| In
his work of art, autoritary dwarfs face the viewer in a world where humor
is only a concession of fright
By Cristina Castello
Antonio Seguí
(Born in Cordoba, Argentine, 1934) lives in Paris since 1963 and is one
of the most internationally known plastic artists in his country. In 1958
he traveled to Mexico –where he met David Alfaro Siqueiros- trying
to find a painting concept that would allow him to unveil the essence
of Latin America. He was disappointed. He saw in the muralists followers
an image “......repetitive, academic and almost commercial”.
In 1963 he exposed in the youngsters biennial in Paris and since then
prizes and honors followed. He represented Argentina in the Venezia Bienale,
won the first prize in the Lodz Museum (1967), Honor medal in the VIII
Biennial of engraving in Cracovia (1986) and the Great Prize of the Fondo
Nacional de las Artes (Buenos Aires, 1990).
Living in Paris he was threatened with dead by the Argentinean military
dictatorship that ruled Argentina between 1976-1983; in 1982 machine gun
fire hit his head, in his own house. That was the style of those military,
against those who do not resign their liberty rights, nor the idea of
democracy and commit the ‘sin’ of intelligence. Segui has
humor, irony and sharpness. In his work of art, autoritary dwarfs face
the viewer in a world where humor is only a concession of fright. For
him remembrances are vivencies, like the tango and like Carlos Gardel.
By
Cristina Castello
-Who is Carlos
Gardel?
- Is the cover page of the El Alma que canta magazine hanging on the wall
of the maid’s room in the house of my parents. Wide smile and hair
fixer in abundance, two drops of Franco Inglesa Cologne water. Some say
they saw him in the outskirts of Tacuarembo with bandages covering his
face, black hat and his distinctive smile. Others say they saw him 80
kilometers from Medellin, with his face disfigured, intact teeth with
a blond guitar player that looked like an angel. Gardel was the witness
of my first love encounters, of my first ‘mates’ (Argentinean
herbal tea) drank with an orange peel with the same sensation I had when
I smoke my first cigarette of marihuana.
-Your work is nutrified by the images of your infant time. I speak
about the wood toys of World War II times, of the gauchos painted in the
almanacs, of the San Martin in the ‘Billiken’ magazine...
- Yes, I believe that most of my work is a product of my infancy memories;
in Cordoba there is the root of my humorous and ludic sense. I inspired
myself in the Leoplan magazine for the Felicitas Naon series that I presented
in the Youngsters Bienale in Paris, that was the motor that rooted me
in this city. Years after I did the A usted , de hacer la historia (To
you, making history) series and the three dimensional objects that came
directly from the Billiken magazine.
-Like mirrors in an amusement park Do memories reveal and explain
your work?
- Yes, there are part of ‘my archives’ that help me to rebuild
my infant history. I think, as an example, that the wall I painted in
Boulogne-sur-Mer also has its origin in my childhood and that my memory
of a marine themed puzzle lead me to make that ceramic wall in Lisbon.
And then you have the little houses here and there of the Los Barrios
series were like the ones I used to paint as a child when I walked along
with Ernesto Farina in Cordoba. As soon as we install our easels adults
and children came from the little houses to ask us Are you painting?,
and Ernesto answered them No I am taking drops (***). Disillusioned they
marched away I still can see them!
-In your work, humor gives the impression of being a complicity
of intelligence
-You know I dislike definitions.
-You were telling me about the nutritious elements in your work...
-Let’s say that the feed of my work were comic strips, the political
cartoons of my infancy, the Alpargatas almanacs that my father used to
bring home... And so many things that come to my mind! That is because
in Argentina we never were faulty as makers of smiles, and that is something
we must recover, we must not abandon our virtues. How I can forget the
many times Molina Campos made me dream?
-Contrasensu I remember those lonely men, almost always standing
facing a wall in 1977 like in ‘La distancia de la mirada’
(The length of sight) Are they a prophecy of the XXI Century?
- No...but sometimes circumstances distance games and humor gets darkened.
Those are times when series like the one you mention appear and which
I made in 1976-77. Likewise Paisajes de la pampa (Pampa landscapes) which
I started after my father died. In those moments I could not have done
a different thing.
-Precisely, today the world is so desolated like your pampa landscapes
and paved roads in your work and big nosed little men, alone and upsetting
questioning the universe What is the root of your plastic vision?
- Humor and some ironic look about the society I belong to, in which in
a certain way I also feel excluded, are the umbilical cord in my things.
This is not new, it comes from my first steps in the Bellas Artes School
in Cordoba. In the late 50’s I worked the series, that have an indetermined
number of works and for each one I adapt the technique I use. Jumping
from one to the other or leaving space in my graphic work for drawing
or sculpture, is of benefit to me. In this way I avoid fatigue and keep
a freshness that I don’t know I could achieve in any other way.
-In some way you say you feel excluded and I think that this is
so because we see many ‘installations’ and ‘performances’
and ‘graphic art’ is spoken about and all this seems strange
to you.
-Since the beginnings of the 60’s installations are part of the
plastic world lexicon. There are things that keep by themselves and many
that have faded away. But we must recognize that there are new elements
of work available for the new generations, that evolve everyday, and awake
ones curiosity.
- Installations are painting? Or should we listen once more to
the ones that forecast the death of art?.
-I think that in the integration with architecture and the construction
of big shows, installations have a definite roll. But painting is other
thing. Painting has physical action and pleasure in doing it. It is the
complicity of hands and what is inside one’s head. It is the need
of leaving a mark upon something or squeezing a piece of wax, that can
be transformed in an sculpture. Because of that, even is they talk about
the dead of painting...No! While there are men with needs as mine, painting
will exist.
-What is the difference between the 60’s installations and
today’s?
-I would say that the expositions of that character where I participated
at that time have an objective: we wanted to irritate old men and amuse
ourselves at the same time. Humor is the common denominator of those shows
and laugh is always healthy, you know that. But as time elapsed, semantics
got altered and what irritated old men in our times, are today official
art flags, here and there.
-You do not have flags, you do not follow fashions nor ‘isms’,
although they spoke about you on those terms. Years ago , title lovers
said that you where americanist, informalist, surrealist, neofigurative,
pop, expressionist and so much more...’or less’ , since titles
set limits. Would it be that your loyalty to your own voices is your only
‘ism’?
-As you suggest, we make our things and others are worried to classify
us. Obviously all that impacts us influencing our work since nobody is
a product of spontaneous generation. I never believed in dogmatic classifications
and it looks to me horrible that the viewer identify me with some tics
and ways of doing something. No. I am not conscious of ‘belonging’
to something, nor was my intention.
-Freedom and talent always pay a price. As an example, when Emilio
Pettoruti got angry because, being you a young recent arrived to Paris,
your work was recognized. Something similar has happened in Mexico with
David Alfaro Siqueiros, although this relationship changed later in Europe...
-That happened, but those are memories that I keep as anecdotes and nothing
more. I never met Pettoruti, and with Siqueiros I could understand perfectly
why he hated what I was doing in Mexico at that time. Anyway he reconciliated
with me when he saw my expressionist drawings that I kept doing at the
side of abstract works with needlework and scratches. But, yes...I think
I paid prices.
-How is that?
-I would say that the most expensive price, in an absolutely material
sense, was at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
in 1970. I was invited to present a selection of my graphic work from
63’ to 70’. At that moment my old friend Ed Shaw was here
and helped me hanging my works. The vernissage day , we ate something
in a nearby restaurant and before changing to elegant clothes for the
exhibition we went to take a look...
-Elegant and simple...a matter of style What happened with that
last look?
-That at fifty meters from the entrance we got scared by a big explosion.
Thick yellow clouds were getting out from the museum doors. Many people
were running, others got out by the exit doors and we were there understanding
nothing. There were minutes of waiting and then , among people shaking
off the dust of their clothes, we learned that the ceiling of our saloon
has fallen. More than a hundred works with their anodized aluminum frames,
passe-partout of cream color silk and Plexiglas were broken among thousands
of pieces of plaster and cables. The museum did not have insurance for
temporary exhibitions and I did not have the precaution on getting it.
-Apart from that incident I understand you paid other prices in
the sense we talked before. Without making concessions you have a place
in the great painting worldwide. I can not forget the name of your work
‘Sugiriendo el desastre’ (Suggesting disaster)
- As you can imagine That was a very strange anecdote! In 98’ there
was an exhibition at the la Maison de l’Amérique Latine and
in the Galerie Marwan Hoss. I showed some pre-Columbian art that I have
and three paintings : Esperando el avión negro, Cuando el avión
negro sale, and Cuando pasó el avión negro (Waiting for
the black plane, When the black plane departs and When the black plane
passed by) The first couple were sold and the last –that did not
have the title in the back part- wasn’t , and I kept it in a corner.
Later in the FIAC 2001 I wanted to show the painting, but I needed to
name it differently and I called it ‘Suggesting disaster’
Is the painting in the invitation to the exposition. Look This is it.
But look at the date ... it says 10 to 15 October 2001, in the la Galerie
Claude Bernard. In this time came September 11 and even today some people
think that I painted it after on purpose.
-¿Would that be the anticipatory character of art?
-Well, I would not say that, only that it was strange.
-I think now in Rembrandt’s ‘Doctor Tulp anatomy lesson’
a kind of portrait of the Dutch medics establishment in the XVII century,
that inspired in you some satire work. In these days walking in Paris
and other European galleries I saw few genuine painting expressions, in
reality there was more fashion than painting, while for other good artists
is difficult to find a place to expose. Is there an establishment in art,
that open o close spaces?
-There were always good painters with difficulties for entering the art
market. Some times I did not understood it. But maybe the establishment
has now the main roll in some artists careers. In the other hand , we
know that Paris has today the same scheme that other great art cities,
like New York or London. Here, contemporary art is near the Bibliothèque
François Mitterrand; Marais is dedicated to artists of my generation
and some isolated ones are in the 16 District or Saint-Germain. Among
ones and others, horrific work everywhere.
-In Argentina How we can repeat that late 50’s and 60’s
fecundity, with the art support given by people like Jorge Romero Brest,
Aldo Pellegrini or Hugo Parpagnolli and with so many good artists like
then?
-The culture that develops immediately when society lives periods of plenitude
was never a priority in Argentina. There appear organisms a foundations
that replace the state roll. In my times the Fundación Di Tella
had a big paper, not only in the plastic arts , but also in music and
theatre. As you may recall it was interrupted immediately after the coup
against doctor Arturo Illia, and those that at that time claimed for military
intervention became very repented after.
-I was thinking about Cordoba and a generation of artists that
seems hard to repeat. For example yours, which also is the one of Eduardo
Bendersky, Marcelo Bonevardi, Ernesto Farina, José “Bepi”
De Monte, Pedro Pont’Verges, Diego Cuquejo....No doubt that there
are valuable artists in later generations ad also among the young. Notwithstanding
it seems that after you history has stop.
-It is true that generation had exposed in Cordoba and Buenos Aires. In
55’ when I came back from Europe their artists where the most active
group. But it is not less true that for ten years the Argentinean culture
lived in secret. When democracy arrived , a big quantity of young artists,
painters, sculptors and objectists have filled that emptiness. Cordoba
has today the first gallery which architecture was designed for that purpose.
Museums are without economic means –as always- but things get done,
they are active. Art Schools are invaded by students, a thing that did
not happen in my times.
-You made your first expositions in Cordoba and Buenos Aires in
1957 and 1961, after you were recognized in Europe. That is the way that
Argentina treats its artists and scientists. It gives nothing to them
when they are surging and later , when they are known, they take all the
merit. Is it an expulsive country?
-Well, I coincide that everybody applauds the sportsman that makes it
out of the country while doubts are kept about the artist and the scientist.
But Argentina is like it is. But when there is a light of hope we all
become happy. Like now, even not knowing to much why. We are a bit like
that and we must assume ourselves as we are.
-Since 1962 you live in Paris, but you keep Argentinean costumes
like the mate (a herbal infusion drinking) and the asado (barbecue) and
Cordoba is not memory but a vivency.
-I am going to tell you , as if I were a psychoanalyzed man that I have
solved the problem of god and the problem of the mother. But the Cordoba
one is still pending.
-Is you hometown like the words of the Maria Elena Walsh song
‘because I die if I stay / but if I go I die’?
-Look. I departed too young and many times I thought in coming back and
leave my bones al Villa Allende (Cordoba), but I kept delaying it. Maybe
because of being here and there, well ... my rhythm is like that, my studio
in Paris is what is called a ‘quincho’ ; the rib steak I get
here is sometimes better that the one there; some time ago it was difficult
to find mate herb and I used to go to pharmacies to buy it, but now is
everywhere; and the wine that has improved a lot in Argentina... I better
don’t talk about it!
-You created the Contemporary Art Center in Chateau Carreras in
Cordoba. What moves you to open your hands in these times of closed fists
and individualism?
-You know that being here and judeo christian tradition in between, I
always felt faulty. A way of expiation was to invent that Art Center,
although my intention was other instead of what that place have been transformed.
I think that was the only time that I lost with resignation and anger
at the same time, because I think my idea was good.
-You are a giver, you also donated 331 works to the Museo de Arte
Moderno de Buenos Aires, in 2001
-Yes, because it was suggested by the director, who is an old friend and
lets say that I am the opposite to an stingy.
-Would it be that in some aspect you did not grow and kept the
child that used to see the sun hidden at the same time that the Cordoba
landscape was covered by locusts, as you mentioned once?
-If I grew, I don’t know...but the child’s memory is intact,
I can assure you that. I still can feel the smell of wax in the floors
of the corridors leading to the Children section at Gath & Cháves.
That eucalyptus smell in the elevators in the Bristol Hotel, where we
used to go with my grandma...and where one should eat slowly and always
leave something for the waiter did not pick up an empty platter And the
Sundays! Ah... the Sundays were medialunas (an Argentinean pastry) with
thick chocolate in La Oriental and passing by the Europea pastry shop
to pick up meringues with chantilly cream...
-Of course in the Nueve de Julio street in Cordoba... It was a
ritual.
- Yes! And later we used to go to the Belgrano soccer field, where sometimes
we lose and other we win. After Peron came, somebody who for some reason
I never understood, and my trips came and all the adventure involved.
I discovered that my life has passed without problems and that for others,
the many others, the thing was more difficult; and that I could not do
in Cordoba in full all the things I wanted. The I came here without really
coming and I stay here without really staying.
-Antonio, Where is and what is that which is called homeland?
Is it the Cordoba of your birth, with the kaleidoscopical images that
reveal and explain it? Is it maybe your masters : José Gutiérrez
Solana or the Germans Otto Dix y George Grosz...?
-Homeland, homeland...What is? Where is? Is it where one was born, where
there are well established roots, where infancy was easy? Is it the place
where I could do things and live my passion, painting?
-Could Paris be the homeland of your last forty years and your
consecration as an artist?
-Look...I never had problems of uprooting, I would say that being here
I miss Cordoba and in Cordoba I miss Paris. Is like being seated in two
seats, although that passing from one chair to the other requires a thirteen
hours flight in Air France.
-In 1983 you told me that some day you would live in Ibiza, Cartagena,
New York, Puerto Rico, Jamaica or Colonia (Uruguay). Now it seems that
day is coming What place would it be?
-When you asked me that, I probably did not have a well thought reply.
I would exclude today all the places I told you. In order to close the
circle I would be inclined to Cordoba. But don’t rush me, I am going
to make my mind when I grow up.
© Cristina Castello ?2004
Published in «Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos» (Madrid)
Translation: Pedro Flecha
pedroflecha@yahoo.com
info@cristinacastello.com
www.cristinacastello.com
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