of street art are you referring to? Graffiti?
RJ says: Any art made in the streets but yes, particularly graffiti.
isabel says: i would say that contemporary painting here is not so influenced by graffiti such as European art for example.
isabel says: but we have a lot of artists doing installations on the streets and using the city as a canvas.
isabel says: and doing performances there too...so here i guess we try to integrate the world of the street and the art, and not just merely appropriating it...we call it 'urban interventions'. more akin to situationist art...yet, in São Paulo, which is the largest urban center in Brazil there are a lot of 'fringe artists' totally doing the street aesthetic, bringing graffiti (stenciling, etc...) into the realm of the finer arts...also as a means to say 'we create our own system of art wherever we can''
RJ says: Why do you think we should pay this dirty, Dionysian little brother to a slicker, savvier, art-world Apollo, more attention?
isabel says: wait, what are you referring to?
RJ says: street art as opposed to gallery art.
isabel says: ah, the street art? because the street is a context, it is life...i think the art of today shouldn't be alienated.
isabel says: i tend to believe that it is pointless to 'exclude'...contemporary art is all about inclusion with a high dose of tolerance to understand and process all singular manifestations...
isabel says: life and art should be one thing, feeding off each other...
isabel says: isn't that the contemporary lesson? it is, to my eyes...
RJ says: It is the post and post-post modern lesson I guess but it is far from being reality. In Singapore it will take on a different persona navigating thru the rigours of law and order in an island state. As Prvacki said Singapore is not a real space for street art. Therefore, "street art" in this context is a very artificial, displaced act, a sophisticated version of real street art. What has it transformed into in Brazil?
An annoyance? Something appreciated?
isabel says: I guess the street and public life is so rich in terms of cultural manifestations and so chaotic, that it is almost seamless...we do have the issue of street violence here but it doesn't stop us from appropriating street life as a 'medium' for doing art...
isabel says: but i can definitely see how singapore and its orderliness turns the spontaneous and accidental street manifestations into something that is out of the status quo. That will be a culture shock for me...
isabel says: a friend of mine said that singapore is and feels like a very orderly Rio de Janeiro...what Rio could become were it not for the violence and the profound social contrasts which give it its spice
RJ says: Thanks Isabel. I appreciate you taking the time and we look forward to seeing you here in Singapore.
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