Antonio Ortega speaks about ‘Antonio Ortega and the Contestants’.
4 October 2002
Antonio Ortega: I won’t explain all the pieces I have done, because if we have one or
I discovered in a farm a programme to sponsor a pig. The name of the pig
was Lucy. I was living here in London for one year and for that year I paid for
Lucy’s bed, her food and all that stuff. It interested me because no-one would
do for me what I did for Lucy.
This piece was in an exhibition, the name of this exhibition was
‘Charity Register’. Today I would like to try to talk about charity. In
Barcelona we’ve got a government minister who has a catholic mentality; most of
the decisions he makes are not about the rights for anyone to get something,
but they are about charity. Like this charity is always working in a bad way,
because he chooses who deserves charity and what they deserve. Like now, I have
been working for a long time so that means I’ve got the right to unemployment.
It’s like the kind of father who gives you something in charity, because he
thinks that you deserve it..
At the same time as I was Lucy’s sponsor, I made another work. I left my
vomit in the back garden and suddenly there appeared a kind of magpies; I don’t
know the name in English. It’s [Spanish word], it’s a black one and smaller
than a crow. Anyway, they ate all the stuff and they went away. In terms of
charity Lucy’s environment was perfect, but because there was no effort on my
part it’s bad charity. For instance, because the money I take comes from a
bank, they support my work, so it’s not any effort for me to sponsor her. With
the magpies, it was different. I gave vomit, it sounds disgusting, but they
liked and at the same time it was a tough job for me because it took me twelve
minutes to try to vomit something for them. I woke up at eight o’clock in the
morning and I ate just baked beans, but I didn’t drink anything in preparation;
it was terrible.
I made another piece of work: I joined a band. They were more funny than
other bands because they were too old to be in a band. Anyway, they had a rock
band and I joined them, playing a song. I had never played any guitar before,
so it was grotesque.
The sound… it was nothing. Some people prefer my sound because they’re a
little bit crazier. They say ‘OK, it’s like John Cage. This solo is really
good.’ But it wasn’t. So, finally I got the opportunity to develop a project
here and again it is about being kind and it’s again about pretending to be
something you’re not. I’m kind because I invite five young artists from Spain
to join me in this exhibition, changing this solo exhibition into a
group show. Once again I am pretending something because I’m not as young as
them; even if I’d like to be, but it’s not the case. In order to develop this
project I made a lecture on Fine Arts in Barcelona and I had already decided
what the project was going to be about. I wanted to have five students come and
work with me but I wouldn’t be a curator so I wasn’t interested in the work of
each one. I didn’t go to see their workshop or any of that stuff. I prefered to
make the selection based on the enthusiasm of the people. So, when I finished
the lecture gave out my email address and I said ‘I’ve got a project in London.
If anyone is interested please send an email. I will only answer the first five
emails I receive. So the sixth, the seventh, the eighth will not be in this
show.
’ Why I’m interested in enthusiasm is something I will explain later,
but for now let’s stay in order of the facts. Finally I contacted them. I
explained: ‘I will not require you as an assistant, or anything like that. You
are going to develop your own work. There isn’t any theme… we don’t have to
talk about the real whatever or existentialism.’ No, they can develop their own
work. The only thing I suggested to them is: not work, don’t make the piece
thinking about art stuff. They have to think about other kinds of situations.
We met together each week, once or twice in my workshop, making weird pieces,
funny games. Each one had to develop in their mind and then would make them.
Finally we begin to work their pieces, only chatting and saying ‘What’s going
on?’ and ‘It’s better if you do that,’ you know, without any other input.
Finally I’ll be a contestant as well, with them, and I’ll do my own work. My
work, it’s the video of Pere Lluís Plà Buxó who is a little bit of a
contradiction with the young ones, he is really a enthusiastic artist. He’s an
old artist. He used to be a good artist making Conceptual Art and Performance
and now he’s really interested in making a kind of Dali-esque, naïve, esoteric,
realistic pictures. Pere Lluís talks about the same things I’m interested in:
about the cause/effect about kindness, about ignorance.
When I said before that I was going to explain something I wanted to
develop later; well now it’s that moment. The reason that I’m not interested in
the work of the contestants before I select them, is because I think anybody
can be in the art scene. Sometimes projects like this are developed by artists,
but usually the artist chooses to work with foolish people or kids, or
something like this. I’m not interested in this, because if I had chosen kids
the project of art would not be art by itself. The artist projects the idea of
art in to the kid’s world. I choose artists because they’re artists and they’re
making art by itself, by themselves without me. It’s not because I’m telling them
‘this is art, this is not.’ In one way I agree with people who say ‘Everybody
is welcome in art,’ but I don’t agree with people when they say ‘I can signal,
or point, which is art and which is not.’ The art is not art because you who
have the finger to point to make it so. It’s art because there is somebody who
has made this decision: the artist.
At the same time I truly think to be an artist is a matter of naïve
thinking. That’s why I’m looking for enthusiasm, because people who are really
enthusiastic are a little bit naïve. ‘I can get anything, you know, I’ve got
the view, the whole view’ – you’re a little bit naïve if you think like this. I
think it’s necessary to be a little bit naïve. I tried to unravel this idea
about ignorance once. I suggested people should try to imagine any very well
known artist as if they had never had an exhibition. To imagine that this
artist is at home one Sunday at his aging parents house at coffee time. The
kids are playing, the women somewhere else, and he talks with his father and
shows him the latest work he has made. I gave the people sixty seconds to think
about this idea and the example that came to me was Joseph Beuys scratching
gravy or grease from the walls and his old father nodding like this ‘Oh dear,
my son!’. It is only when you have a little bit of success, only when you can
make public your work, that this kind of naïve thinking, this ignorance, this
enthusiasm, that you don’t realise about, becomes the success. So I go for it
like Pere Lluís Plà Buxó does, I say ‘I’m ignorant and I’m proud of it.’
Because I think it’s the motor of art. I just tried to imagine some of my works
without this enthusiasm and it wasn’t possible.
Another thing I find interesting in Spain that is totally different from
the rest of the world (we’re the champions at this) is our celebration of a
kind of people who are famous for doing nothing. They are really professional
about this. Here it begins to appear… this product, but it’s not very fêted.
For instance, yesterday I saw ‘What did Jade do next?’ We have a lot of this
kind of product like Jade from ‘Big Brother’ in Spain. It is because of Hello,
the magazine. Hello has been running for fifty years in Spain as Hola and then
they came here. The features started with royalty, after that the sons of the
royalty, then with somebody who married the sons of the royalty, after that
with the Hollywood stars or the local Hollywood stars, some singers, maybe
somebody who has an affair with a singer. This is more or less the level of
these kind of magazines in England but in Spain it’s further on, more removed.
In Spain now the stars are someone who pretends they have had an affair with
somebody, and someone who knows that person and knows it’s not true and so on.
But they are all really becoming professionals, because each I turn on the TV
there is a panel of journalists talking about these kind of people; ‘What are
they doing?’, ‘What are they on?’, ‘Who is engaged with him, with who?’. All
sorts of things. Like here, you have the same amount of hours of television
programming for DIY problems as we have in Spain just for talking about this
kind of people. In Spain we don’t care anymore about the singers or the son of
the king because they hide their private life. These people they are professionals
of show and tell and you can follow their lives like soap operas, by only
following these interviews. Because they are always talking bad about these
persons, you can follow all the stuff.
Finally, it makes me think one thing: the artists usually do not do
anything for the public as these persons do; it is a really tough job. For
instance there is Dino who’s only famous because he had an affair with a
seventy-four year old woman who used to sing in Spain. It’s a tough job,
believe me, because this woman is not nice at all. And OK, he did this, he
became famous and he went on TV to explain ‘No, I split up with her’ and ‘No,
I’m going to marry her.’ — all the details. Everybody is laughing at him, but
he earns a lot of money; six thousand pounds per appearance. There are
thousands more like him.
So the artist is always… ‘I want to be famous, known, but doing my own
work. I’m not doing anything for the public.’ That’s why I like a little… the
English art scene, because in England you never forget entertainment. I think
this is good. That’s the point I tried to promote in the contestants, I said:
‘Don’t be too heavy, develop a project that’s affordable for everybody. Don’t
talk about art; nobody cares about art. The video has to
be short and something has to happen. One more important thing: don’t care
about any kind of form, because formalism is the projection of the selfish
nature of the artist. Any kind of formalism has to be rejected because it’s
somebody trying to impose his own view’. That’s what I have to say and now I
hope you have some questions. I’m a little deaf in English so maybe I will need
you to repeat your question, or something like this!
Kirsty Ogg: Antonio, what do you think about the whole process
of validation that happens with artists that…
AO: Valid…?
KO: Validation, approval! The process when artists are making work and they
show, and it’s decided whether it’s a good work or a bad work. If we could just
go back to the example of Joseph Beuys, for example saying that he never became
successful through whatever circumstances, and the whole ridiculous scenario of
him having to explain to his parents what he actually does.
AO: I think that good art always is going to have success. I don’t know if I
think this is a little bit quite and comfortable, or…. At the moment I truly
think that it doesn’t matter how many promotional things you do. If a work is
good it’s going to be known, I’m sure of this. Once more about the YBA’s, or
all ‘Britart’, really, there is one thing that they are really good at. For
instance, in Spain one artist is in a show and somebody arrives with a camera
and they say ‘No pictures,’ like that, Hollywood style, ‘No pictures.’ But here,
Tracy Emin and all these people, they only put on a better face, no? I think if
a work is good, it’s going to be known. And it’s only a matter of show your
work in a normal way, not pretending you’re a star or something. Only, if
you’ve got the chance of showing something, show the best side of it. If you’ve
got the chance to make an exhibition, then you should do the exhibition as well
as you can. Don’t pretend to be so intellectual or start hiding things. Just be
natural and take your chance.
Audience One: Why do you think English artists who are successful
are interested in fame?
AO: I don’t know, I can’t talk about all Spanish art, because it is
different all over Spain. Spain is like Great Britain; it has several countries
inside. I can talk about the scene in Barcelona and while I’m here, the scene
of London, because that’s what I know. OK, I know the Madrid stuff and the
Basque Country well, but it’s not the point. The difference is, in Barcelona
people… There are two things I don’t like. One, people always pretend
that they are intellectual, so if an artist is going to have a TV programme
it’s going to be an intellectual programme. Here the artists join the pop
stars, here it’s more like pop music whilst in Barcelona they join the writers
and poets. The other difference that I really hate about the scene in Barcelona
is the over-design. For instance, I made an exhibition and, you know the card —
this thing you put beside the picture? Titles, the card of the titles, has to
be designed by a whole team of designers. You can’t do that! There is a team of
designers who do this silly thing. Sometimes I visit ARCO, the art fair in
Madrid, or I go to a gallery from Barcelona and it’s over-designed. In contrast
a gallery from London might have hand made title cards that are just Post-it
notes. Who cares, it’s enough, it’s not the card which is important. Another
thing I like about England is that here the room is not as important. You know,
the decoration, the scenario. Here are two examples, they are not from art, but
they show the way the English think about space.
For one: The parliament, it’s so small and everybody is squashed around
the speaker. It’s like five hundred years ago, like this. In Spain they are so
grand pretending they’re really rich, like because they have a grand space they
will make the best job ever.
Here’s another example, when you see the 007 films, they make the important
decisions in the tiny basement but they’re changing the world. In Barcelona
this kind of bureaus, offices, they are thinking only in mega-scale, you go
there and it’s huge, nice windows, everything. It’s always pretending, always
too much. Now it’s only six months since they opened the new space and of
course they asked the best architect possible to make a huge entrance. Its not
used for anything, only to be a shock when you arrive. Here nobody cares about
this, it’s the work that really counts and that is something I like. For me, at
the beginning, it was really tough, because of course I don’t like this kind of
scenario, but now I’m used to this. For instance, when I arrived at Gasworks I
didn’t understand it. It couldn’t be a good exhibition there, because it’s like
my workshop, it’s not nice. There is not a huge entrance, you know. But little
by little I understood; it’s like 007’s office, you can change the world even
there.
Audience Two: By showing art in ordinary places, will that change
the world?
AO: Ordinary — in what sense? Affordable for everyone, or…
Audience Two: Yeah, you don’t have to be an intellectual to do
it, you don’t have to…
AO: I don’t know if I use the word in the same meaning as you, because
ordinary in Spain, it means somebody with bad manners. For instance, ordinary
is somebody who makes ‘argh,’ you know, this is ordinary. It’s not? Yeah, I
truly think that art is affordable for everyone. Sometimes, at the beginning
when I read something, when I was a teenager, and I didn’t understand a
sentence I would read this sentence a thousand times. I was sure that the
sentence was right and I thought the writer knew what they were saying. But
it’s not so, it’s a mistake, the writer is not as clever as this. It’s a fake
sentence. In art it happens really, really often. Some of the worst artists are
those artists that you can’t understand and you feel inferior to. You think
‘Oh, I’m going to get there’ but no, you never arrive at this level, because
there is nothing there. It is only a confused mix of ideas. These kind of
artists, who pretend to be so intellectual, usually let you know, when they
explain their work they say: ‘I’m talking about contradictions’ Come on, you’re
not talking about contradictions. If you have one idea, you have to develop
that one idea. Or the other sentence is: ‘I make this in order to make people
think.’ To that I say ‘I will think if I want, it’s not to think about’. Just
explain me one mystery, show me one object. Don’t make me think, I think what I
want. This kind of artist, and they pretend they are so clever, usually use
these two sentences. You can discover the fake ones with this, talking about
contradictions, come on. I remember once, because it’s clearer if I give an
example. It was an artist, who had no success at all, because he made
old-fashioned pictures. Old-fashioned it means like… the Expressionists,
Americans, American Expressionists. OK, nobody cares about this kind of art
anymore, only if you are Rothko or Pollock, but not a young artist. So he
started to put sharp forms in the middle of his pictures. I asked him about it,
‘What’s this?’ and he says: ‘I’m talking about contradictions’. Come on, you
don’t know what you’re doing. You pretend to arrive somewhere. You are full for
being recognized and you are so… cowardly, that you cant forget your past.
Forget about this, this is a reproduction you were studying. It’s not your
stuff, it’s going to be never your stuff anymore, it’s something created in the
fifties. So, be in your time not with this kind of compositions.
KO: Are you going to continue to be generous to the contestants?
AO: Well, I’m not sure [laughs]. No, now I’m really interested in Pere Lluís
Plà Buxó.
KO: Because there is this kind of connection between the fact that Pere
Lluís he taught you at college and he’s been quite a big influence on you and
your work
AO: Yes, Pere Lluís Plà Buxó was my deep influence in art, before he started
following this strange religion. The thing I really like about him is that he’s
obsessed with health, but this obsession doesn’t lead him to be any fitter.
This obsession leads him to be ill. But, of course, I want to work with his
stuff. In fact, I’m going to do a residency in Germany and the only information
I bring from Barcelona is his work. I don’t care about anything else, it’s my
email address and… the only papers I will have are work from Pere Lluís. But I
don’t know, because… This question is difficult to answer, because in another
situation it was OK. I’m sure I’m thinking of something to do, or whatever. But
not now, because I’m going to this residency and I’ve never been to Germany and
I don’t want to go there with a project on my head. It’s because I’m going to
go there and I want to develop the project there, so it’s not possible to
prepare.
KO: Has anyone got any question for Antonio?
AO: Anyway, the good thing is that you’re in the correct place. There is a
line from Berlin to New York and anything that happens on this line is
contemporary art. Below and above it’s very difficult to reach anything, so you
only have to follow this line. It’s Berlin, Cologne, Amsterdam, London and New
York. There is nothing more [laughter]. OK, Paris. They make a little bit like
this.
KO: OK, that seems like a good point to leave it [inaudible].
Applause