151 SPECIAL ISSUE For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected Stine, potrošilo je more, an interesting series that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your artistic research is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: while walking our readers through the genesis of Stine, potrošilo je more, would you shed light to your main sources of inspiration? Last year during a trip abroad I was on a private birthday party. In the living room there were a group of people singing with a guitar. They sang croatian songs about sea, love and a way of living. In that moment that songs arose the memories of Darija Stipanic eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine
SPECIAL ISSUE 152 my childhood about the wind and seawaves. Once back home, I transferred it to the wood. www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6phm1oDHY4 www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRT5e_9w1UU www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bk_JJxyE1M Your works is marked with a stimulating multidisciplinary feature: you are a versatile artist and you work sculpture, painting and print: when do you recognize that one of the mediums has exhausted it expressive potential to self? And what are the qualities that you are searching for in the materials that you select for your artworks? Rarely I plan in advance, I try to live and enjoy the moment. After a long time spent working with wood, I sometimes need to rest phisycally and then I feel the need to paint. I never get saturated with my art work or remain without inspiration. Sometimes when I suddenly decide to participate to an art competition I change my working directions. Wood is a very warm material and it has its rules and laws. I don't limit myself in the choosing of the material when I work. Every single type of wood is different, it has a special features inside, different solidity. It is amazing when you start learning about its richness. What I have preferred since now, and it doesn't mean it is not going to change, is creating from a full wood and learning the story that sometimes is behind that piece of wood. The sculptures from the Cycle of four elements series, the series of Air element, entitled "If this wings could fly" were created from a tree, a californian cedar (cupressaceae libocedrus decurrens torr.), that fell down in the town park due to the strong wind. The series of the Earth element were mainly created from an oak tree, the same wood once used to build traditional houses. agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
153 SPECIAL ISSUE Your works give the observer a unique experience, and sometimes without the need for explanations and clarifications: what do you think about the role of the viewer? Are you particularly interested to achieve to trigger the viewers' perception as starting point to urge them to elaborate personal interpretations? While I create I don’t think about the “pleasing” effect of my works. I have no intention to influence the public, I leave to Darija Stipanic eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral
SPECIAL ISSUE 154 them the freedom to have their opinion about my creations. I admire several socially engaged artists, their courage and will to change the world like the genius of JR, a french photographer and artist. In my approach, I have a more modest attitude. I love creating beauty and within my possibilities I try to enrich somebody’s life. Despite to clear references to perceptual agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
155 SPECIAL ISSUE reality, your visual vocabulary, as reveals the interesting Cycle of four elements series, has a very ambivalent quality. How do you view the concepts of the real and the imagined playing out within your works? How would you define the relationship between abstraction and representation in your practice? In most of the artists' work, even in those who transfer the observed nature in a completely realistic mode, it is inevitable the subjective perception and a certain degree of abstraction. My starting point is nature and all the abundance that I notice around me. Every part of the Cycle of four elements series has its specificity. The Earth series are more realistic, there predominates surfaces and colours of the earth, its relief with simple and denuded forms. In the Water series the main role has the imagination. Here, I use shapes that recall sea creatures, and even though I have never seen them all it doesn't mean they do not exist. The motifs in the Fire and Air series are more abstract... We like the way your works celebrate the beauty of nature: we daresay that your art practice also challenges an inner cultural debate between heritage from the past and traditions that carry on to this day: despite the reminders to traditional figurative approach, your works is marked out with a stimulating contemporary sensitiveness. Do you think that there's still a contrast between Tradition and Contemporariness? Or there's an interstitial area where these apparently opposite elements could produce a proficient synergy? I think that the line between traditional and contemporary art is invisible or that it even does not exist anymore. We live in times of selquestioning and selfsearching, times in which we can synthesize whatever Darija Stipanic eries Contemporary Art Peripheral agazine
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SPECIAL ISSUE 158 we like in order to create our unique expression, mark or path... I use traditional materials, like wood, I work it masterly, hoping at the same time to create a contemporary product. Sometimes I am told that my usage of colour in my works means that I have a painter's approach but I do not see myself like that. I see and feel myself as a sculptor. Multidisciplinary artist Angela Bulloch onced remarked "that works of arts often continue to evolve after they have been realised, simply by the fact that they are conceived with an element of change, or an inherent potential for some kind of shift to occur". Do you think that the role of the artist has changed these days with the new global communications and the new sensibility created by new media? I think not. Today the speed of the information flow is high, as it is the possibility to connect with each other and the possibility for creating new forms of multimedial art. However, I believe that in the human nature there will always be the need to change the surrounding or make it more beautiful. In choosing, one is free what path to go. Personally, I prefer to have a book in my hands than a Kindle. On the other hand, I am aware of the advantages of new tecnologies, for example the advantage of avoiding the forest explotation. In this sense, I can mention my Black&white world series. There is not only one truth, or only one path, nothing is only black or white. While creating this series using pebbles I mainly thought about human relationships, our tendency to categorize and to be intolerant. Over the years you have exhibited your artworks solos, and you participated art exhibitions in Croatia and foreign countries, as Serbia, Slovenia, Italy, Slovakia, Mexico, China, Litva, Macedonia, Japan and Bulgaria. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? No, my need is creating and I enjoy in the act of doing it. It is always pleasing to have the aknowledgment of the public, but it is not crucial. Everysingle person has the freedom to like or not something and to have an opinion about it. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Darija. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? In the future I see myself still working with wood, I have several ideas and projects that will be realized in time. (I am planning a series of relief that I have already started with the series Earth, a series of stylized nudes, further elaboration of the Black& white world series with greater contrast in the elaboration of the surfaces…). In other words, I’d love to create further, day by day. agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator [email protected]
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SPECIAL ISSUE 62 Hello Beni and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and you studied Sculpture with Arie Amon and Jacob Epstein, two accomplished Israeli artists: you also nurtured your education with an apprenticeship under the guidance of Koss Elul. How did your studies influence your evolution as an artist? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum dued to your Israelian roots as well as your travel inform the way you relate yourself to art making? My educational background is agricultural. In my profession is beekeeper I am close to nature and live in a country atmosphere surrounded by nature. As a beekeeper I have been connected to everything pertaining to bloom and its growth, to the seasons of the year and the development of nature. As an artist living in an agricultural atmosphere surrounded by farm animals and nature, and is a beekeeper, nature is an important part of my life Beni Kalinski Lives and works in Moshav Bizaron, Israel Peripheral ARTeries meets Crossing the border between figurative and abstract sculpture, artist Beni Kalinski's work accomplishes the difficult task of challenging the relationship between the viewers' perceptual parameters and their cultural substratum to induce them to elaborate personal associations, offering them a multilayered aesthetic experience. One of the most impressive aspects of Kalinski's work is the way it accomplishes a successful attempt to create a channel of communication between the perceptual sphere and imagination, to go beyond the dichotomy between Tradition and Contemporariness. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to his multifaceted artistic production. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Katherine Williams, curator [email protected] agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
65 SPECIAL ISSUE Beni Kalinski eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral and affected in many ways. On the artistic side it is an integral part of who I am. My life roots are deeply planted in the Israeli experience as a member of an Israeli family of many years, what is known here as the salt of the earth. The secular country life of Israel which is so much a part of me and as such is seeped into my work. Of course my formal training has given me the technique, the basis and knowledge to my work, you might say as the canvas, paints and brushes are to the artist the shoes to the baby and wings to the bird. The best tools that I always had with me as a youth, were a penknife and pieces of wood that I collected and which I sculptured to create something new each time. This was always a need stronger than me and continued to accompany me all my life. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would suggest to our readers to visit https://www.saatchiart.com/kalinskib in order to get a synoptic view of your work. In the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, would you tell our readers something about the evolution of your style? In particular, are your works conceived instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose preparatory schemes? Sometimes I have an idea concerning the material that is in my possession at the time, if it be wood stone or any other material that is suited to the idea. But sometimes something completely different might emerge. Another important factor is consideration of the material - often it leads to where you want to go. No when I work in stone the shape of the stone give me a clue to what I can create from it. The important thing is to let the material express itself in its beauty. This is of the utmost importance, sometimes more than the shape and content. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries and that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article has at once captured our attention for the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: would you shed light to your main sources of inspiration? The source of my inspiration is
SPECIAL ISSUE 66 everything surrounding me animals, people, abstract and on abstract. This also depends on the material I'm working with, wood looks different as does stone. In my opinion clay is more suited to figurative works. Most of my work is intuitive not planned ahead. While working you can draw a line and then you can see the development beyond the line which is completely different from what you had planned to do. You work mainly with hard woods from trees of your native countries: what are the quality that you are searching for in the materials that you select for your artworks? In particular, what does appeal you of wood? The main types of words that I work with in Israel are Olive trees, carib, rosewood (a hardwood that is easy to work with and is interesting and beautiful colors). In the end, the form of the material gives the possibility of expression in the wood. You can’t go and work against the material you must go with the material. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, you do not label your works agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
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71 SPECIAL ISSUE with names in order to provide them with the freedom of enjoying and intepreting them: what do you think about the role of the viewer? Are you particularly interested if you try to achieve to trigger the viewers' perception as starting point to urge them to elaborate personal interpretations? I don't give names because names bind you to a certain sense that blocks you from thinking about the general work. It directs you to a point that doesn't always express everything that you intended. I am interested that the viewer will see my work and his imagination will be opened. When someone sees the work for the first time, I am interested in the first impression, if they like it or not, this is very important to me. If I see someone was viewing my work and they extend their hand to stroke it I know that I have reached the pinnacle of my influence on them. Despite to clear references to perceptual reality, your visual vocabulary has a very ambivalent quality and is both figurative and abstract. How do you view the concepts of the real and the imagined Beni Kalinski eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral
SPECIAL ISSUE 72 playing out within your works? How would you define the relationship between abstraction and representation in your practice? When I complete a work that seems to be figurative it is not really a copy of anything it is a stylish work according to the way I feel at that moment. Maybe a person is smiling and I will make him said according to the way I feel at that time, then the combination of figurative with abstract is what suits your feelings at that moment and of course depends on the material. It's also the way I feel, the material and the movement of the material that come together in the work. I don't take a block of material and created what I want I take a natural stone and it's form and the movement cause me to create what I feel. We daresay that your art practice also challenges an inner cultural debate between heritage from the past and traditions that carry on to this day: despite the reminders to traditional figurative approach, your works is marked out with a stimulating contemporary sensitiveness. Do you think that there's still a contrast between Tradition and Contemporariness? Or there's an agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries
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75 SPECIAL ISSUE interstitial area where these apparently opposite elements could produce a proficient synergy? Since I don't work according to tradition or modern but what I feel at that moment, I am not interested if there is a connection or not. Your works are riches with references to animals that seem to play as symbols: how would you describe your personal iconography? I don't work with symbols or with my head. When I work my brain is in my hands. If I create a dog it will look like a dog and when I combined the figurine of an animal with something else and the results seems to be a symbol it is Beni Kalinski eries agazine Contemporary Art Peripheral
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SPECIAL ISSUE 78 because this combination seems suitable to me and not because of a creation aim or program. The combinations I do are spontaneous. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Beni. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? It depends on the material that I will use in the future, they are what will tell me what will be born. the more I work with the material, the more I learn about it and that is how my work will develop. I work because I have to create, because that is how I feel, I must create. It is like breathing for me, if I don't work I guess I will need psychiatric care. agazine Special Edition Contemporary Art Peripheral eries An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Katherine Williams, curator [email protected]