UGO RONDINONE | INTERVIEW

Ugo Rondinone photographed by Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times, 2013. © Piotr Redlinski / The New York Times.

This art is timeless.
Some called it “primitive feel”; some called it “ancient contemporary”; some called it “transcending”… one thing for sure: this is timeless.

The notion of time is essential to the art of the Swiss-born, New York-based artists Ugo Rondinone (*1964). Time for the artist is never linear but circular. It takes the form of a singular, unique loop where “the past, the present and the future” coexist. It is this understanding of time that informs some of the artist’s motifs – the date paintings, the light, the repetitive sunrise and moonrise, the 24 hours, the universal emotions and desires, the human unconsciousness, the animals, the everyday objects, the landscape… “I see art-making as a ritual, a meditation for myself. […] The spending time or passing time is ritualized because there is no functionality in the art-making”. Being an artist for Rondinone is a philosophical task than merely producing objects.

The moment when you step in the galleries of Museum Leuven (Belgium) where the artist is having a mini-retrospective of works created during the last three years, you encounter the same feeling of timeless - here one second of life is captured and eternalized : a flock of birds standing quietly and motionlessly, snowflakes flutter slowly to the ground, fourteen nude dancers resting on the floor, monumental monochrome landscapes hypnotizing visitors into a state of trance, natural light secretly penetrating the galleries with spectrum colors through the clock-faced windows, poems gradually fading away from the walls...

Time would pass anyway.

Ugo Rondinone is also one of the most versatile artists today. Over the last decades, he took the liberty to cross the boundaries between different media and disciplines which allowed him to produce a strikingly diverse body of work that includes sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, video, writing and curatorial projects. His trance-inducing paintings and large scale drawings from nature, or site-specific installations are poetic and evocative in exploring emotional and psychic depth of human experience.

Selina Ting
InitiArt Magazine
Sept 2013, Bucharest

UR – Ugo Rondinone
ST – Selina Ting for initiArt Magazine

ST : This is the first time I visited a solo show of yours but I remember very clearly the exhibition The Third Mind that you curated for Palais de Tokyo (2007) in Paris. To start with, as an artist with curatorial talents, how do you approach the show, thank you silence, in Museum Leuven?

UR : First of all, this exhibit groups together several series of the work created in the last three years, except the titling piece thank you silence which was made in 2005. I see the exhibition as a crossing that brings together the notions of humanity, nature and our relations with the nature. At the same time, there are many binaries and dualities within the show, such as the contrasts between hard and soft, heavy and light, organic and inorganic, circular and geometrical forms, etc.

ST : I like the contrast between the materiality of the work and the immateriality of your handwritings throughout the exhibition space. It was a delightful experience to “see” the poems that you wrote directly on the walls in pencil. They are almost invisible and very ephemeral as they can be easily wiped off by careless visitors. While the site-specific landscape pieces are very self-imposing, the poems and the writings are self-effacing.

UR : It doesn’t matter if the writings are wiped off. Poetry itself is ephemeral. But yes, there is also the contrast between the presence of the materiality and the disappearance of the writings. The site-specific installations are monumental and they are in soil and in earthy tone. They are called “Landscape” because they created a mental space. They have a kind of mental power.

ST : They are very absorbing, just like poetry. My overall impression of the exhibit is that it’s very meditative. You hear your own voice whispering “keep quiet, keep quiet….” before the artist replies, “thank you silence”! When you circulate among the flock of birds in the first room, for example, you unconsciously soften your steps so as not to frighten them. While birds are traditionally seen as a symbol of vitality and freedom and always portrayed either in flying or taking-off position, your 59 birds are so meditative that we don’t even see their wings. But birds are not supposed to ignore their wings…

©Ugo rondinone, Primitive, 2011. Cast Bronze. Installation view of Ugo Rondinone, thank you silence, 2013. Museum Leuven. Courtesy of Studio Rondinone and Museum Leuven © DIRK PAUWELS.

UR : I have never thought about it but it’s nice to hear that and to think about it now. Let’s say that’s something I did unconsciously and you found it! For me, the importance of the birds is the perspective of the viewer. You have the impression of looking down at something small. However, the little birds stand for something bigger than what you expect because each of them represents a natural phenomenon from Moon, Mist, Air to Cloud, Mountain, Milky Way, etc.

ST : The series of birds is called “Primitive”. Together with “Primal” (Horses) and “Primordial” (Fishes), they form the three-group project . Other than the fact that they are pre-human creatures, what do these terms/titles speak to you?

UR : They link to something basic and primary. The three groups do have some similarities among them. They are all consisted of 59 pieces of standing creatures that represent different natural phenomenon. I started with the birds, now I am making the horses, the last one would be the fishes. It’s very important that I make them in clay, a very basic and down to earth material. The finger prints on the clay allow you to see the primal gests of creativity, of the artist’s thought and process. Even though the birds are cast in bronze, they remained very raw in terms of texture, colour and process.

ST : Both the 59 birds and the 14 nudes [nude Series] are posed on the floor without pedestal. They are very grounded and static, but seem to be quite lost…

UR : They are both very basic. Many people think that the nudes look sad or tired or lost, but that’s an evaluation. In fact, they are just passive, just being themselves without any activity or conscious evaluation. “Activity” sets up all the values. “Passivity” for me is a protection against setup values because when we are passive, we don’t say “yes” or “no”, we are just being passive. In that sense, the nudes’ passivity creates a value, maybe a value of the “slowness” that they are just “being”, resting.

Ugo rondinone, nude, 2011. Wax, earth pigments, steel rods, and polyurethane foam. At centre: standing landscape, 2013. Site-specific. Installation view of Ugo Rondinone, thank you silence, 2013. Museum Leuven. Courtesy of Studio Rondinone and Museum Leuven ©Dirk Pauwelst.

ST : There is a contrast between the smoothness of the texture and the fracture in the structure of the nude series. Do you purposely leave open certain joints in the same way as you left finger prints on the birds?

UR : The bodies are fractured because the body cast was made in 14 to 20 separate parts. It’s very difficult to have the models stay still in such a process and I didn’t bother to correct it when an arm or a leg is shorter. This created the fractions and disconnections of the body in the sculptures. The wax and the colour of the sculptures are very basic and earthy as if the nudes come alive through earth pigments. They are organic in contrast to the geometric form of the landscape series which is also made out of earth. They are exposed and vulnerable because they are nude; but at the same time they are protected because the colour and the material act like a camouflage. If you put them in the wood, they would disappear.

ST : They are vulnerable but they also have an athletic body.

UR : They are dancers between the age of 20 and 30. They are in their prime energy time and they are swiftly alert. I wanted to contradict this energy in a passive situation. When you are active, you are functioning. I want to have a non-functioning situation where “slowness” is the primary force.

UGO RONDINONE, nude (xxxxxxxxxxxxx), 2011 © the artist. Photo: Stefan Altenburger Photography, Zurich - Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich © studio rondinone

ST : My understanding of “slowness” in your work is related to time and emotion. There is the inertia where “slowness” is perceived in a static motion, and emotionally, it evokes the Blasé attitude as a form of resistance. In a society obsessed with speed and acceleration, why do you value “slowness” over acceleration? What does it represent to you?

UR : There are different levels. The idea of “speed” is made with us that you have to be “somewhere” in time. So speed is almost controlling over us. “Slowness” is when we are in control of our own time. Another level is that, I believe the power of art is in its “slowness” in the sense that I am not in competition with technology; I am not in the competition of making art; I am not industrializing my art that I have to hire assistants in order to be competitive. So I would still have the romantic image of an artist working in solitude. This is my primary motivation of doing art – I can organize my time for myself. That’s why I always exclude society in my exhibitions which become the symbol of isolated space.

ST : There is the “slowness” in the image and in the art-making process. But there is also another rule of the game that each bird was made within one day, this imposed another relationship to or perception of time and speed.

UR : It’s about the immediacy. The birds are made in a naïve way, almost like clay toys made by children. So you have this immediacy, primary gests in the first room and the children’s drawings [your age and my age and the age of the sun (2013)] in the last room. At the same time, the birds bear my singularity as they are full of my finger prints. They are almost like a comical identity, a cartoon of you that you put a finger print on it. Let’s say, even if all the motifs that I am using in my work are common and banal, they are always in one way or another related to me.

Installation view Ugo Rondinone, your age and my age and the age of the sun, 2013. M – Museum Leuven. © Dirk Pauwels

ST : Both the idea of “one bird within the day” and the finger prints are very ritual.

UR : I see art-making as a ritual, a meditation for myself. It’s to exclude myself from society and to create my own rites. The spending time or passing time is ritualized because there is no functionality in the art-making. Time would pass anyway… The energy of art is that you can spend time with yourself. It’s not about producing objects and having assistants. Doing art and being an artist is a philosophical task than merely producing objects.

ST : That’s why you said in a previous interview that the « duration » in art-making is important. I quote it from French: “In my work, I like to slow down and prolong the temporality in which nothing would ever end or be abandoned; where everything can reappear or re-animate itself; where past, present and future belong to one single and unique loop”. Is the idea of making works in series similar to the perception of time in a circular motion?

UR : Yes, definitely. There are many possibilities for metamorphosis. Now after 20 years of making art, retrospectively, I see that many works are in fact not in a linear progression, such as one series after another. It’s more about not evaluating something. This is the notion of passivity or slowness, i.e. if you set the direction or a value, then you would function on the system of “exclude”. I don’t want to exclude, I want to include and be open. “Passivity” includes things because you are like an empty space open to all kind of possibilities.

ST : I have never heard of such a positive definition of “passivity”!

UR : Good! [Laughs] But it’s also a protective mechanism. I want to be as open as possible. Passivity is a way to protect yourself because people can’t pinpoint you down to a narrow definition. This passivity also energizes the work and brings emotions to the work. If I would set a value to the work, it would stop the work to grow. Once you define a work and you know what you are doing, then you just stop the work. There is no more vitality in it.

UGO RONDINONE, Soul (2013), a group of 37 figures from approximately 3 feet to 7 feet tall. Installation view at the Gladstone Gallery. Photo by David Regen. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels.

ST : Between Art, Time and Poetry, there is something in common -- their shapelessness, indefinability, ambiguity… in constant mutation.

UR : Poetry fascinates me because there is the connection to visual work. The language of poetry is a slow motion language. It’s full of suspension, ambiguity, slowness… We have the impression that poetry defies any logical approach, but poetry is aesthetic in logic. That’s the force of it. I believe that it’s similar to art. I never stand in front of an art work and start thinking, and I would never understand why an artist would even explain himself/herself because that’s not the energy or the force of the work.

ST : [Laughs] My apologies for the interview!

UR : [Laughs] Art is always bigger than what we can think about or talk about! Every good art has the power to stop me, to suspend me. I am not anymore the way I was before. A magic moment has happened and it transformed me…

ST : Transported you!

UR : Transfixed me!

ST : [Laughs] We are literally opposite yet talking about the same thing!

UR : [Laughs] You see how fluid these values are! “Transport” or “transfix”, they are the same ambiguous thing!

ST : The titles of your work is also like a word-game ! They are either as “demanding” as a poem or as “lazy” as the 24 hours of a day [Light Bulb series]…

UR : Yes, but that’s more a system or a way to organize myself when I have a group of work. For example, the scholar rock series (2009) has a title made up of 17 words [“WE run through a desert on burning feet, all of us are glowing our faces look twisted”], each specific word is related to one specific sculpture. There is only a slight change of having one word in capital letters to designate that specific work. It’s a small help in the sense that I don’t need to find 17 titles for the 17 pieces. Together, they create a poem. Individually, each single word has its unique power. Or, with the doors series, there are 26 titles start with the 26 alphabets and stand for the 26 doors, like “Dear Deepest Dream”, etc. This kind of system grants my work a certain order. Another example is the Date Paintings, I don’t need to say if the series is over or not because the days continue, and I just continue the series. It gives me the openness in a way. So, it’s an excuse, an order, a system, etc.

I have a love and hate relationship to words. I am fascinated by words in general. I wrote looping dialogues in simple English. Like what you have just quoted on the notion of time and duration, these dialogues would never end or be abandoned. Writing is also a kind of language exercise for me when I moved from Switzerland to the States. But I am a visual artist. I would like to deal only with visuality than word.

ST : Thank you very much!

UGO RONDINONE, Where Do We Go From Here?, neon, Perspex and translucent film, 1999.

UGO RONDINONE
thank you silence

27.06 - 06.10.2013

M - Museum Leuven
L. Vanderkelenstraat 28
3000 Leuven
Belgium

www.mleuven.be

About the Artist 
Ugo Rondinone was born in 1964 in Brunnen, Switzerland. He lives and works in New York in the United States.
His work has been exhibited globally, from Le Consortium in Dijon (1997) to the Kunstverein in Stuttgart (2002) and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2003). He represented Switzerland at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007) and was also the curator of the exhibitions The Third Mind at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2007) and The Spirit Level at Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York (2012). More recently, he has had solo exhibitions at the Aargauer Kunsthaus (2010) and at the M.U.S.A.C. in León (2011).

The work of Ugo Rondinone is represented by Galerie Eva Presenhuber (Zürich), Barbara Gladstone Gallery (New York – Brussels), Galerie Almine Rech (Paris – Brussels), Sadie Coles HQ (London) and Galerie Esther Schipper (Berlin).

www.initiartmagazine.com

ART BERLIN CONTEMPORARY

Nina Canell at Konrad Fischer

The Art Berlin Contemporary (ABC) is said to be, as director Maike Cruse doesn't tire to highlight, "not a business model". But why would an fair not want to be a business model? Or, to put it in other words, how can an art fair NOT automatically turn into a business model? The ABC generates itself as an art exhibition, with the aim to "serve the gallery system and to add something to the arts and culture at large" (see artinfo.com). Once again, in its current sixth edition, the fair only allows solo-presentations and the galleries needed to be invited to participate – applications are out of the question. What's new this time, is the fact that the fair includes lots of performative pieces and that the booths are designated by the artists and not their galleries.

120 artists are represented by 133 galleries, out of which several collaborated to show one artist. The single positions are impressive: Tony Oursler, Hermann Nitsch, Tomas Saraceno, Thomas Zipp or William Tucker. And also the well known young contemporaries such as Julius von Bismarck,  Ulrich Vogl, Andrew Kerrand Thea Djordjadze received much space to get the attention of the visitors.  On the other hand, the use of space in the three halls at Station Berlin is less impressive: With a lack of structure and a lack of clearly designated booths, the fair got a chaotic character with little guidance through the hallways. As most works are site-specific and installation-based, large conceptual pieces are placed next to each other without having any relation with one another. 

The complicated part with officially withdrawing a fair its business character, is that the curation of the fair suddenly moves to the spotlight. And since there is no overall curation, the exhibition turnes into a confusing labyrinth. While many single presentations, as for instance Nina Canell's minimalist object-based ensemble at Konrad Fischer (Düsseldorf), Daniel Gustav Kramer at Sies + Höke (Düsseldorf) or Mie Olise at Duve (Berlin) are outstanding in their booth curation and their composition of architecture and art, the silver upside-down pyramid by Tomas Saraceno at Esther Schipper (Berlin) is dominated by the sight of other large-scale installations and the rough architecture of the space. A similar fate hit the strikingly surreal installation by Danilo Duenas at Galerie Thomas Schulte (Berlin),  that cannot be experienced the way it should be, as it grows into the uneven ceiling. 

Others are a bit more lucky with their booth's location. Timo Klöppel presents an accessible window-house with Galerie KWADRAT (Berlin), which is not only glowing in the middle of the hallway, but also allows the visitors to enter and rest inside. A sculptural work, which are otherwise hardly represented at ABC, by William Tucker with Buchmann Galerie (Berlin) is fortunate too, as the booth is located in a minimalist niche of the building. Two of the most convincing representations were Ulrich Vogl's three poetic cloud and light pieces at the booth of Galerie Opdahl (Stavanger) and Andrew Kerr's paintings, which he presented on a wooden construction next to a men's suit at the booth of BQ (Berlin).

Since the downfall of the former Berlin art fair Art Forum, people have been discussing why Berlin, as the so called capital of art and creativity, doesn't manage to create a fair that is able to compete with Art Cologne, Frieze Art Fairor Art Basel. The ABC, with its slightly pretentious image as a non-commercial art fair, exactly represents what Berlin is known for: very good art and very chaotic business skills.

Art Berlin Contemporary

STATION BERLIN


Luckenwalder Strasse 4—6


10963 Berlin (
U-Bahn Gleisdreieck (U1, U2)
 )

Opening Hours: Friday, 20 September – Sunday, 22 September – noon – 7 p.m.
 


Daily 10 € | Reduced Ticket 8 €

 Luca Trevisani at Mehdi Chouakri Andrew Kerr at BQ Berlin  Ull Hohn at Galerie Neu Mie Olise at Duve Julius von Bismarck at alexander levy Timo Klöppel at KWADRAT Tony Oursler at Aviskarl Gallery
all images: Courtesy the galleries, photos by artfridge

Ulrich Vogl at Galerie Opdahl Thea Djordjadze at Sprüth Magers Daniel Gustav Kramer at Sies + Höke Marie Letkowski at Galerie M + R Fricke Muntean / Rosenblum at Galerie Zink David Lynch at Galerie Karl Pfefferle Eva Berendes at Sommer & Kohl Danilo Duenas at Galerie Thomas Schulte Mark Flood at Peres Projects Tomas Saraceno at Esther Schipper Diana Sirianni at Figge von Rosen Galerie Hermann Nitsch at Studio Morra / Alnitak Art Agency William Tucker at Buchmann Galerie Tilo Schulz at Jochen Hempel Thomas Zipp at Galerie Guido W. Baudach Andreas Fischer at Johann König 
all images: Courtesy the galleries, photos by art fridge

©  http://www.artfridge.de

EVIL UNDER THE SUN – Martin McGeown

Martin McGeown, Out of Italy
6 August 2013
House of Extravaganza, Stromboli

Sketches by Alison Yip.

For Volcano Extravaganza 2013, Martin McGeown will present a lecture entitled ‘Out of Italy’. Operating under the various shades of the title, he will cover a range of topics including fencing and particularly the passing on of stolen goods.

Martin McGeown is co-director of Cabinet Gallery in London. Cabinet was begun in McGeown’s apartment in Brixton in 1992 after a period of work in the department store display trade. Merging this experience with an approach to poetry focused on the unpublishable, the combination of these interests remains the principle concerns of Cabinet.

Photos by Anna Carniel

http://fiorucciartrust.com/works/mcgeown/

ATTILA CSORGO | INTERVIEW

©Attila Csörgő with Untitled (1 tetrahedron + 1 cube + 1 octahedron = 1 icosahedron), 1999.

Attila Csörgö (*1965 in Budapest) is among one of the best-known Hungarian artists whose work has featured in prominent international exhibitions. His works explore the relationship between a plane, space and time. He uses art as a means to accompany the viewer into the world of science. Inspired by perspective, geometric shapes and applied mathematics, his works combine fantasy and curiosity to represent various physical and mathematical phenomena, thus creating a new perspective on a reality of which we are no longer aware. Csörgö creates complex installations which upon first glance appear to bebricolage, but which provoke dynamic visual experiences.

During his residency at the Atelier Calder from March to July, Csörgö continued his study of optical illusions generated by the combination of light and movement. He conceived of a meticulous device that combines a moving geometric structure with the projection of images. Contingent on the placement of the projected images of objects on the wall, they appear different, even transformed.

In the interview, Attila Csörgö talked about his project in Atelier Calder and his artistic practices.

AC - Attila Csörgö
ST – Selina Ting for initiArt Magazine

Clock Work, 2011

Attila CSORGO, Clock Work, technic mixed. Variable dimensions. 2011. Work produced with the support of Atelier Calder. Attila Csörgö is entitled to an artistic research fund from the CNAP (Centre National des Arts Plastiques).

ST: In the structure, we see an irregular shape “sculpture” with a tickling arm programmed by a device that synchronized with the actual time second by second. At the same time, two projections on the wall show the sculpture from two different points of view, producing two one-arm clocks: one circular, the other in the form of an infinite sign. It’s a very interesting approach in telling time in the sense that the images are very metaphorical while there is mathematical precision.   

AC: It’s a little game playing on the concepts of time. The clock is of course the tool for measuring and presenting time, whereas the images work on a more abstract level. There are different representations of time. One of these is the circular motion, which implies a repeating cycle in time. Another is the concept of time as infinite, represented by the infinite sign. I want to play with these concepts. There are also two opposing ideas, the movement, which is relative to time and change; and the geometric figures, which are amongst the most static objects created by man. I like oppositions: moving and static, abstract and concrete.

ST: How did you conceive the irregular shape of the sculpture that works for both images? Was it based on mathematical calculations?

AC: I did sketches and I imagined how it should be like. Sometimes I tried to see it through a glass jar as well. At the beginning, I just wanted to make a funny irregular clock but it became more complicated as the project grew.

ST: I remember reading Milan Kundera writing somewhere that the most concrete expression of time is the pause between two musical phrases, which means time is more tangible when time is suspended, kind of being isolated from the last and the next. I like very much this concrete description of something as abstract as time.

AC: Artists such as Marcel Duchamp were fascinated with the fourth dimension and it’s an interesting question, because the time element is something that we can’t see. We can only detect it from signs, shapes, movements, etc. But these movements actually belong to other entities. It’s an imagination. Recently, I just saw a film by Alain Tanner, Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 (1976). There is a scene in the film where a History teacher came to the classroom with a big box, and inside was a very long sausage. He took it out, made a knot, and said to the class, “this is History”. He then asked a student to cut it and he took one slice of the sausage and said, “now, this is the History lesson, we are going to observe sections of history”. I like the idea of the continuity of time in a knot, yet we can see it “sections by section”. This kind of simultaneity might not be detectable at the first glance, but if we cut it into sections, we get specific images. Here the cutting and the projecting are equivalent. We can see the images and the projections as simultaneous.

ST: Paradox in the simultaneity. There is another paradox in the sense that the materials, the geometrical shapes are concrete but the mathematical theory is very abstract. Mathematics is purely abstract.

AC: Yes, but it’s also a problem for the scientists. Werner Heisenberg, father of the Quantum Physics, has written about this. It’s shocking for them that the calculations and scientific research showed totally different things from what they could describe by language. They couldn’t describe their theories to people outside of the field because the elements of the language are meant to describe the reality that we are living in, which is the naïve realty! [Laughs] The quantum reality which we can’t see is totally different in ideas and approach. So it’s another problem that we can calculate and somehow go inside the territory of the unknown, the abstract, but then, how can that be shared?

ST: Is it a question that you are concerned with? How do you adjust when making works for a public that may have little knowledge of science or mathematics? Would their difficulties in understanding your work be a consideration for you?

AC: I think art has many layers of interpretations. It’s not necessary to know the scientific layer. For example, kids like my pieces in general. They like motions, light, something moving in front of us. The scientific question today is not like what’s the platonic solid, etc., they have very specialized questions and different theories. My questions are more like “matter questions”, such as what this shape is, how they came into being, etc.

Attila CSORGO, Clock Work, technic mixed. Variable dimensions. 2011. Work produced with the support of Atelier Calder. Attila Csörgö is entitled to an artistic rearch fund from the CNAP (Centre National des Arts Plastiques).

ST: I have read some of your preparatory notes, kind of explanation of the system. Do you show these notes with the work?

AC: Before I showed it but now less. Another concern is that my works are kinetic, but once presented in a publication or a catalogue, they became static. Sometimes you could hardly imagine the movement from one single photo. So I need to add a little description. But it’s not necessary for the audience to read when they actually see the work though it can give additional information. I don’t write all the ideas. It’s more like a research process that I have to deal with in the creative process. Sometimes it’s just very technical things, other times when I am in a more poetic mood, I would write poetic or metaphorical texts too.[Laughs]

ST: I agree with you that these works are very empirical. You don’t actually need to understand the structure but you can just feel it.

Art and Science

Attila Csörgő, Untitled (1 tetrahedron + 1 cube + 1 octahedron = 1 dodecahedron), 2000. Bois, ficelle, rouet, cadre en fer, moteur électrique, 180 x 110 x 80 cm. Collection Mudam Luxembourg, Donation KBL European Private Bankers. © Photos : Andrés Lejona

ST: Why do you always insist on using primitive tools and objects created by your own hands?

AC: At the beginning it was out of necessity. I was making things without any budget, so I started to build systems with very simple tools and poor materials. Later on, I realized that it was an interesting game in regard of the nature and function of the objects. For example, when I need a motion system, I will get a record player or an electric fan which is built for sound and music. In the process, I will have to intervene, to modify the system and make the object perform for me. Of course, there are a lot of struggles, trial and errors experiments. So, I have to solve a lot of technical problems.

Another concern is the duration of the exhibition. Sometimes the objects can’t stay performing or functioning for a long time, so the fragility of an object made in a very particular circumstance increases the temporality of the work itself. You would expect a car to perform for many years because it’s produced in a factory under a certain system. But if you just combine materials and parts with your own hand, then the work becomes far more fragile, and this gives a more poetic nature to the work.

ST: One interesting thing is that you have always been working in the scientific field which is associated with the ideals of high-end advanced technology, but the materials of your work stays very primitive.

AC: I like to use these oppositions. Human mind is never stable; it’s in a state of ever-changing. Maybe the mathematical, geometrical theories are the most elaborated and stable ideas. These geometrical shapes in my work can be considered as the polished, advanced human ideas. On the other hand, there is the use of poor materials. These paradoxical positions create conflicts and I like such combination very much.

ST: How do you approach the aesthetic aspect of your work?

AC: I think it must look poor. [Laughs]  All these have an advantage. The materials suggest that we can do it from our own surroundings. If it’s produced in a super-factory, then it became an alienated position and process. It came from somewhere far away, not from my space. So there is no intimacy, between the art and the artist, and audience.

ST: Since when have you been combining science and art in your work?

AC: I studied painting in the Academy of Fine Art in Budapest, then enrolled to the Inter-media programme that focuses on photography, digital art, theories, etc. Then in the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, I was in the sculpture department.

ST: At which point did you turn to science?

AC: As a child, I liked very much to construct things and made wood structures, etc. I liked to work with my hands. I drew a lot as well. I loved geography, and I hated physics. But it’s a very interesting subject just that it should not be taught in the way schools do. It should be about experiments and making things rather than writing notes. I wanted to be a painter in the 1980s. It was the death of painting at that time…

ST: What kind of paintings were you doing?

AC: It’s a funny question, because I was actually painting pretty futuristic paintings of space and movement, a little bit figurative though. [Laughs] But I have problems feeling the good and the bad of a painting. At the same time, in the art school, I realized I had an affinity with geometry. That was also the first time I started constructing and sculpting things…

ST: Going back to the childhood…

AC: Exactly. And I found a way to judge good from bad… if the structure stands, it’s good, if it collapses, it’s bad. [Laughs]

ST: You found a precise answer in science!

AC: Yes, it somehow has a more stable grounding.

ST: Was that the moment when you started making your 360 degree panoramic camera?

AC: [Laughs] It’s a camera that takes images of almost the entire space. It’s an interesting example because it shows some typical things. The idea was from the early 1990s when I was in the Rijksakademie, at that time the idea wasn’t so clear, it was just a vision. The realization of the project started 10 years later.

Orange Space, 2003-2005. Black-and white spirally shaped photo stripes presented in two stages: Two-dimensional images, 50 x 130 cm and spherical images, 20 cm in diameter Camera, 100 x 70 x 50 cm, wooden, metal and plastic construction, lens, electric motor, revolving parts. © Attila Csörgö

ST: Why are you interested in producing this kind of images, like images in totality?

AC: It’s a good term, images in totality. [Laughs] If you take photos with a regular camera, you know that it’s a little part of the reality that is subjectively chosen with a certain composition. It’s very frustrating in this sense. If you can take images in totality, it’s then no longer a question.

ST: Is it the first camera in the world capable of capturing a total image?

AC: I am not sure. In this way, I think perhaps yes. There is a kind of images that can create a total view of the space but it’s consisted of two circles. What I did is to keep the photo special. The photographic point is from the middle of the sphere, and the space is along us, it’s an embracing space, which means normally, we can’t see it from outside. So this kind of image is very different from our experience. I know only one kind of image that is similar to it which is the celestial globe showing the stars from an outer space.

ST: Since the sphere is convex, we see the image as if from an outer space, like an observer rather than someone from inside. Just now you mentioned the subjective selection and composition of a regular camera and the more indifferent approach of a total image. I would like to link this idea to the tradition of subjectivity in art creation. Do you see the total image as creating a distance, an objective position for photography?

AC: All these concepts of subjectivity and objectivity are very confusing. I think I am just trying to give another vision of the space, another point of view. But at a certain sense, it’s very subjective too. Somebody has the vision to elaborate the system and make possible such images, I think that’s very subjective as well.

ST: Thank you!

About the artist

Attila CSÖRGŐ was born in 1965 in Budapest. He lives and works in Budapest.

His recent major solo exhibitions include Clock Work, Atelier Calder, Sache, 2011. MUDAM, Musée d´Art Moderne Grand Duc Jean, Luxemburg, 2010. In 2009 : Ludwig Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, Hungary; Domaine de Kerguéhennec, France ; Galerija Gregor Podnar, Berlin. 2008: Wurfelbahnen und Raumkurven Museum Folkwang im RWE Turm, Essen, Germany. 2007: Platonic Geometry, Galeria Arsenal, Bialystok, Poland; Szent István Király Múzeum, Székesfehérvár, Hungary. 2006: Galleria Contemporaneo, Mestre–Venice, Italy; Skin of Space, Galerija Gregor Podnar, Ljubljana, Slovenia. 2005: Gallery Van Zoetendaal, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (with Gábor Ősz).

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