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Contributor:
Indianapolis Museum of Art
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Channels: Alfredo JaarContemporary Art
Alfredo Jaar, artist, architect and filmmaker, visits the Indianapolis Museum of Art to discuss his project for 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, his impressive artistic career and answer some of the usual Nugget Factory questions.
My name is Alfredo Jaar, and there is no title yet. There are two projects that are on the works, but we don't know exactly what we're going to do.
I was in commission to do a project for the Art and Nature Park, and so I have worked on this project for, maybe, I think, almost a couple of years.
And so today was a special day because today I presented the result of this project and in the end,
it turned out that I have presented two projects. So the museum will think about this and decide which one they want to go.
No, my work has a certain gravitas and it's very serious and very, actually, perhaps even depressing,
so I don't think I have any funny story about it.
What's interesting about this is that the museum is really creating a new model of thinking about art because
it is expanding beyond its borders creating a museum without walls outside and so that's quite remarkable and it fits perfectly within my...
my philosophy because, as an artist, I not only work within museums and institutions but large
segment of my work, more than 50 percent, is dedicated to what I call public interventions in spaces and communities outside of the museum walls.
So, for me, that a museum of this caliber, of this scope, of this reputation, of this size would decide to create this park
and invite artists like me to do projects. I think it is quite remarkable, and I hope it's the start of a new trend in the world of culture.
I am an architect and I work as an architect and so I consider myself an architect making art and I go through a very long process,
in fact I'm the last artist to present my project of the ten artists commissioned for this park, I was the last one to present it today.
It's because it's a very long process, it's a very serious, investigative approach where I studied the history of the museum, the history of the location of this museum,
its relationship to communities around the museum, its program, its exhibition program, and everything I can learn
about the place in general, not only of the museum, but the city where it's placed and the community where it is placed.
And when I look at a space, I'm not speaking only or thinking only about the geographical space or physical space, it's also a cultural space,
it's also a political space and so the research has taken me in many, many directions
and I start thinking about possible ideas only when I have a certain amount of information that creates
a kind of critical mass and from within that critical mass, suddenly you start seeing, emerging certain issues, certain ideas
and so I explore these venues and after a while of development of these different ideas, I try to analyze them
and to discuss which are the most relevant to the mass of information that I have accumulated and that's when I decide,
which road I will take and I start developing a project. In this case, I thought there were two very relevant,
let's say flows of ideas and I didn't want to cut them, so I just went for two different projects, so I developed two projects
and I presented today and, of course, the museum was not expecting two projects, they were expecting a single one. But I've given them the choice,
and it's a very clear choice because the projects are very different.
I'm not a studio artist that would work on certain medium and develop ideas based on a medium.
I am a project artist, meaning that every project will end up requiring the use of certain materials.
So, if you look at the body of my work over the last twenty years, you will see that I've used everything. I've done film, video, sound,
installation, sculptures, objects, photography, drawing, you name it...
Because the final material is just there to articulate the ideas I'm trying to work with.
So I feel extremely free as an artist in my choice and selection of materials and it's never arbitrary.
This is not a starting point, but it's only the ending point where I finally determine that for this idea, this objective, this is a material
that I think fits the best.
They both fit perfectly because they are mine, it's me, and I haven't changed
radically in my way of working or in my way of thinking, so basically people will recognize me. Perhaps one of them is
a little more spiritual, a little more contemplative. It has a kind of healing quality
that not all my projects have, so perhaps if the museum decides on that project,
it might be a slight departure for my work.
I work as an artist because for me, the space of art and culture is the last free, remaining space where we can
think freely and where we can speculate and dream of a better world. So, what I do as an artist,
I create models of thinking about certain situations that interest me and I'm hoping that my audience
will have the experience of these works and leave with this notion of that there is a different way of thinking
about certain things and perhaps they can apply these models of thinking to other situations, that are similar.
And so, for me, the space of art is a space of freedom and it's a very privileged space where I try to affect change
and with a cultural project, with a cultural program, with a cultural objective and I think that
culture, as a whole, has this capacity of inserting itself in life, in society, in the world, and
may have that capacity to produce change. It's difficult, but just imagine for a second what would life be without culture, without cultural institutions?
So it's a fundamental essential element of our daily lives and I believe that as artists, we have a privilege to be working
within that area, but that privilege comes with a responsibility, the responsibility to ask questions to our society.
Why is it the way it is? How can we make art out of information that most people would rather ignore? How do we make art in a world
that is in such a state? So, we ask questions, we do not have answers, we speculate and we just think about these things,
and we communicate the result of our thinking to the audience and share it with.
I'm looking at the world, I'm looking at the mess...there is nothing else to look at. And I'm looking at films and magazines and books
that reflect this mess we are in. I think that I have no other choice because as an artist,
I'm active in this world and my work respond to events and tragedies and situation within that world, so I would say that, that's really, that's my arena,
that's where I work, and of course beside this, always in parallel, I am researching for upcoming projects in different places,
so those are more specific type of research. And typically when I start working in a place, I'm interested in poetry;
so I look for the poets of the place, because the poets I think are the most brilliant thinkers in culture today,
and they also have the most silent voices. So I'm always interested to see what poets are thinking and writing,
and how they are creating in those places, so they are a source of inspiration as part of my research.
I have more than specific films, I have authors, and those would be Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean-Luc Godard,
Theo Angelopoulos. These are thinkers, who make films that are not easy,
they're not for the largest public, the largest audience, but those films, the films of these authors
have been very important source of inspiration, for me, and I see them continuously.
I would be what I already have...art, which is I would be a filmmaker and I would be an architect, and in my work as an artist,
I have done more and more projects that deal with architecture and a couple of years ago, I released my first film,
so, in a way, I'm a filmmaker and an architect that is working anonymously in the art world.
I studied film. [Okay.]
I'm a filmmaker. [Perfect.]
That's my degree, and I hate to be on this side.
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