Category Archive: interview

Interview with Kultivator, an experimental cooperation of organic farming and visual art practice

KULTIVATOR was founded in 2005 by 3 artists and 2 organic farmers in the village Dyestad, on the Swedish island of Öland. This cooperation of farming and visual art practice involves an organic farm with where pigs are raised, cows are milked, potatoes are harvested and linseed oil is pressed. But Kutltivator is also a space for artist residencies, exhibitions, performances, installations and screenings. And in between are activities that draw in both the artist and the farming community. The result looks both experimental and remarkably productive

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Interview with Jani Leinonen

The Finnish artist is the only person i’ve heard about who was actually arrested for pretending to guillotine a cheap Ronald Mc Donald statue. With the help of a friend, i got in touch with Jani Leinonen and bombarded him with questions about the beggars signs he’s been exhibiting at the Venice Biennale, his crazy sexed-up versions of cereal boxes for children, his successful attempts at selling contemporary art works by the bulk as if they were vegetables and of course i was curious about the aftermath of the Ronald affair

Health & Safety Violations – interview with Ben Woodeson

A wire brush spins around randomly, threatening your open-toe sandals. A motion activated vacuum pump sucks out the air from a sealed gallery space: the longer the viewers remain inside, the less air for them to breathe. A cobble stone is rotating on a rope. The sole purpose of that kettle is to spread red acrylic paint on your shoes. An electric fence used to control livestock on farms criss-crosses the path that leads to an art gallery or the bar. Elsewhere a randomly activated tripwire awaits visitors…

Err (or the creativity of the factory worker), a conversation with Jeremy Hutchison

Earlier this year, Jeremy Hutchison sent emails to manufacturers around the world, asking them to produce a fairly simple and common item. He added a special requirement though: the product had to be imperfect, come with an intentional error. Moreover, the worker was in charge of deciding what error, malfunction or fault he would add to the good. No matter how much i had read and seen about the project, i still wanted to interview the artist

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Interview with Niklas Roy

Niklas is one of the most facetious characters of the ‘new media art’ world. His dance machine without ‘annoying Dj”, moving curtain, ‘distributed’ fountains, white cube gallery in a box, physical teapot inside a Commodore cabinet or his electromechanical version of the game Pong are certainly entertaining, absurd and at times, even hilarious. But don’t let the jesting fool you. Behind the playfulness of Roy’s machines, lay much irony and lucidity about the world of art & tech he belongs to

Interview with Richard Pell, Director of the Center for PostNatural History

If you want to see a penguin, you go to the zoo. If you’re curious about dinosaurs, any natural history museum will enlighten you. But what if you want to learn about spider silk-producing goats, anti-malarial mosquitoes, fluorescent zebrafish or the terminator gene? Right now, we can only rely on good old internet. But in June, the Center for PostNatural History will finally open its doors to anyone interested in genetically engineered life forms. This public outreach organization is dedicated to collecting, documenting and exhibiting life forms that have been intentionally altered by people through processes such as selective breeding or genetic engineering

Interview with Rui Guerra about online strategies for cultural spaces

A couple of weeks ago, Rui Guerra answered one of my facebook rants (which usually target museum press people who refuse to give me access to press images because i’m a blogger therefore ‘images are not safe” with me!) with a comment so smart and informative that i wanted to know more about his opinion about online strategies for cultural spaces

Galleries we love – heliumcowboy artspace in Hamburg

I doubt there are many galleries like heliumcowboy. First there’s that name. Charming and puzzling. Not even an interview with the gallery director has helped me uncover its origin. Then of course there’s the artists the space represents. Since its opening in 2003, heliumcowboy has been showcasing artists ‘who are capable of pushing boundaries, are a little underground and whose aesthetic is the forecast of art’

Interview with Fernando Llanos

No one dons the moustache like Fernando Llanos. He’s a video artist, a musician, a writer, a blogger, a curator, he makes drawings, he’s the über macho-looking Mexican guy who walks around the city with a chihuahua in his bag. He also produces tv shows, a competition of animation movies, and the moto of his own radio programme is “There’s no need to talk about art in order to talk about art”. When he’s not performing Llanos is always impeccably dressed. He’s probably the one and only media artist whose sense of style i admire

Interview with Jay Yan

Los Angeles-based Jiacong “jay” Yan completed his degree at the cradle of young talents that is UCLA Design|Media Arts Department. Fresh from UCLA, Jay started exhibiting his interactive installations and videos in galleries in the U.S., Asia and Europe as well. This is my attempt to extract a few words from a very laconic and clever artist

A quick interview with Vernissage TV

The online channel covers in a very professional and surprisingly fast and elegant way the opening receptions (vernissages) of exhibitions and events and i’m grateful to them for that. I profess an intense dislike for vernissages where people seemed to be more passionate about tepid wine and showing off their mere presence at an art event than about the artworks on show…. but that doesn’t mean i’m not curious about vernissages

Interview with Ulla Taipale from Capsula

Last Summer, curatorial research group Capsula embarked on the first of its Curated Expeditions, a series of research trips that engage with earthly phenomena through artistic investigation.

3 artists were invited to the scientific Zoo in Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia, in order to collaborate with scientists and other experts and study the impact of a total solar eclipse on animals and human beings

Interactivos? workshop: Interview with Simone Jones and Alvaro Cassinelli

I’ve been covering a few editions of the Interactivos? workshops so far and have usually focused on a couple of my favourite projects. Today however, i thought i’d ask two of the workshop leaders/teachers to give us a broader overview of the workshops, how they evolve, why certain directions are being taken, what the mood is like over these two intense weeks of work, etc.