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CRUDELIA?
LEXINCON
Marta Massaioli : Your art work is characterized from the use of different techniques ,as painting, photos and computer images. Can you explain the reason of this ecletism? Miltos Manetas : My photos and videos are mostly Demo of ideas such a demo of a software. The oil paintings are more close to the full version of the program.
Marta Massaioli : You entitled your last exhibition in Athens, at Rebecca Cahmi Art Gallery "F.O.R." that means "Fabric of Reality". You have explained that this titled is inspired to the book of David Deutch "Fabric of Reality". Can you specify what concept links your art to the theory of David Deutsch? Miltos Manetas : Not any concept really. I just happened to link the exhibition with the book. I like to link my shows to important books that are not so well known yet. In 1992 I linked my show Collegamenti (VIAFARINI, Milan) with the Neuromancer by William Gibson, a book that nobody in the Italian art World had read.
Marta Massaioli : In some of your art works an image reader, might resemble a symbolical hidden meaning, as for example in "Madonna and Bambino", where two Playstation are shown, and so their reference to Madonna and Bambino can be intended only throughout a symbolical understanding of the painting. Do you feel a symbolical reading of the painting is correct, or you consider more proper for your art just a "nonsense joke" interpretation? Miltos Manetas : In my painting, the Playstation and Nintendo 64 controllers recalls human hands, an adult and a children pair. I suppose that a symbolical reading of the painting is correct.
Marta Massaioli : If you feel that an hidden meaning can be found in your art work, can you explain me the meaning you give to "Madonna and Bambino"? Miltos Manetas : I cannot really explain my picture. It's model, the Madonna-bambino is apicture that you always meet in different museums. It suggests for me a double mortality, something dangerous. In fact Raphael's composition where the figures form a triangle is the most successful in this sense , because triangle as a form means danger. For a male observer, the image of Madonna, is always very sarcastic in those compositions, no matter how the woman is painted. It is a psychologically provoking image where the female appear very powerful but you don't know from where her power is generated -she shouldn't have any, the picture is suppose to center on the young Jesus that happens to be not only male but also God. I have some interest to update the biblical heroes through my paintings and I decide to connect The Virgin with the Nintendo 64 controller : they are both such a beige finger to trust !
Marta Massaioli : If an art critique were to name your art work,wich name would you give to your art experience, and to your artistic research? Miltos Manetas : No critic come with any name yet and therefore I am about to buy a name from Lexincon , a California branding company. It must not be a name just for my art, it must be something radical for everybody who is affected by the landscape of the computer screen .
Marta Massaioli : Which is the tendency of contemporary art that you find more interesting and closer to your art and to your inspiration ? Miltos Manetas : Cubism , Pop Art, Cartoons.
Marta Massaioli : How do you came to build a painting? Can you describe me the process that lead to your painting , I mean first there is inspiration, after drawing....? Miltos Manetas : I stage a situation and I take a digital picture. Then I print it and I give the photograph to my assistant to paint. I decide the dimensions of the painting of course.
Marta Massaioli : If you were to compare your art work to a music wich music do you feel is closer to your art, as jazz, classical, rap..? Miltos Manetas : No comments.
Marta Massaioli : What is art for you? Miltos Manetas : A powerful weapon in the service of Literature.
Marta Massaioli : As coming of computer age ,and of computer art the concept of space and the connected concept of reality have changed. Do you think this new way of conceiving space and reality influence your art? If yes how? Miltos Manetas : A lot Marta Massaioli : Who is your favorite artist amongst the one of your generation? Miltos Manetas : Vanessa Beecroft
Marta Massaioli : If there is a symbolical meaning in the construction of your painting, is this meaning decided before making the painting or it springs out while painting? Miltos Manetas : Meaning comes after , once the image is ready.
Marta Massaioli : In the text that accompany the exhibitio "F.O.R." you say that the age of Freedom is being substited by the age of Reality. What do you mean in this context for Freedom and Reality ?
Miltos Manetas : I mean that the big discussion about Freedom is now substituted by discussion about Reality. In the West, we use to discuss about what we think that is missing and we invent it on the terms of discussion. It is time to invent reality now.
Marta Massaioli : Do you think people will not fight for freedom anymore in the near future? Miltos Manetas : People never fight for Freedom. Their battle was to establish the rules under which they "ll agree that their freedom should be restrained. Our search for reality will be similar : we want to know which elements of the World worth our consideration of then as real. It is a matter of composition and scale.
Marta Massaioli : I consider an artist as experimenter of his own rule, somehow he is never free. What is an artist to you? Miltos Manetas : An artist is a tool, a very rough one.
Marta Massaioli : Which current of the past is closer to your art, as Renaissance (the ecletism of the Renaissance age), or the Manierism way of composing and choosing colours? Miltos Manetas : Titian.
Marta Massaioli : Which artist of '900 you consider interesting? Which one you don't like, or you think has been overvalued? Miltos Manetas : Picasso is my hero. I never cared much about Matisse.
Marta Massaioli : Do you think you might stop painting in the future? Miltos Manetas : Future ?
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