POINTS AND STRUCTURES.
\nA conversation with Raúl Artiles.
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What did you paint in Germany?
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In Braunschweig I went on painting waterslides. When I arrived at Braunschweig I seriously considered the reasons for painting snow in Germany, given the fact that for German people snow was nothing more than a part of a specific period of the year. On the contrary, painting snow in Canary Islands was something relatively interesting.
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How was your work on water slides perceived in Germany? Was it seen in the light of exoticism?
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That’s right, water slides were seenthrough the prism of exoticism. At that time, they were perceived simply as that. However, the show at the Ateneo worked pretty well.
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The reason for that could be a lack of context. Let’snow go back to the moment when, back from Germany, you decided to move from Tenerife to Gran Canaria. At the time your work focussed on drawing, that dry and faster technique. Since then, drawing has become the main medium in your work. Now,I’d like you to comment on your folded towels and their Picasso-like forms, and your pool rafts and images of disasters.
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I have to say that my mother works in the tourist sector, so my house is a kind of store of remains of tourists. I don’t mean human remains [laughter], but remains of experiences related to tourism,such as souvenirs. The use of pool rafts is a way to go on developing the concept of “sliding” but in a passive way. You use the pool raft to move but your movement then isn’t
\nintentional, I mean, you let yourself be carried out.
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From that moment, concepts start to reconfigure andyou can speak about floating. Also,in that work there are nods to art. For example,amongst all the pool rafts, one makes reference to Damien Hirst and his shark. It was
\nfun to make those works; they allowed me to make jokes about the history of contemporary art, while dealing with the topics I was interested in:
\ntourism and the identity of local people living in prefabricated cities with no identity. I considered theme parks cultural and political spaces.
\nRegarding the towels, they talked about the landscape, about the same kind of contradictions you can find in souvenirs. Their wrinkles created Picasso-likeimages — the same fun game was presentin them — but to me they represented a kind of enclosed space. At the time, I was obsessed with maps, with folded maps that prevented you from seeing some of the parts of the orography. The space of thetowel was private. Also, printed images on
\nthetowels represented a place. It was a kind of game of mirrors, a loop continuously referring to thelandscape, but in very different ways, in ways
\nthat didn’t make sense. For example, on one of the towels there was a painted tiger. It was a reference to Gran Canaria. The towel was on the beach, on the island, but the tiger didn’t really refer to Gran Canaria since there are no tigers here. However, there might be tourists who leave the island thinking that there are tigers in Gran Canaria’s
\nrainforests [laughter].
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At that time, my images didn’t have such a noticeable apocalyptic character. They talked about tourism as an external aggression, as a hostile attack in the form of exaggerated consumption. The tone of the images was warm. I processed the images in order to remove the coldness characteristic of images made for tourists in different destinations.
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You’ve talked several times about self-referential jokes or jokes in reference to art history. Also you’re constantly concerned about giving your works a warm touch. What’s the importance of jokes in your work? How is humour to be understood in your work?
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I can’t simply get rid of that referential aspect since I consider it necessary. It’s a means to talk about things that are around us. For me, referencesare points of support; points where I get lostand I find myself in the work. When I feel lost in the process, I usually cling to the points where I feel secure. These are unsubstantial points, but, at the same time, they give to the work a playful touch. I don’t like to utter categorical and accurate things. That way I undo the solemnity of the work of art. Recently I was talking to Paco Guillén about solemnity in the work of art. It’s true that the works currently on show at San Antonio Abad showroom are solemn, museum-format, large-format works. In my opinion, solemnity doesn’t mean efficiency. To make those jokes was necessary to me. I think humour is present everywhere.
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So you’re saying that these are not cheap jokes made just for fun, but rather
\n“jokes”are the space where your work fractures and gives rise to doubt. You use jokes as a mechanism to ask questions in order to oppose museum-
\n-styleworks.
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I might be insecure about creating solemn works, because I think the figure of the artist as a genius should disappear. The way I use humour is a means to destroy the solemnity traditionally created by artists who seem to be touched by God’s hand. Jokes might be a mechanism to disencumberworks of art making them more digestible at every level.
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So more than wisecracks — either internalised or not — the use of jokes is part of a discursive strategy in your work.
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I might not have assimilated it as a strategy, but it always appears in my work. It usually works and doesn’t hinder the work; it doesn’t make it less coherent.
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","version":2,"z":302,"name":""},{"_id":"5b5df2498cc62c25201f8a20","x":88,"y":211,"w":583,"h":109,"type":"text","text":"
Interview with the artist for the catalog Agujero negro.
\nCentro Atlántico de ArteModerno -CAAM-, Spain. 2015
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