Antonio Ortega speaks about ‘faith and enthusiasm’.
When I was asked for a short introductory text about the talk I was going to
be giving at this meeting, I sent this rather twee sentence:
After Duchamp, anything can be art; after Beuys, anyone can be an artist.
If I was able to send this text to be posted on the internet, you will understand that it is impossible for me to be shy about continuing with a joke
that’s not even a good one:
At school, during a chemistry class, the teacher holds up a glass of
ammonia and asks one of the pupils,
<who in Spanish jokes is always called Jaimito>
-What is ammonia?
Jaimito replies that it’s a drink.
The teacher asks him: Are you sure?
Of course, says Jaimito.
The teacher then hands him the glass and tells him to drink it.
Jaimito takes a gulp and replies: WELL,BUT I LIKE IT!
In the same way, one can feel a liking for those people who with real faith
and enthusiasm try to make a name for themselves in the gossip media.
I made an art project at Joan Miró Fundation
The description of this the project: briefly, my I built an office to contact
sponsors in order to get enough money to make a wax figure of Yola
Berrocal, She is the epitome of the construction of a celebrity.
She is convinced that the correct way to develop your artistic career is
promoting your popularity. So I’m working in grab the money for her wax
figure because having your wax figure represents the greatest symbol of
fame.
It is obvious that promoting Yola helps to self-promote myself.
Talking about my project, in an interview with the journalist Ramon Solé, I
explained my point of view about what is known as famoseo, we could
translate as minor celebrity:
How did this celebrity cult come about:
It has its origins in the fact that, recently, artists, singers, film directors,
etc. have turned their press appearances into pure promotion of their
product.
Quite normal, isn’t it?
The fact is that professional celebrities have now appeared. They also
provide gossip as well.
Supply always meets demand.
In fact, they have constructed cliché personalities, and the events in their
lives can be followed by the public.
I like them to the extent that they’re like a soap opera and to the extent
that they parody the attitudes of the traditional celebrities.
In doing so, it’s shown traditional celebrities attitude with gossip media
morally reprehensible.
The question is: would you change your life for Dinio’s life? (Dinio is a
Cuban who began his career in the popularity stakes by passing himself off
as the new boyfriend of Marujita Díaz’s, a singer devoted to Franco’s time).
No.
Nor would I, because what he does requires a huge effort. However, I would
change it for Cayetano de Alba (Cayetano is the son of the Duchess of
Alba, a famous name in the elite world of horse riding and show jumping.
He combines riding with working in the world of fashion (Ralph Lauren,
Springfield.).
So do you admire these people?
It’s easy to be critical and say they don’t do anything. I don’t agree; I
respect their efforts to build up a public personality and I imagine this
involves a lot of work.
Do you compare these celebrities with artists?
Yes, with the difference that an artist seeks fame by imposing his ego,
whereas minor celebrities are more generous because they give the public
what they want.
What made you decide to do this wax sculpture of Yola Berrocal?
I wanted to show the need to be famous, in other words, to be visible.
Every artist needs an audience. Yola is the metaphor of the artist’s
condition, she seeks fame by working on the basis of faith and
enthusiasm.
And, money?
Don’t imagine they earn much money. In fact the programmes dedicated to
discussing their lives exist because in production terms they’re very cheap.
How much does it cost to buy the rights to a film or a football match? How
much does it cost to make a documentary or a sitcom? These celebrities
receive a cheque for €2,000 euros at the end of the recording if they had
said anything of substance.
And, why Yola Berrocal and not Paco Porras?
(Paco Porras is a fortune teller, he says he can discover the future with the
help of vegetables.)
I chose Yola because I like her.
She seemed to have no malice.
She’s got a lot of oomph. After I met her in person, I liked her even better.
She’s a very sweet person.
Not all of them can be excellent people.
Obviously, I had this plan in my mind before they started “Hotel Glam”
(Hotel Glam is a VIP Big Brother), where Pocholo became popular
(Pocholo Martínez Bordiu is a bon viveur and a member of the Franco
family, and divorced from one of the daughters of ex-prime minister Adolfo
Suárez).
I remember…
But if he had finally won (he was runner-up), I wouldn’t have chosen him to
make a wax model, because, as in all areas of life, among the cult of the
famous, there are also human categories.
Of all of them, the person who is most candid – in other words shows the
least malice – is Yola Berrocal, whose honesty and yearning for fame,
pointed towards building up her artistic career, has made her something
more than my muse of enthusiasm, my alter ego.
because I truly believe that there’s nothing more pathetic than a visual
artist or a singer or an actor who is not successful, because only doses of
success can neutralise the feeling of naivety of an artist bent on his career.
Media impact
After the opening in the Joan Miró Foundation, the news appeared all over
the gossip media, especially on television and specifically on Telecinco.
I want them to keep to the timetable.
“Crónicas marcianas” at midnight.
“Aquí hay tomate” at lunch time.
“A tu lado” at evening.
“Pecado original” at night time.
On “Pecado original” they awarded me the golden apple.
It’s not only that I appear in lots of programmes, it’s that there are lots of
programmes that show the same type of news.
And, why there are so many programmes of this kind?
My idea is that these programmes are around celebrities who have create
designed characters. They’re flat personalities, with no edges – clichés, in
fact. The success of programmes devoted to these celebrities is due to the
fact that they have combined two of the greatest hits in recent public
television: reality shows and soap operas. And so their lives seem like a
real soap, full of amazing events and extravaganzas.
Their attraction for the public, ultimately, is that they provide “topics of
conversation”. Everyone is watching the same reality show or soap opera,
and everyone is able to give their opinion on matters of ethics and
behaviour, which is what they really want, instead of having to talk about
members of the family. They can give their opinion freely, without offending
anyone and without having to bring the person they’re talking to up to date
on the latest events.
There are two classic subjects of conversation.
The weather: This provides conversation about plans, arrangements and
lifestyle.
And football: useful to discuss about passions, statistics, and money an
to make exercises in memory.
But surely the prime subject is the ethics of behaviour. And with someone
you met for first time, using gossip programmes as the subject always
helps.
Coto Matamoros, in his book “You too can be famous”, explains what
success is:
Success is achieved when news travels at the speed of lightning.
Information loaded with artificial substance that generates a circle of
production, distribution, dissemination, comment, analysis, and round and
round again. A fairground carousel that makes us dizzy and creates what
is known as public opinion: a plebiscite that is as distorted as the
caricatured reality that created it.
And it shows us the dual types of celebrity status:
Genetic transmission is the fastest way to fame. Famous children of the
famous. Passive celebrities who achieved fame without trying. Descendants of those gifted with a distinctive talent, or descendants of the
descendants of other descendants of descendants: all of them on the way
down.
They are all beautiful people, but they are not all the same. They are
differentiated by their wealth, the size of their houses, the length of their
yachts or the designer clothes they wear.
It is creating one fiction within another, eliminating any scandalous matter,
or at least lightening it. (…) In fact, mirages of the rich and famous.
Please, now attention, because this is the sentence:
It is certainly a paradox that the obscene display of inequalities is the
strategy for appeasing the poor.
Tamarism was certainly one of the milestones in the democracy of
passions, a phenomenon that achieved the highest rate of tolerance ever
recorded, amenable to a young public that was tired of more of the same
and encouraged it and carried it to its peak.
“Tamarism” (Tamara is a singer who leapt to fame when she aired a wild
affair with Paco Porras). Lovely, crazy ravers, Tamarists were all working
class, which made the objections by representatives of the
class-conscious gossip magazines all the more significant.
This duality between gossip celebrities it’s exposed at the article by Carlos
Núñez in El Periódico on Friday, 27 February 2004.
“Big brands veto the new TV celebrities.”
This article marks a reactionary movement, the contra-reforma of celebrity
worship.
Carlos Núñez, talking to large advertising agencies, refers to the fact that
the brands that try to transmit the most appropriate image for their clients,
in their promotions, avoid being linked with celebrities from what is known
as “junk TV”, despite their ability to fill the pages of the gossip magazines
with their affairs.
The unofficial but effective blacklist includes the squad from programmes
such as “Big Brother” and its VIP version, chat show guests, the celebrities
who fabricate their own dramas, the whole band of so-called artistes, ex’s
of all kinds, as well as relatives and friends on the make.
Heading this blacklist, according to Carlos Núñez, are the regular players
in the national theatre of the grotesque, with a place among them reserved
for Yola Berrocal.
There is also a list of money-spinners:
Everyone agrees that Isabel Preysler (she’s the ex-wife of Julio Iglesias) is
the most sought-after for social functions in luxury surroundings. An
appearance by her represents €2 million in media impact, says Micky
Ribera of DO Communications. Another profitable figure is Mar Flores (after
trying her hand at an artistic career and following several relationships –
Cayetano, Tapia – she ended up marrying a successful but discreet
businessman), since according to the Gabinete Sexto Sentido she has left
the scandals behind and is now very circumspect. They are followed by
models and sportsmen, all of whom are also involved in inbreeding
relationships: the Beckhams, Penélope Cruz, Esther Cañadas and Fonsi
Nieto.
In fact, a neo conservative movement on gossip bussines.
So, finding a sponsor for my wax figure of Yola Berrocal was not easy.
That’s why, having received a good response to my first contact from the
Ruiz-Mateos companies, I focused all my efforts at securing funds on
them.
(Ruiz-Mateos is a businessman linked to Opus Dei until, after the
Government confiscated the Rumasa company from him, he broke his links
with this ultra catholic organisation because he received no help from it.
Even today, twenty-two years later, he is still calling for a fair trial. The
finance minister who confiscated his business empire was Miguel Boyer,
the husband of Isabel Preysler) The project came to be called Propaganda
and Demagogy.
An agent contacted the new Ruiz-Mateos companies trying to negotiate
money in change of propaganda for his cause:
Because I believe everyone deserves a fair trial and I believe in parallel
trials.
The return of the Socialist Party has meant Ruiz-Mateos has dropped his
campaign claiming justice and, by extension, his claims to have his
confiscated assets returned; so all opportunities for my project
disappeared.
We can recover the original trite sentence:
After Duchamp, anything can be art; after Beuys, anyone can be an artist.
And, we analyze the the new gossip celebrities as a metaphor to art, which
I do.
Ought we to find out whether there are two types of artists?
In the same way as I have distinguished between Tamarism and the
traditional celebrities.
Do we realize about different types of channels?
Like the difference between the media that take care about any of them.
Is there also a neo-conservative movement in art?