LandEscape A r t R e v i e w Anniversary Edition C o n t e m p o r a r y Anna Macrae ART Anna Fine Foer Brooke Major ANNA MACRAE DANIEL AGRA BILL PSARRAS AMY NELDER NINA TICHAVA FANNI SOMOGYI ELENA BUFTEA PNINA AFIK DONNIE MILLER
SUMMARY Anna Macrae Israel C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t R e v i e w United Kingdom / USA Daniel Agra From a very early age I have been attracted to expositions and art books, photographs and art in general. Although my first real experience with photography took place when I was 20 years old, when I bought my very first Reflex camera with my first savings. I´ve always been an autodidact and I began to explore this universe making my way through different stages. Including one stage in 2005, when I decided to take a break, obliged by several circumstances in my life. In 2010 I felt I could contribute in a stronger way and it was then when everyone who surrounded me, knowing what I had done, convinced me to go ahead and publish my work. In my case photography means a unique language, a personal perspective within a theme diversity. Special Issue Bill Psarras Greece Spain Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Donnie Miller USA Each and every day, I find myself sharing my vision of the world through drawing and painting. My higher calling consists of using art as medium to convey a better understanding and appreciation of our surroundings and of life. I work in the experiential realm of design as it encapsulates a holistic approach to integrating concepts with a humanistic approach. My background and training in art, motion graphics and 3D design allow for a diverse tool set to create with bespoke design concepts and goals. My vision as an artist/designer is to influence people in a positive way and to improve the way we work and live through creativity. My paintings reflect my reactive feeling of the world around me. I am attracted to city landscapes bustling with people. In every piece, I aim to record a reportage of a scene as well as portray my personal feeling to how that area has impacted me. In a sense these landscapes become portraits of my psyche. I have been occupied for many years with the issue of man within limits and frameworks (social, political, family etc.) Questions I have been asking myself have leaded me to paint people within a frame work within the canvas/wood panel. After numerous years of painting this subject, I felt that the figures in my paintings should be freed from the inner frame, and so I started the series of "Little People". This series shows tiny figures walking on a floating surface, an imaginary landscape, maybe even surrealistic. In the process of work I try to find the adequate place for the figures in this unusual landscape, sometimes on the top, in some cases at the bottom of the canvas, in the middle, on the side, and every chosen location derives a different meaning for the scene. The colors I choose reflect an emotional state of mind; In some paintings I choose dramatic colors such as dark (almost black) aside red, and in others I choose soft, calm whitish colors. I consider myself a lifelong artist, and from an early age I surrounded myself with art making. My mother and grandmother were both artists, their skills were often put to use in a more practical and domestic environment, but their approach to life instilled in me creative possibilities in everyday objects and situations. I am a self-taught artist, and follow an intuitive path throughout my art practice, where disrespect for conventions are primary. My work is generated in response to the materials that I use together with the techniques and processes that I have developed. I am interested in texture and surface and playing with non-precious unconventional materials. My intention is to make work that is relatable, complex and slightly awkward. Pnina Afik USA Themes that often occur in my work are networking systems, modes of connection and acts of remembering. I investigate how humans and technology have developed a symbiotic relationship, which results in the constant presence of smart devices in one’s life, by drawing comparisons to similar relationships in nature. One of these systems that I reference continuously is the fungal-tree-root network. Processes such as metal and digital fabrication, and image projections are integral to my work. These include welding, aluminum casting and image manipulation. Trees have an intricate communication system and a symbiotic relationship with mycorrhizae (root fungi) that allows them to transport nutrients and information among themselves. On my sculptures the sprue systems are designed to be left intact and are inspired by these natural networks. They also often cradle the form or become the form itself. The process of making is crucial in itself since it also represents a system. Jorge Rojas Naima Karim Cécile Filipe Bill Psarras is a Greek artist and academic. He is an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Performing and Digital Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Peloponnese, in the intersections of digital arts, video art and performance art. He has been a former adjunct lecturer at the Department of Audio & Visual Arts of Ionian University where he also conducted his arts-based postdoctoral research exploring the intersections of performance art, site, technology and geohumanities. He holds a PhD in Arts and Technology from Goldsmiths University of London where his thesis focused on intermedia and interdisciplinary explorations of the emotional geographies of city through walking as art, senses and technologies; proposing the concept of hybrid flaneur. His art practice explores poetics across different media, merging the poetic and the technological. Fanni Somogyi
Special Issue Special thanks to Miya Ando, Juerg Luedi, Urte Beyer, Beth Krensky, Rudiger Fischer, Lisa Birke, Haylee Lenkey, Martin Gantman, Ariane Littman, Max Epstein, Nicolas Vionnet, Sapir Kesem Leary, Greg Condon, Jasper Van Loon, Alexandre Dang, Christian Gastaldi, Larry Cwik, Michael Nelson, Dana Taylor, Michael Sweeney, Colette Hosmer, Melissa Moffat, Marinda Scaramanga and Artemis Herber. SUMMARY Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Amy Nelder USA I’ve become keenly aware of a welcome invasion of experience and time affecting my work. It’s not about aging, or so specifically the passage of time, but with every experience my frame of reference becomes richer, and the experiences are moments, and the moments become conversations, and the conversations become hours, and the hours become growth, and as the years pass I become an accumulation of more and more experiences, and those experiences affect my work. Before harmony, there is chaos. There is no differentiation between my setup and my process - I feel very blessed that I am always making my art. So as a natural multi-tasker, not only am I painting as my lifestyle, I am nearly always thinking and planning other projects in my head no matter what else I am doing, it all overlaps - eating, driving, taking a bath, or already painting whatever is on one of my easels, I am often working on one thing in my head and painting another on my easel - so the conceptual setup of several projects is already happening either mentally, or narratively sketching or annotating into some random notebook I might never see again. 4 28 Bill Psarras lives and works in New York City, USA Daniel Agra lives and works in Galicia, Spain Anna Macrae lives and works in Seattle, WA, USA Nina Tichava lives and works in Santa Fe, NM, USA Amy Nelder lives and works in San Francisco, CA, USA Pnina Afik lives and works in Burgata, Center, Israel Elena Buftea lives and works in Bucarest, Romania Donnie Miller lives and works in the United States Fanni Somogyi lives and works in Baltimore, MD, USA 52 74 98 122 156 174 198 My paintings are about relationships; I’m interested in the interactions between materials and methods as well as the color and spatial relationships that naturally develop in process. Using painting and printmaking techniques, I interweave drawing and collage with a variety of media. Simultaneously painterly and constrained, my paintings are composed of complex layers, many of which are over-painted and concealed. A prominent element of my work is the application of thousands of beads of paint, painstakingly and individually painted with a brush and used to create screens and patterns. I describe my work as “abstract painting with botanical and architectural references,” as the pieces suggest natural forms (birds, leaves, branches), man made structures (buildings, windows, lights) and patterning both natural and designed (woven fabrics, strata of earth, pixels). My works are emotional and imperfect, and as objects they embody my response to things mass produced and idealized. The paintings are collections of moments from daily life: combined glimpses, thoughts, memories and objects. I am trying to describe not only what things look like, but also how they might feel. Nina Tichava USA Joe O’Brien USA Elena Buftea Graduated from Bucharest university, I have a rich artistic activity. I worked first ex-libris and illustration. I won many international contests organised in bacaulibrary, braila library, cluj library and in poland.1991- ex-libris contest PANAIT ISTRATI.2009- member to ARTREWIEV.COM. Participation to ARTE LAGUNA PRIZE.2010 member to DESIGN 21- participation toUNESCO poster competition. 2010A NEW SYMBOL FOR EUROPEHAGUE6 projects admis in contest,unesco poster competitionrespect our differences;2011A SYMBOLIC ACCESSORY FOR JAPAN EARTHQUAKE-project;we are with you; member in PROJEKT30; 2012PERSONAL EXHIBITION IN MOINESTI BACAU, I was selected in first30 in the new york art magasine PROJEKT 30 IN MAY AND JULY, I was finalist in ali ribelli contest 'revolt' in italy, I register to prize ARTE LAGUNA2013
Hello Bill and welcome to LandEscape. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production and we would like to invite our readers to visit https://www.billpsarras.com in order to get a wide idea about your multifaceted artistic production, and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a particularly solid formal training: after your studies of Bill Psarras (1985) is a Greek artist and academic. He is an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Performing and Digital Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Peloponnese, in the intersections of digital arts, video art and performance art. He has been a former adjunct lecturer at the Department of Audio & Visual Arts of Ionian University (2016-2019) where he also conducted his arts-based postdoctoral research exploring the intersections of performance art, site, technology and geohumanities (State Scholarship 2017-19). He has been awarded as an ARTWORKS Fellow of Stavros Niarchos Foundation (2020-21). He holds a PhD in Arts and Technology from Goldsmiths University of London (AHRC Scholarship 2013) where his thesis focused on intermedia and interdisciplinary explorations of the emotional geographies of city through walking as art, senses and technologies; proposing the concept of hybrid flaneur. He also has an MA in Digital Arts (University of the Arts London) and a BA/MA in Audiovisual Arts (Ionian University). His art practice explores poetics across different media, merging the poetic and the technological. This includes site-specific walking performances, media/ text installations, video art, digital art, music and poetry; exploring the geopoetics and politics of the urban experience through memory, emotion and place. They have been exhibited in international festivals, group exhibitions and cultural institutions across Europe, US and Asia. His interdisciplinary research has been published in international journals (LEA The MIT Press, Technoetic Arts, IJART), conferences proceedings, book chapters and symposia in the intersections of contemporary art, performance and urban-cultural studies. As a musician he has composed music for documentaries and self-released a series of e-albums across rock and ambient music. On 2017, he published his first poetry collection entitled Tundra (Pigi Publications). He is the Art Director of Primarolia platform An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected] Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Bill Psarras
Audio and Visual Arts at the Ionian University, you moved from Greece to the United Kingdom to nurture your education with an MA in Digital Arts from the University of the Arts, London and with a PhD in Arts and Computational Technology, that you received from Goldsmiths University of London. You are now a versatile artist and your practice involves site-specific walking performances, media/text installations, video art, digital art, music and poetry: how did these experiences address you to develop such unique multidisciplinary approach and your attitude to experiment? Bill Psarras: Thank you for having me in the current issue of LandEscape, it’s a pleasure to be part of this. Indeed, my academic training both in Greece and UK in such fields allowed me to gradually experiment with time-based media and in situ practices, such as video art, video installations, sound and performance art in urban contexts. I prefer to see my art as a pattern of various threads; a performative entanglement of the poetic and the technological. Of course, each thread has a different entry point in my life: music came first, then my art practice in video art, installation art and later in performance art when I started considering walking as a spatial writing in the city through an exploration of flaneur and psychogeography. On 2016, I published my first poetry collection ‘Tundra’ which also revealed my interest on geo/urban poetics. I often find my art oscillating between verbs and processes of walking, writing, thinking. City and mind as landscapes of potential; ephemeral and universal at the same time. To be honest, place, space, geography and geological processes are deeply rooted in my art practice. I was always fascinated by maps, spatial ambiances and in later years I went to study geology for a short period before going to arts. The following years, I found an interesting link between scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Territorial Poetics (2020)
performance, text and site in my work on which my attention has been drawn to. Sometimes, I prefer calling such combinations as a kind of engineering of imagination. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape has particularly impressed us for the way it brings the idea of transient to a new level of significance, capturing the sense of oneness Bill Psarras scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
that elusively marks out human experience as a whole: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how does your everyday life's experience direct you to develop your personal idea of flaneur and psychogeography? Bill Psarras: Looking back to some of my works, the idea of transience is at the core scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Territorial Poetics (2020)
of my thought. The transience as process which engulfs us: the ephemeral body, mind, place; the ambient feeling of the here and the now. I always find inspiration in the words of Baudelaire for the artist-flaneur as someone who must try ‘to distil the eternal from the transitory’. Indeed, while observation of the transient was one of my main motifs, the ideas of the flaneur and psychogeographical dérive had a great impact on my art practice and research. City is often a mirror for such dialogues: dynamic, complex, flowing, aesthetic, political. To walk really into a city can be both a praxis and a metaphor. Conducting a botanizing on material and immaterial levels; to echo the famous metaphor of Walter Benjamin on the flaneur as a ‘botanologist of the asphalt’. Flaneur was the core theme of my PhD research at Goldsmiths; something that resulted to what I suggested for our era as a hybrid flaneur: a kind of flanerie which blends performative, technological and social elements across physical and virtual layers of the city. Everyday life in the city hides an extraordinary amount of human and nonhuman entanglements; mundane processes with poetic potential. Of course in many of my artworks, walking often constitutes a way to enter into the urban; a performative praxis, a spatial statement, an in-situ thought. Walking can really be a situation where the fleshy and the intellectual meet. We would like to introduce our readers to Territorial Poetics, a stimulating multidisciplinary series that consists of three projects: Awareness, Unfolding and Vanity. You created the first one about three years ago, and we have really appreciated your successful attempt to give life to such semantic osmosis between language and physicality, to create such powerful allegorical work: how would you Bill Psarras scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
Territorial Poetics (2020)
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition consider the role of metaphors playing within your process and how important is for you to draw from your previous work (as you did drawing inspiration from your poetry collection Tundra) to kick off new projects? Bill Psarras: Yes, Territorial Poetics series is a recent example of how geopoetics can be found in my approach. They also highlight a new approach on how site and sea are part of my vocabulary. Having published Tundra back on 2017, which also had a few visual poems, I had this interest on the visual and spatial aspects of words. Can we think of geo-coordinates for words? How can a meaning be spatialized? This is something that I started exploring in recent artworks. I first conceived Awareness, a sculptural text installation made of neon light and stones which performs its meaning (“in the name of atonement, we re-inscribe everyday”): a perpetual trial and error which reveals a need for line, for trace, for the experienced. Then Unfolding (2019) and Vanity (2020) were also driven by personal rubrics / poems. Indeed, I agree with your comment. One of the main motifs of my work is an intuitive use of metaphors: words, objects, sites and processes as metaphorical ingredients and methodological devices. Territorial Poetics series is an example of how sometimes previous motifs, ideas and patterns continue to activate a series of practices and concepts. I often feel that one work is not enough to express my need for such concepts: it is more of a continuous art research that needs time to give more flowers. We really appreciate your unique exploration of the bond between poetic and the technological, as GPS in Objects in Odysseys. how do you consider the role of technology in your works? In particular, do you think that the chance of taking advantage of cutting edge Territorial Poetics (2019)
technologies could even shape creativity? Bill Psarras: Exactly, Objects in Odysseys formed another turning point on my art practice. This is what I mentioned earlier as an oscillation between performance, text and site in my recent works. Geographical attentiveness was always an inspiring departing platform for me, but the integration of GPS technology in my performance artworks opened new ways for me. An ubiquitous technology today, Bill Psarras scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
GPS can really open up new doors on spatial imagination. Back in London years, I used such geo-technologies while walking, made maps of such experiences. However, in recent years, such technologies of location have become clearer and sharper on my art thinking. Objects in Odysseys constituted a sea-performance for camera and a work created by both the artist and the sea. Having Odyssey and histories of messages in the bottle across seas and eras; a personal poem was fragmented and integrate into scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Territorial Poetics (2019)
small sculptural objects accompanied with text on fabric and GPS sensors. The objects were left to travel on the sea taking the form of drifting materialities towards unexpected trajectories. Therefore, poetry, geolocation, objects and fluidity came together in performative combinations. Those linguistic objects floated and were driven by changing currents and chance upon a sea surface which was ascribed with agency and potential. I often think that I created an ephemeral condition for the future made of objects, gesture, intentions and words. I expected the unexpected. Objects in Odysseys made apparent my interest to explore the great potential of performance art in the sea, which is something that I am still into; exploring how location, technology, poetry and sea-performance can really give extraordinary moments of magic. The second part of your Territorial Poetics series is entitled Unfolding, that can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/424706460 and that unveils the Ariadne's thread that links the spiritual dimension with the everyday mundane: would you tell us something about your choice of the locations? In particular, how important was for you to create it in such an evocative place like Greece, and how does your cultural substratum due to your Greek roots helped you to provide the idea of ephemerality that marks out Unfolding with such tangible, almost solid feature? Bill Psarras: Unfolding, was a site-specific walking performance for camera and drone. A performance of that meaning, where I walked, pushed and unfolded a big piece of old paper-roll upon the old abandoned railway network of city during morning twilight. Here the unfolding action reinscribed a Sisyphean dialogue between the everyday and the spiritual. An object which counts space and time, a silent ritual which Bill Psarras scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
Territorial Poetics (2019)
unfolded the potential. Such durational nonstop performance (4 hours) made apparent a poetic repetition. The choice of site was intuitive, yet a spatial metaphor for such a rubric (in the name of atonement, we reinscribe everyday). An old railway network can be both a site of abandonment, a site where movement is absent and yet it is a site and construction that forms a line of movement, a line of potential where something can be on track again. Sometimes hope can really take the form of such mundane materials. The choice of city was conscious: Aigio in North Peloponnese is the city where I come from and in 2019 I was invited to be part the exhibition Into My Garden Come; an exhibition organized as part of the Primarolia Festival, and which celebrated the famous Corinthian currant journeys from such ports (Aigio, Patras, Peloponnese) to European ones (London, Marseille, Amsterdam, Liverpool, Odessa, Hamburg, Turin) back in 19�� century. An exhibition which made apparent for the first time the connection between contemporary art and place identity in such region. Territorial Poetics: Awareness and Unfolding works were part of this exhibition highlighting processes of effort, communication, journey in personal and collective memories and labyrinths. Performance plays a crucial role in your works: how do you consider the balance between the necessity of scheduling the details of your performative gestures and the need of spontaneity? How importance does chance play in your creative process? Bill Psarras: Yes, many of my performances have a pre-production stage. I often feel that as a process of gesturing; a kind of expanded poetry on which I carefully stitch body, text, site qualities, objects together into an initial thin layer of idea. Then, I let scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Objects in Odysseys (2021)
myself free into this process of actual doing which reveals many instant turning points. Most of my works in public space have this initial visual attentiveness but are open to encounters. I let chance be part of my work on the Objects in Odysseys work when I decided to let my performative gesture be continued by the sea currents for months. The third part of your Territorial Poetics Bill Psarras scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
series is entitled Vanity, and it's available at https://vimeo.com/372891846. Through the performance of futile action in front of the sea vastness, your exploration of the concept of Sic Transit Gloria Mundi, Vanity develops such deep and elegant socio political criticism. Many contemporary artists, such as Thomas Hirschhorn and Michael Light, use to include sociopolitical criticism and sometimes even scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Objects in Odysseys (2021)
convey explicit messages in their artworks: how do you consider the role of artists in our unstable society? In particular, do you think that artists can raise awareness to an evergrowing audience on topical issues that affect our everchanging society? Bill Psarras: On 2020, Vanity came to be the third part of such series. Vanity constituted a site-specific performance for camera and drone, where I piled pebbles and stones by gradually painting them gold. It was also a durational action following another rubric – personal poem ‘all our weaknesses turned into arrogant poetries’. I performed an ephemeral action in front of a sea vastness; turning stones into gold; a silent praxis between poetic and political, between sincerity and arrogance and once more: between eternal and transient. We certainly live in unstable times; COVID era has made apparent a liminal state of society: new fears, new considerations of what mobility and boundaries are. We are still part of it. It is without doubt that artists can raise awareness to emerging issues of society; they can reveal meanings, viewpoints and gestures: not readymade answers but unlocking imagination which will lead to answers. Despite its variety, we dare say that there does appear to be a stimulating common thread: when using light and earth materials as stones in Awareness, or unfolding paper-roll upon the railroad tracks in Unfolding, as well as when painting stones gold in Vanity, you create new kind of languages that expand and transcends the nature of our relationship with our surroundings, inviting the viewers to elaborate such a wide number of interpretations: how would you consider the degree of openness of the messages scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Bill Psarras Land
Objects in Odysseys (2021)
that you convey in your creations and how open would you like your works to be understood? Bill Psarras: I am glad you like it. It is this kind of gesturing process I mentioned earlier. My experimentation with the performative, sensory and technological role of objects while walking was a significant shift in my art practice several years earlier. It is what I explored in my postdoctoral research as a walking with objects, into sites or across situations. A kind of forming objects, transforming sites and performing bodies. Such objects formed drivers: light bulbs, chalks, asphalt, paper. I was interested in this kind of new language by bringing objects and sites into a new framework of gesturing. I often see my performances as spatial poems rather than choreographic movements: in other words, it is always about the magic that lies between the personal and the collective and potential interpretations it will take across various minds. You are an established artist: over the years you have performed in several occasions, how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? By the way, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to online platforms — as Instagram and Vimeo — increases, how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience? Bill Psarras: Well, I am not sure whether my work is ‘established’ but thanks for your comment! To put it in a different way, I feel creatively consistent to a continuous thread of specific concepts and ideas that gradually scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Walking Island (2020)
take shape through the years. Exploring poetics across different media. I have exhibited my work across a number of international festivals of video art and experimental media, invited group exhibitions in festivals and art institutions; commissioned works in cultural institutions (see: www.billpsarras.com/exhibitions) Yet, my relationship with audience often remains a mystery as I rarely make scheduled scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Bill Psarras Land
performances live to the public. They are often embedded in the everyday, durational poems with ephemeral traces. My art can be often seen through digital media and internet but I don’t feel it has been moved to online settings. However, I have an Instagram account that present everyday site-poems. It is a work in progress, which will take shape in the near future! scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Walking Island (2020)
We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Bill. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Bill Psarras: Well thank you for this interesting conversation, I really hope readers will enjoy it. I just completed a new work entitled Islet (https://www.billpsarras.com/siteperformance-art/islet), a sea-performance for camera where I transmitted through light signals on International Morse Code the poetic rubric ‘what is hidden needs to be seen’. Following Territorial Poetics and Objects in Odysseys, this work opens up a new room of ideas for me as well as bringing light, sea and performance in the front. I am also writing a book chapter on the interesting link between sea fluidity and performance art exploring wider and watery considerations of ‘geopoetics’ in the 21�� century. For 2022, I have ideas for my first solo exhibition in a gallery. I have also an academic life, as a lecturer at the new Department of Performing and Digital Arts, University of Peloponnese (Greece), therefore many projects in the near future oscillate between artistic and academic channels! Thank you for your time and hope to meet some of you. Bill Psarras scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected]
Hello Johannes and welcome back to LandEscape we already got the chance to introduce our readers to your artworks in a previous edition and we are now particularly pleased to discover the development of your artistic production, and we would like to invite our readers to visit http://danielagra.com. In particular, the body of works that we have selected for this special edition has has captured our attention for the way you are developing a more and more distinct visual identity, marked out with evergrowing storytelling: how has your art changed over these recent years and what are the goals that you are pursuing with this new body of works? Daniel Agra: Thank you very much LandEscape for having me for this special edition, it is an honor. I always have as a From a very early age I have been attracted to expositions and art books, photographs and art in general. Although my first real experience with photography took place when I was 20 years old, when I bought my very first Reflex camera with my first savings. I´ve always been an autodidact and I began to explore this universe making my way through different stages. Including one stage in 2005, when I decided to take a break, obliged by several circumstances in my life. In 2010 I felt I could contribute in a stronger way and it was then when everyone who surrounded me, knowing what I had done, convinced me to go ahead and publish my work. In my case photography means a unique language, a personal perspective within a theme diversity. My preference is Nature, Urban, the conceptual model I followed in my initial steps. Mostly I try to tell stories, reflect ideas that come to my mind, looking for images to queries, beliefs, thoughts and develop concepts through photography. I don´t decline any technique but to me it is a main priority that my actual digital photography should be as similar as possible to my first analogue stage. Therefore my image process remains as standard as possible, always making language and the composition my priority. When certain manipulation is necessary I only use optic filters of my own development. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected] Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Daniel Agra
basis for the development of a project a narrative that evolves in the direction that I am evolving, whether through different techniques, compositions or the use of self-developed optical filters, always seeking personal growth through photography and with a more personal and artistic path, the process should always be a direct perception of any of the senses that generate and transmit me sensations. For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected Abyssurbs, a recent series that has particularly impressed us for the way it highlights correlations between polarizing architectural elements and the themes of individuality and human condition: while walking our readers through the genesis of Abyssurbs, would you tell us how did you develop your initial idea? Daniel Agra: It arose from a more common sensation that I perceived every day, a city like an anthill of living beings, and the larger that city is, the more evident it becomes, the contradiction of being surrounded by people and environments and yet feeling the smallest part of that society, a constant dehumanization in favor of other values such as economic, technological, etc ... Your Abyssurbs series, with its collection of images marked out with hardly perceptible human presence in such wide architectural spaces, communicates sense of disorientation, that has reminded us the concept of non-place, elaborated by French scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition
Daniel Agra scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition
anthropologist Marc Augé: how did you select the locations for your Abyssurbs series and and how important was for you their historical value? Daniel Agra: I do not necessarily look for that relationship of historical space, but I do use it for composition, although they are meeting spaces and relatively wellknown, in the dialogue I construct them as a reference of the uncommon, as well as for the disorientation and anonymity of the individual. All this under my gaze, which is subjective in the development of the series. From that point of view, Marc Augé's definition of a non-place coincides, but originating in well known places. We dare say that your recent bodies of works bring to life a new kind of visual language able to expand the nature of our relationship with our surroundings: how would you consider the degree of openess of the messages that you convey in your creations and how open would you like your works to be understood? Daniel Agra: Well, firstly to thank you for your consideration of Abyssurbs in bringing a new kind of visual language to life. Actually, my approach is a "personalized" language, in short, what I am currently looking for in my photography is a personal and unique language, which is also becoming an abstract language. My current photographic path is towards abstraction and I hope and wish that this interaction, between what I want to convey and the Daniel Agra scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition interpretation, is as free as possible. Precisely, several of the photographs published here already have the application of two self-developed optical filters that seek that abstraction. Abyssurbs seems to be laboriously structured to pursue such effective and at the same time thoughtful visual impact: what was your working schedule like? Did you carefully plan each shot? More specifically, what were your aesthetic decisions about the use of black and white? Daniel Agra: The shots are planned based on the location and composition I make. For me, the composition is essential and the absence of colour helps me to deepen and focus my attention when framing, there are no distractions, it is more emotional, intimate and perceptive, with expressions through contrasts, light and shadow, the saturated and the unsaturated, the presence of lines, textures, the arrangement of elements, etc ... in short, what I am trying to convey, a photograph of emotions, of artistic expression. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, for you it is a main priority that your actual digital photography should be as similar as possible to your first analogue stage: how does such different aspects of photography find a convergence in your approach? And how do you consider the role of technology and post editing techniques playing within your artistic practice?
Daniel Agra scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition
Daniel Agra: They are different in many ways, but the process for taking the shots is basically the same. My RAW digital files are simply processed with the equipment's standard software, without any kind of digital editing or manipulation program. From that point of view, it is where my process is the same as it was in analog when I developed the negatives and obtained a result. You are an established artist and over the years you have participated to lots of exhibitions over the world: how do your memories of such experiences fuel your creative process? Daniel Agra: They are essential. From all over the world you learn and from all the artists and works conclusions are drawn, their point of view, dialogue, how they carry it out, why they choose a particular technique, the personal trait that identifies them, there are so many things that although my creative process is personal and particular, imagination and intuition are nourished with everything, something fundamental for the development of both. Another stimulating series of yours that has particularly intrigued us and that we'll be more than happy to introduce to our readers is entitled Neowabi, a stimulating project that communicates such unique sense of geometry and elegance. When representing the emergence of order in a world of chaos, Neowabi also raises questions about the theme of perception, plauing with visual ambivalence. As a visual artist whose work is Daniel Agra scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
Detail from Neowabi
focussed on real images, how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination playing within your process? Are you particularly interested in arousing emotions that goes beyond the realm of visual perception? Daniel Agra: Discord and dispersion create a quality in an object and the space it occupies, a new incomplete an limitless shape formed through chaos and arbitrariness, granting it an elegance and uniqueness, an appearance of imperfect reliability which moves us through its volume, perceiving objects and shapes in the same way as we perceive the breeze, hear sounds or smell fragrances. A form of understanding through its fleetingness in a world of evanescence and its own existence, the constant search for visual imbalance, of the beauty and understanding of the world. Nothing is complete, nothing is perfect. The duality that marks out your works also condenses such a subtle but insightful sociopolitical analysis, and it can be also considered as an allegory of the conflictual connection between our individuality as human beings, and the ever changing and chaotic contemporary society. Many contemporary artists, such as Thomas Hirschhorn and Michael Light, use to include socio-political criticism and sometimes even convey explicit messages in their artworks: does your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment? In particular, do you think that artists can raise awareness to an evergrowing audience on topical issues that scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Daniel Agra Land
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