The art installation shown above is a piece by Jorge Batista and it is called ‘Waiting Box’. I met Jorge in 1996. As I write these lines I have flashbacks of my time roaming the corridors of the University of Fine Art, in Lisbon, aka Esbal, hoping to understand art, hoping to find the answers I was looking for.
I had never quite understood the work of Richard Serra until I came across the Equal Parallel: Guernica Bengasi at the Reina Sofia, in Madrid.
When I lived in London, I used to walk past the ‘Fulcrum’, at the far end of Liverpool St Station, almost every day; however that piece never really appealed to me. I never quite liked how the three plates of steel, leaning against each other, blended with the architectural square-ish style of the buildings in the area. It was probably the architect in me that influence my judgment.
I returned to Sydney in October 2012 after 9 months in Europe. I was pleased upon my return to notice that the extension of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) was finally finished. The first exhibition I had the opportunity to see was by Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, two Australian contemporary artists that managed to inspire me a great deal.
David, IAP Fine Art was established almost 20 years ago. How was the world of contemporary art back then, in terms of interest by the media or the public in general?
It was still a time when people talked about whether a work of art was any good, and not how much it cost or was sold for. They were qualitative conversations, with lots of interesting disagreements, and different ‘camps’ within the art world, alas some more fuddy duddy than others. No-one at all held only quantitative conversations about prices and auction prices. That pull of celebrity and money and auction prices was beginning, but not on the scale it is today. You did not go to an art fair and be handed a fair newspaper with a graph on the front page of art sales in South East Asia, as though you were entering a car sales convention. (Unlike at a major London art fair in 2009, when that actually was the first thing I was given!).
I came across the work of Anish Kapoor for the first time in London. I had the opportunity to see the Marsyas at the Tate. It was an enormous red sculpture in the Turbine Hall, so big that it was impossible to see it in its entirety. After that I remember reading about new commissions in various magazines. I personally thought the wow effect of Marsyas was keeping him in demand.
It wasn’t until the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art hosted an exhibition about him this year that I had the opportunity to experience his work again, in loco. I confess I wasn’t looking forward to the experience. I had assumed Kapoor is the ‘big act’ he is today on the account of his work at the Tate, but I was proven wrong.
In November 2008 I was in London for a short visit. I had decided to spend a few days in the City to catch up with friends, architecture and contemporary art.
Not surprisingly, as an ex-Londoner, one of the first things I did was to visit the Tate. Initially disappointed to notice that the main installation in the turbine hall was not yet ready to the general public I enjoyed strolling through the permanent exhibition nevertheless. I walked randomly through the various exposition rooms and I suddenly came across the work shown below.
‘What’s going on here?’ was my initial thought upon seeing it, but after reading the title of the piece, ‘Ave Maria’, the idea of associating fascism to the Catholic Church made plenty of sense to me.
Joel, as a contemporary artist, your point of departure was printmaking. As you know printmaking is often associated to cost reduction and mass production, which for many art critics is the opposite of fine art which concentrates on producing unique art pieces. Do you think there is a misconception about printmaking as an Art form?
As a student I studied photography first then painting and then printmaking - I feel all three have influenced my practice - which is more of a roaming style from medium to medium - though printmaking is definitely my base. I feel print is the best medium to discuss the contemporary world, it has its roots in the dissemination of knowledge, it is a technology founded on communication and indeed all of a current visual world has its origins in the historic techniques of printmaking. AND yes there is a misconception about printmaking in Australia, but this will change and a large part of my practice is about educating people.
I saw the work of Bill Viola for the first time in 2003, when I visited the Getty Centre in LA. Among the works displayed the ‘Quintet of the Astonished’ was the installation that impressed me the most. As far as I remember the original work was several minutes long, but the youtube movie above can still give you a feeling how this particular installation worked.
Personally what attracted me to the Quintet was the composition. The five individuals portrayed against a greyish background reminded me of various Caravaggio paintings.
I work as an architect at Vitflodhäst. I like to make sense of #contemporaryart in my free time.
I was born in Luanda and raised in Lisbon, but I have been since 1997 living abroad. Sydney is currently my home town.
I have a passion for cultures and people that I have made the words of Socrates my own, 'I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world'.
