I Hate The Indifferent
by Michele Ciacciofera
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Dear Michele,
You have studied how humans change landscapes. What are some of the awe-inspiring man-made changes you have experienced and where? I was born in Sardinia and raised in Sicily, the two largest islands of the Mediterranean. Two different universes, with incredible treasures of historical, cultural and natural importance. From my parents, I inherited a love of nature and art. From early age, I have kept a watchful eye on how humans have been changing and altering the landscape. This high-intensity conflict pushed me to perceive a separation between humans and nature although I know that they are truly intertwined. |
Photo: courtesy of the artist |
I became an activist and through my art tried to explain that perception by painting and drawing the land itself as a subject, ignoring the presence of people or any kind of human signs. Of course, it was just a conceptual exercise in the same way renaissance artists carried out centuries before me, but it was my way to question the situation.
I have been working on different environmental matters, exploring deserts, ruins and archaeological areas, by travelling all around the world, filming and talking to people in order to create a space to debate these topics. I really think that in the last few years the situation has changed radically, and these topics have moved to the top of the global political agenda.
Why did you decide to let go of your aspirations in Political Science to obtain an apprenticeship with the painter and architect Giovanni Antonio Sulas?
My political science studies have allowed me to delve into matters such as sociology, anthropology as well as politics and philosophy to give me means that are important in my artistic research. Even Sulas whom I knew before we began to collaborate encouraged me to pursue these studies for a more global perspective that would prove useful to my art.
Paintings, Sculpture, Ceramic Sculpture, Works on Paper, Drawings – what is your favorite medium?
I do not have a favorite medium. I always thought that different techniques constitute simple details in creation. Drawings, painting, sculpture, installations, sound bites, video, carpets etc. are different techniques but I believe they are all part of the same circular process that I believe to be my own.
As for painting and drawing, they have been dear to me since childhood, constituting my basic expressive means along with words. The rest came along in the following years, but always very naturally.
Technique, and this is not true only in art, is a means that man employs for his own ends, which in my case is art.
One of my principal interests is the relationship between memory and contemporary life. I believe that antique techniques can be combined with others derived from more recent technologies; what counts for me is the content: finding threads of continuity between the present and the past to show the spirit of mutability and the mysterious force that has always pushed man and artist to create images and shapes.
I have been working on different environmental matters, exploring deserts, ruins and archaeological areas, by travelling all around the world, filming and talking to people in order to create a space to debate these topics. I really think that in the last few years the situation has changed radically, and these topics have moved to the top of the global political agenda.
Why did you decide to let go of your aspirations in Political Science to obtain an apprenticeship with the painter and architect Giovanni Antonio Sulas?
My political science studies have allowed me to delve into matters such as sociology, anthropology as well as politics and philosophy to give me means that are important in my artistic research. Even Sulas whom I knew before we began to collaborate encouraged me to pursue these studies for a more global perspective that would prove useful to my art.
Paintings, Sculpture, Ceramic Sculpture, Works on Paper, Drawings – what is your favorite medium?
I do not have a favorite medium. I always thought that different techniques constitute simple details in creation. Drawings, painting, sculpture, installations, sound bites, video, carpets etc. are different techniques but I believe they are all part of the same circular process that I believe to be my own.
As for painting and drawing, they have been dear to me since childhood, constituting my basic expressive means along with words. The rest came along in the following years, but always very naturally.
Technique, and this is not true only in art, is a means that man employs for his own ends, which in my case is art.
One of my principal interests is the relationship between memory and contemporary life. I believe that antique techniques can be combined with others derived from more recent technologies; what counts for me is the content: finding threads of continuity between the present and the past to show the spirit of mutability and the mysterious force that has always pushed man and artist to create images and shapes.
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You have participated in an exhibition titled “I Hate The Indifferent”. What did you base your piece on to reflect this theme?
“I Hate The Indifferent” is the title of a collection of reflections by Antonio Gramsci, the father of modern socialism, about the social position of the individual compared to his story. Same as Gramsci, I consider the Indifference a negative motor of the story and events. There's no critic in the world that it's not essentially or at least partially due to the indifference. All the works exhibited under this title in Edinburgh (Scotland), Offenbach (Germany), Syracuse (Italy) are a reflection on the importance of an active commitment, of the consciousness and ethics, as fundamental aspects for domestic partnership, that I believe have to be initiated and preserved by any individual under any circumstances.
In the scope of this cycle of works, many are from the ones that already had the title "I Hate The Indifferent". Each of them was to question the audience about all the above.
A few more words about La Decence est aleatoire...
This work reconnects to the series “I Hate The Indifferent”. It follows the same considerations mentioned previously. It is made of a block covered in gold leaf in which I inserted letters made of edible pasta that create the sentence that entitles the work.
Order from Disorder How did you create this amazing sculpture?
Thank you! Order from disorder is a sculpture that grows every time I exhibit it. Some spheres of different diameters in plastic material covered in textiles and then treated with pigment, raw clay, wool wires and gold powder. On the floor it finds its natural place, representing a cellular system that draws from the earth, carrying within itself memory in evolution.
What is the common threat of the stories you keep telling through your work to audiences around the world?
My work has an anthropological and sociological connotation that is also political. The topics I cover such as memory, the relationship between man and nature, the relationship between the archaic and contemporary man, the grave conditions of today’s world all form a single message that wishes to bring harmony as its final aspiration in the spirit and in society.
What are some of the events and people who have had an impact on your creativity and how?
Sulas among those I have met but not only him: the great anthropologist Atonino Buttitta and the writer Giuseppe Quatriglio are among them.
Among those I have never met: the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, Carl Gustav Jung, Antonio Gramsci. They have been so present in my life that I consider them comrades.
But most of all, my father and mother, who always encouraged me ever since a young age to pursue my artistic passions.
In your opinion, what does art offer to a community and to a society in its entirety that may be essential factors to its development?
Art has always been a fundamental need for human beings both on an individual and collective level. The history of every civilization is represented by artistic expression which today more than ever provides a measure of the level of cultural vitality of a society.
I cannot avoid reading recent attacks made against the artistic heritage of the middle east, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, as acts against civilization and against those societies and the world and mankind.
Art offers perspectives to begin reflections that go well beyond esthetics and that go towards a harmony of development, a positive engine of progress ever since mankind has existed.
What are some of the most exciting upcoming events featuring your art?
At this time, I am exhibiting an installation entitled Janas Code in the Padiglione delle Tradizioni for the 57th Biennale D’Arte di Venezia. My recording of the density of the transparent wind are featured at Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel. I am preparing an exhibit that will take place starting in December 2017 at the MAN museum, an operation on an archeological site in Malta for 2018 and participating in different group exhibits around Europe. I am carrying out a project in China with Vitamin Creative Space. I am also working on settings for different theater pieces including Seneca’s Medea which will launch in the beautiful Palladian Theater of Vicenza next October.
“I Hate The Indifferent” is the title of a collection of reflections by Antonio Gramsci, the father of modern socialism, about the social position of the individual compared to his story. Same as Gramsci, I consider the Indifference a negative motor of the story and events. There's no critic in the world that it's not essentially or at least partially due to the indifference. All the works exhibited under this title in Edinburgh (Scotland), Offenbach (Germany), Syracuse (Italy) are a reflection on the importance of an active commitment, of the consciousness and ethics, as fundamental aspects for domestic partnership, that I believe have to be initiated and preserved by any individual under any circumstances.
In the scope of this cycle of works, many are from the ones that already had the title "I Hate The Indifferent". Each of them was to question the audience about all the above.
A few more words about La Decence est aleatoire...
This work reconnects to the series “I Hate The Indifferent”. It follows the same considerations mentioned previously. It is made of a block covered in gold leaf in which I inserted letters made of edible pasta that create the sentence that entitles the work.
Order from Disorder How did you create this amazing sculpture?
Thank you! Order from disorder is a sculpture that grows every time I exhibit it. Some spheres of different diameters in plastic material covered in textiles and then treated with pigment, raw clay, wool wires and gold powder. On the floor it finds its natural place, representing a cellular system that draws from the earth, carrying within itself memory in evolution.
What is the common threat of the stories you keep telling through your work to audiences around the world?
My work has an anthropological and sociological connotation that is also political. The topics I cover such as memory, the relationship between man and nature, the relationship between the archaic and contemporary man, the grave conditions of today’s world all form a single message that wishes to bring harmony as its final aspiration in the spirit and in society.
What are some of the events and people who have had an impact on your creativity and how?
Sulas among those I have met but not only him: the great anthropologist Atonino Buttitta and the writer Giuseppe Quatriglio are among them.
Among those I have never met: the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, Carl Gustav Jung, Antonio Gramsci. They have been so present in my life that I consider them comrades.
But most of all, my father and mother, who always encouraged me ever since a young age to pursue my artistic passions.
In your opinion, what does art offer to a community and to a society in its entirety that may be essential factors to its development?
Art has always been a fundamental need for human beings both on an individual and collective level. The history of every civilization is represented by artistic expression which today more than ever provides a measure of the level of cultural vitality of a society.
I cannot avoid reading recent attacks made against the artistic heritage of the middle east, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, as acts against civilization and against those societies and the world and mankind.
Art offers perspectives to begin reflections that go well beyond esthetics and that go towards a harmony of development, a positive engine of progress ever since mankind has existed.
What are some of the most exciting upcoming events featuring your art?
At this time, I am exhibiting an installation entitled Janas Code in the Padiglione delle Tradizioni for the 57th Biennale D’Arte di Venezia. My recording of the density of the transparent wind are featured at Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel. I am preparing an exhibit that will take place starting in December 2017 at the MAN museum, an operation on an archeological site in Malta for 2018 and participating in different group exhibits around Europe. I am carrying out a project in China with Vitamin Creative Space. I am also working on settings for different theater pieces including Seneca’s Medea which will launch in the beautiful Palladian Theater of Vicenza next October.