| Massimo
Grimaldi |
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| Massimo Grimaldi interviewed by
Massimiliano Gioni (...) What do you do exactly? Within my field I am involved in proposing behavioural and formal models that are different to the usual ones. I don’t want to produce anything new, because the old always manages to survive in the new. I try to realistically understand and predict the mechanisms according to which my work inevitably becomes obsolete. I think it’s the only right thing to do, however confused it may seem. Every generation makes fun of its predecessor and success in a given moment actually corresponds to a historic failure. Also, alongside my artistic work, but separately from it, I try to have a social conscience. How does your social conscience intersect with your artistic work? If my work were intersected by my social conscience then it would become demagogic. Their unification occurs within me, not within my work. A work of art is simply a work of art, with all its limitations. In Europe there are more artists than in Africa, where we speak of folkloristic rather than artistic manifestations. This is not because Europeans have a greater intelligence or sensibility; it is merely because they have extremely opulent socio-economic structures. And therefore art is evidently a crude economic consequence. I try not to forget this. What do you never want to forget? What I have believed in, so that I can manage, one day, not to believe it any more. What do you give and what do you take? I have tried to learn from my mistakes. Often what I do is the result of what I don’t think I should do. However, I think it is presumptuous to talk about what I could give. Altruism is a sophisticated form of egoism and often generosity is just expediency. Then who do you do it for? For me a work of art is merely an intermediary level that divides the artist from his public. I can’t see that it contains any particular capacity for communicating, even if we insist of wanting to believe the opposite. My answer can only be consequential and unsatisfactory. Does your work please yourself or others? I think that I work to understand myself in relation to others.
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  Massimo Grimaldi Born in Taranto, 1974. He lives and works in Milano. |
postmedia.net |
this abstract is from the catalogue of Premio Querini Stampalia-Furla |