New York-based Italian artist Davide Balliano had a conversation with me about his artistic trajectory, his work, rock climbing, his influences, his love of intervention and his first show in Paris at the Galerie Michel Rein. 

Davide Balliano
UNTITLED_Woman V
Ink on book page
21x26,8 Cm
2013

Courtesy: Michel Rein Gallery, Paris

Lynsey Peisinger: Tell me a bit about your life and your path as an artist.

Davide Balliano: I was born and grew up in Torino, in the northwest of Italy. I was there until I was 18 and then I started in high school studying advertising and graphic design. It was a very peculiar school, a very specific school, which had a lot of elements that are still useful for me now. Especially the graphic design elements, the study of the image, the history of the image, art history. All of that is still informing my work today.

After that, I moved to Milan where I studied photography at Bauer, which is a fabulous school of photography. It is probably the last public school of photography that is left in Italy. What I liked of the school was the approach that they had, that I think they still have now, where rather than teaching “photography as a job”, they tried to raise us as artists working in the medium of photography. They train you as an artist who used the tool of photography. Then what you do with that tool is your choice.

Two years after school, I went to Fabrica, which is a large artist residence in Treviso, in the north east of Italy, a half hour from Venice. It is a beautiful place. A huge building built by Tadao Ando and there are usually approximately 40 artists in residence. It was very commercial-based. There is not much interest in pure artistic research. It’s more applied art. It was a very good experience–they pay you be there, they give you studio, they pay for all of your materials, they give you an apartment. You don’t have to worry about anything.  But, even if it was great, it sort of crushed my relationship with photography. Fabrica had a very strong way of shaping the people that were there, so they were not making it a mystery that they couldn’t care less about the kind of photography that I was doing! I was very young, I was 21.

After Fabrica, I stayed one more year in Milano, then I got badly bored of staying in Italy. So I moved to NY in 2006. And it is in the early time in NY that I started to do other stuff. I felt that this move to NY was sort of giving me a clean cut from everything that I did until then. I sort of put photography a bit on the side and I started to draw and to intervene, but still on photographic images. I assume that because of my background in photography, I always have a difficult time starting anything from a blank background, you know from a white slate. For me, it has always been terrifying!

Davide Balliano
UNTITLED_Barbaro
Watercolor and acrylic on book page
18x25 Cm
2012

Courtesy: Galerie Rolando Anselmi, Berlin

LP: How did you start to move into the mediums you are working with now?

DB: So I started to print out images, mainly from the internet at that time. I still collect a lot images just for my inspiration. And I started to draw freehand on them, mainly abstract geometrical mess! Abstract scribbles, nothing with a precise meaning. Pretty soon, it sort of got clear that the issues that I had with photography were still there–even if I am intervening on top, I still had to take care very much of the meaning of the background image.

There are some images that you can just use for their mood, but there are other images that have a precise meaning that carries responsibilities. I think that this is something that you can use but you need to be conscious about it.

I always hate any kind of work in any kind of medium that just takes strong images and slams them there without standing by it. I always find that it’s a very cheap shortcut.  It is something that I always hate.

So, then I started to draw on art history images because I felt that they left me more freedom somehow because there is already a big gap. You are more free to relate with the feeling of the image rather than with historical facts. The facts are there and I agree that I should deal with that, but there is a distance so there is a larger filter. So if I make a drawing on top of a portrait of a king, I should probably do research about who it is etc, but I don’t. And most people wouldn’t say “why did you make a drawing on this king and not on another one?”.

If you do the same kind of thing in photography, it is difficult because photography is such a young medium that almost any photographic image is in a historical context.  So from there, the intervention grew more and more precise and became more and more essential. So if you take a drawing of four or five years ago, which was abstract and geometrical, but still messy and not so calculated, they sort of condensed somehow and at some point, it felt a need to take this intervention that I was doing on paper and put it on other mediums.

I burned that town just to see your eyes shine
Wood and glass
137x48x48 Cm
2012

Courtesy: Galerie Rolando Anselmi, Berlin
Photo: Nikki Brendson

LP: Tell me a bit about the medium of performance.

DB: Performance, which I do although rarely, is a different thing although I feel that it is strongly connected to….photography. It is interesting, I feel that performance is strongly connected to photography because I still feel it as the production of an image. An image that is locked by a location and by a time. I am very fascinated by the potential of making a legend with performance, not necessarily mine. Sometimes you see performances that are unrepeatable–the original work is born in one place at a specific time and if you were there, there is nothing that can repeat that moment. And it gives you something that is so unique, it sort of makes you part of the history of the work, much more than in other mediums.

Most of the time in other mediums, the work is done by an artist and then is shown. And the artwork has a life and it will be the same life for the next many many years. But a performance is in a place and in a moment and if you were there, you had the privilege of being part of it and then nothing will take that away. I find it fascinating. And I relate to it as the creation of an image, practically speaking.

LP: It sounds like performance gives you an opportunity to experience being an artist in a different way.

DB: Exactly. And also seeing what it means for other artists. It has been great because I am completely incapable of doing it in any other medium. I am sort of a control freak for anything else that I do. I know that in performance, I very much enjoy opening up to collaboration and seeing what it brings.

LP: At which point in your life did you realize that you wanted to be making art? Was it from childhood? Did you go to that graphic design school because you knew that already about yourself?

DB: Well, I will say that it depends. I always, since when I was a kid, felt an extreme need for creative expression. So I always had no doubt that I would be doing something creative in life. But, the decision to make exclusively art research sort of developed over the years. It felt like everything else just dropped and it stayed there. For all of my school time, I had the idea that it was impossible to only do that.

I always thought “I need to do something else on the side”. For example, I thought I could do graphic design while doing other work. Also with photography, but photography was even closer to making pure artwork. But it was an idealistic idea that I could be an artist but also make commercial stuff. I needed to take a decision between the two things. And I think that especially when you are young, people want one or the other.

Another thing that I understood–I sound like an old grandfather saying “when I was young…etc”! — When I was in high school I was doing a lot of rock climbing and at a certain point I had a trainer and was training five days a week. I loved it, but I liked to go out and go to concerts too. I had my social life which was very important to me. Everyone else there was like a monk about it. Just training, training, training. They ate only certain food, they were constantly on a diet. Complete dedication. I understood that I couldn’t at all put in that type of dedication and I couldn’t compete with people that were that dedicated to it. And later, I felt the same way with photography.

If you are trying to do something good, you should consider that most likely there is somebody else that is trying to do it and he is going to be very good at it and he is going to put all his energy into it, he is going to make tons of sacrifices and he is going to go through hell to achieve it. So if you are not up for that, you are in for a competition that will never bring you anywhere. So photography for me was sort of like that. 

I was in Milano therefore everything was about fashion photography. I mean, fashion photography was fun! I would go to a set, with models and people and music. It’s all fun. But if you are trying to do it, you are in competition with 500 kids obsessed with their freaking portfolios who are putting their money into making fashion photography. I’m like “hell no”! I have to be paid to make fashion photography, not the other way around. People would tell me that I had to put together a fashion photography portfolio and then when people look at you because of that, you bring in your art research. But for me, I knew I would not have the energy to do that because I was already putting all my energy into my research. And I sort of became clear that it wouldn’t work. I had to push on thing or the other.

So I decided only to concentrate on art. I assisted for many years. I wanted to learn from an artist. I wanted to learn about art-making and also the practical side of it.

Davide Balliano
UNTITLED_Grid27
Acrylic on linen
120x180 Cm
2012

LP: When you came to NY, you assisted Marina Abramovic for four years. How did that experience influence your work and how did it prepare you for your own path as an artist? 

DB: For me, Marina was like my own private university. She taught me everything that I know about surviving as an artist.

Independently of the love that I have of her work–I approached her because I always had an extreme fascination with her work– the privilege that I had when working with her was that I was in contact with the private side of her. And what I gained from the private relationship is to see how she is completely dedicated to her work. Marina is all work. And there is an insane amount of energy and dedication that she puts into it. Her work is her life, there is no separation, there is no in between.

The personal investment that she makes in her work, I assume gives her this concentration that comes out so clearly in the work. And, other than that, she is such a big artists that if you work with her for four years, afterwards you can truly do anything. I came out of that experience being practically scared of nothing.

Marina works at such a level of intensity that there is really nothing that you can’t do after that. It is like boot camp. You are so used to working under pressure –good pressure, but pressure–daily. Everyday was the same amount of concentration and speed and pressure. The responsibilities are always big. There is never a day that you go and pick up flowers! Every day is something big, something important, something that you can’t mess up. When you do that every day for four years, you come out and truly its like those American movies about Marines. You can really do anything!

LP: You seem to have an approach to your work that is extremely organized and structured. It seems to me that are an artist who approaches your work like one might approach any business in terms of how you structure and use your time and also how you interact with and deal with people. I wonder if working with Marina influenced that or if you were always someone who could self-motivate and give order to your life. 

DB: Definitely working with Marina, and my other assistant jobs, gave me that structure. Marina is naturally 80 percent of it, but everything contributed. Assisting fashion photographers meant being efficient and fast. There are a lot of responsibilities and you have to work under pressure, so you get used to needing to maintain focus. Keeping your concentration on the work itself under all the pressure seems to me to be the secret that all of these big guys shared.

There are tons of different kinds of artists and I know fabulous artists that work in complete chaos and it’s fine for them. Their art can come out of that. They can do nothing for weeks and then disappear and work day and night for a month and then come out like drained zombies, but the resulting work is marvelous.

But that’s not for me. The less I do, the more in pain I feel.

Davide Balliano
PICATRIX, installation view

Courtesy: Michel Rein Gallery, Paris

LP: Tell me about that show in Paris.

DB: The show in Paris started with an invitation from Eugenio Viola, a wonderful curator that I worked with last January. He invited me to have this little show and he set the theme of the show. He asked me to work with the concepts of alchemy and symbolism and sort of esoteric feelings, which is something that is present in my work even if I don’t always relate to those things in my life.

There are four works on paper, two paintings on board and one sculpture. We see a combination of different mediums and the dialogue that they have with each other, which is very important for me. I never make a show that deals with only one medium because it feels like a small part of what I do. I feel like I can’t say what I want to say with one medium, I have to put them together.

In the past Alchemy was called “the great work” and I love it. I like the utopic idea that through my work, and the elements given to me, I can control these elements and have a higher understanding of who I am and a higher consciousness.

Eugenio asked me to consider these things and to put together a little show that gives my view on these topics, so I did.

LP: What is the last thing that stimulated you?

DB: The film The Turin Horse by Bela Tarr. It is really stuck in my mind and I keep on thinking about it. It was very very strong for me. And not because I am from Turin! Its strict and minimal and powerful and its a complete tragedy. There is no space for hope, no space for light, like a classic tragedy. Everything is rotting and closing in on you. Sometimes I feel that tragedy might be more inspiring than happy thoughts. Happy thoughts are private while tragedy can be shared and if you recognize the suffering in someone else, it can make you feel less alone in your own troubles. That is probably why all of the work that I strongly admire has a heavy portion of tragedy and weight.

PICATRIX at Galerie Michel Rein, curated by Eugenio Viola
http://michelrein.com/
http://www.davideballiano.com/

We nominate Margiela at Schiaparelli and order him not to make any collections to preserve the surrealist spirit of the house.”

Curator Olivier Saillard hosted another one of his legend-in-the-making performances during couture week, this time in the intimate setting of the APC headquarters.

For 30 minutes, Saillard and his collaborator Violetta Sanchez pushed the classic man’s grey blazer to the limit (and beyond) by showing 25 ways it could be worn, while reciting a surreal list of nominations that read like a “who’s who” and a “what’s-wrong” with today’s fashion scene.

Can’t wait to see what Saillard comes up with next.

With François one never knows who pulls the strings. It is him who invokes the sentiment for a story to become alive. Yet he hands himself over unconditionally to his collaborators, like an “instrument to be played”, as he likes to call it.

Film director Christopher Honoré once expressed that François Sagat “redefines the notion of masculinity”.  François, the humble boy from Cognac has moulded himself to unattainable iconic status. Gilded with his blue inked crane, he is to conquer his righteous spot in the pantheon of pop culture…

"François Sagat with Apple" Exhibition SPECTRE, Hyères 2010. Photography by René Habermacher

René Habermacher : you recently played alongside Chiara Mastroianni in HOMME AU BAIN by Christophe Honoré, and as well the lead in Bruce LaBruce L.A. ZOMBIE – how were your experiences?

François Sagat: L.A ZOMBIE was an experience which had very little to do with HOMME AU BAIN… The shoot for LA ZOMBIE was like a real porno shoot, scene by scene, it was mostly fucking, except that of course the porno version was censored for festivals…Beyond the sex scenes, LA ZOMBIE was a chaotic shoot, without a script, hasardous… but I’m still to this day satisfied with this participation and collaboration with Bruce LaBruce, from whom I still have much to learn, and who possesses a huge cinema and litterary culture… Despite what his critics say, I think Bruce has a real style.

During the shoot I really tested my capacity to resist “obstacles”, it was at times very difficult, I didn’t know where I was going, no direction, it was like being thrown in the lion’s den.
There was no script, the storytelling was weak and the whole plan was turned on its head by last minute changes and many cancelations, but that can be said about a lot of “cinema” projects.

L'HOMME AU BAIN by Christophe Honoré, starring Chiara Mastroianni and François Sagat.

Regarding  HOMME AU BAIN, the shooting was a lot more structured, but energetic nevertheless. It’s on this project that I realized that my abilities as an actor were limited, weak even, and felt like I was a big challenge for Christophe Honoré because of my “heavy” image, of the luggage I was carrying.
There were moments when I thought I terrified him, being everything except malleable. The project was constantly evolving due to the fact that we had planned it as a short, and that a lot of questions arose towards the end of shooting. It was finally released as a full feature film, and I have the feeling it wasn’t the right place for the film.

It was an intimate project which to me, with hindsight, would have had a strong impact as a short. But I am neither director nor the creator of my own character.  Rather than control the situation, I felt the blowback. But surely the imperfection of the final result  makes it a real film, that can be remarked and criticized. I chose to shoot it and live the collaboration for the moment rather than think of the finished product.

François Sagat for QVEST magazine. Photography by René Habermacher.

What is the difference to you between acting in a porn movie or a feature film?

The difference ? Of course there are differences.

When you’re a porno actor, you’re in constant control of your carnal envelope and your physical aspect, whether you learn it or you have it from the start.

I didn’t know it as first but I am someone who has that ability. Porn is often an activity for people who are shy orally.

As a performer, you never really have to carry the more or less artistic responsabilities of a porn film, because there is no artistic issue to start with. You just have to be a good soldier fitting what the consumer desires to watch and what the production has decided, and that’s it.

I think also that I am someone who’s very sexual and exhibitiionist, but that’s not really giving you a scoop. Porn is like military service, it’s “my way or the highway”, and in my case, I’ve been and continue to be a good soldier.

The main difference is that you need a capacity to adapt and to lose who you really are, physically as well as morally. I created for myself a character in porn as in life, it’s difficult to let it go.

Video still from PILORI installation by Lynsey Peisinger & The Stimuleye. Villa Noailles, Hyères 2012.

Do you find your excursion into conventional acting is being made difficult by the public perception of you as a porn actor?

It’s a fact: I think I have the syndrome of the porn star/whore as others do, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. To get into porn, even with what I built around it, was one boundary too many to cross, and I think that morality have not evolved at all and that they won’t evolve. There are so many things I could have done if I hadn’t been this “porn actor” which I am described as, and which I present myself as when asked what I “do”.  The separation between mainstream and underground is still the same, and more solid than ever.

I think I’m doomed to be on the sidelines, but I think I knew it, even when I was 25 when I did this.
There’s no harm in it.

To direct myself is my only option to go beyond this situation, but it doesn’t interest me that much either. Life is not a race to permanent justification, and in case of failure I don’t complain, I’d rather move on to something else.  I’ve been very lucky in my experiences with the handicaps I created by giving in to this “giving of yourself”.

François Sagat in Yamamoto. Photography by René Habermacher.

For a while we have witnessed your short films on the web, where it seems you explore other territories like performance etc. what were your thoughts behind these?

It’s just masturbation, wanking on my own image, nothing more nothing less.

I think I had reached a stage where I was really pissed off at my American porn production company who was locking me into a persona which was only 50% of myself in order to sell at all costs..

An ass and a dick, ok, but also a character too simplified, too masculine and too stereotyped in a virility which satisfied only the viewers, but which didn’t satisfy me at all. To have the image of an ultra-virile guy, and only that, didn’t fit me, and it wasn’t what I was looking for 2 years after starting this pornographic activity.

It’s because it’s not who I am, I don’t find myself very masculine.

Many of the actors have the same reflexes I have – sooner or later, the desire to stand out or to claim who you really are comes out, and you can deal with it to different degrees, which leads to a certain level of depression in the end. I’m really like a lot of my colleagues, I’m not the only one.

“The animated figures stand adorning every public street
And seem to breathe in stone, or 
move their marble feet.”
Pindar, Olympian Ode, 476–75 BC

Returning to porn, you have produced “Incubus” with Titan, also in the function of the director. It seems you sort of combine and integrate influences from your “homemade” shorts with the genre.What is it all about? and how is this “shift” being perceived ?

It’s has part of me in it, yes and no… I wrote all the scenes one by one, and I really supervised the art direction, the inspirations, except I didn’t fully measure all the limitations of a shoot that’s porn and only porn.

You can’t do everything, especially  if you have to respect the deal you made with the production company and the demands of the project.

Because in the end this particular project is only interesting if it sold and consumed.

You are very affiliated to fashion, from collaborations with Bernhard Willhelm to Giambattista Valli, and starring in many shoots from Terry Richardson to Pierre et Gilles.  What is your relationship with fashion?

Those moments are very rare… I have a friendly relationship with Valli, beyond his activity or mine. I run into Pierre et Gilles and we chat happily. I’ve worked with some real people, to whom I had things to say, like you René, beyond what they do.

Even after doing a fashion school at the end of the 90’s, I still feel outside all of that.

I think the idea of “fashion” is completely “has been”, it’s a new era, and it’s definitely not a fashion era. But of course human beings remain interesting, even in the universe of fashion. So i’m split.

In some way you “hand” yourself over to photographers and other creatives. How do you see yourself in this collaborations?

My god… I try not to ask myself that many questions anymore ! I see myself as an inspiring subject ? That’s what people are looking for when they call me.

I am there, a body that is moved from point A to point B, it’s in the can, immortalized. There are so many things I regret, that were really useless and which leave traces. With internet, mistakes are harder to get rid of. (laughs)

I think of myself as an instrument, not really ideal for all projects, but able nonetheless. But less and less as time goes by, I feel. I want to make less projects of this kind, but of better quality. I find no interest in it, especially for pictures, it has to remain occasional.

KiSS AND DON'T TELL. Photography by René Habermacher.

You once told me reading your mom’s magazines when you were a kid- who were the people that influenced you back then?

Yeah my sister and my mother, bringing me Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair US and Vogue US. So I got into it, and unfortunately I was 11/12 years old when Freedom and then Too Funky came out – I was a goner.

It was fascinating for someone from the province to discover that. I was a very visual boy. I discovered very soon who Nick Knight was, with Jil Sander back then, and that led to many other things, like picture of Sigourney Weaver by Helmut Newton, or Cicciolina by Lagerfeld.

What are your very personal fetishes?

I don’t think I really have any. Sexual or not. It doesn’t really belong to the way I behave, unless they’re unconscious. I’m a thinker, but not about the essential things.

What are you up to next?

I regularly go abroad to pay my bills and compromise myself  by doing very commercial things with my body…. I’m joking. I’m not forced to do anything.

I’m goint to Mexico to do a workshop with a famous singer (hint: previously interviewed on The Stimuleye) and a growing French stylist, the idea is strong, still in preparation, and not fashion.

It’s mostly about meeting different people. There are other projects I can’t talk about that have to do with art and video, and payed…

ΣΑΓΑΤ: SAGAT. Photography by René Habermacher.

If you’d were able to arrange an intimate soiree with guests of your preference, dead or alive, who would you invite to converse with each other?

I would love to see my grandmother on my mom’s side, who died when I was 4 years old. According to my mom she was very intelligent, subtle and funny. I would have loved to forge a deeper relationship and learn who she was.

No celebrities, I don’t care. At all. No one else comes to mind, but my friends are enough to make for some very interesting reunions.

What was the last thing (you heard, saw or experienced) that stimulated you?

Nothing stimulates me anymore, except playing with my pussy Nathalie…

I had a head-on shock when I saw Lars Von Trier’s  MELANCHOLIA … SLAP IN THE FACE: a terrifying subject, on my fears, my realities and aspirations in life, and those of the human being in general when confronted to a fatality to which he has no real perception and zero control.

François Sagats latest music project with the late Helmut Newton muse Sylvia Gobbel is now available on iTunes. For more information and a conversation between the collaborators and our partner Filep Motwary visit un nouveau ideal

Until the end of May you can see at the villa the PILORI installation featuring footage of the performance (with the cooperation of Yohji Yamamoto Inc.) and video contributions by Antoine Asseraf & René Habermacher, starring François Sagat, by Jason Last & Jaime Rubiano, Clément Roncier, Sebastien Meunier + Romain Dja Douadji + Tomek Jarolim, and the winner of our internet contest, Simone Fehlinger, who met up with Filep Motwary.

PILORI (“PILLORY”) is a unique collaboration between choreographer Lynsey Peisinger and The Stimuleye for the Hyères Festival. Drawing on a pool of both local and Paris-based performers, Lynsey Peisinger conceived 2-hour performances inside a specially built space in the Villa Noailles’ Sautoir space: a wall with 4 pairs of legs poking out, moving, at rest, ignoring or harassing each other…

For its exhibition phase, the performance footage is augmented and interrupted by the footage of BEYOND THE WALL, different video artists’ renderings of what lies beyond the wall which cuts the performers in half.

 CLONES starring François Sagat, by Antoine Asseraf & René Habermacher.

Sebastien Meunier, Romain Dja Douadji & Tomek Jarolim for BEYOND THE WALL.

Clément Roncier for BEYOND THE WALL/PILORI.

Jason Last & Jaime Rubiano for BEYOND THE WALL/PILORI.

Simone Fehlinger for BEYOND THE WALL / PILORI.

Filep Motwary: What is your video about?
Simone Fehlinger: my videos visualize the stories of walls. Parts of these walls are broken : colors, wallpapers peel off and uncover it’s past… The videos invite to a personal imagination of what this wall’s history is about… Now, these walls have moved to Hyères 2012 and will be part of a new story…

Filep Motwary: Why have you chosen white as your “backwards” canvas?
Surfaces are extremely exciting ! But the interesting part is not the perfectly clean, virgin, new, white layer.
It’s the layer underneath…

What is your opinion about Hyeres.
It’s legendary ! I’m really happy and honoured to be a part of…

What would be your next projects about?
My new big project is my own graphic and video design studio in Paris.

Simone Fehlinger, winner of BEYOND THE WALL contest.

PILORI at Villa Noailles
Until May 26, 2012
Hyères, FRANCE.

Special thanks to Coralie Gaultier & the Yohji Yamamoto Inc team,
Simone Fehlinger for her contribution,
and all the performers who gave their time to participate in this project.

Submit your 30 seconds maximum video before April 1st for a chance to have it featured in the installation, which launches April 27th at the 2012 Hyères Fashion + Photo Festival,  next exhibits by  Yohji Yamamoto, Jasons Evans, and Inez van Laamswerde + Vinoodh Matadin.

Imagine what lies beyond the wall of the PILLORY installation.

All submitted videos must be
no more than 30 seconds long,
from one angle/point of view,
and submitted before April 1st, 2012.

Fore more info and video guidelines: contest@thestimuleye.com

Guy Maddin’s new project at Centre Pompidou, featuring Ariane Labed and other stars such as Mathieu Amalric, Amira Casar, Udo Kier and Charlotte Rampling, has all the right ingredients, and best of all, is open for all to see.

Collage by Galen Johnson for SPIRITISMES.

Cult Canadian film-maker Guy Maddin invites anyone in Paris or with an internet connection to follow him and his actors live as they meditate and then shoot lost, unreleased or unfinished films by the likes of Hitchcock and Eric von Stroheim…

More info on the Pompidou Center website.

Follow the shoot live with 3 cameras on the Nouveau Festival / Spiritismes website.

A marathon performance at MoMa, another retrospective in Moscow, on the cover of POP magazine, hosting a star studded event at Jeffrey Deitch’s MOCA in LA and an exhibition at The Serpentine Gallery slated for 2012, the HBO documentary “The Artist is Present” just screened at Sundance. An ever growing list of projects that is taking her across continents…

Exclusive long form of interview first published in POP magazine FW2012

Marina Abramović with her "Mini Me". Photography by René Habermacher for POP magazine

Marina Abramović is everywhere lately. She has emerged from what was considered an alternative section of contemporary art, Performance Art, to finally occupy an untouchable position in the Pantheon of Pop.
A marathon performance at the MoMa, another retrospective in Moscow scheduled, and an exhibition at The Serpentine Gallery slated for 2012, day and night filming of an HBO documentary and an ever growing list of projects. Marina is known for her works in which she tests and pushes her emotional,mental and physical strength, but her schedule takes its toll: Marina is exhausted.
Broad recognition has come comparably late for Abramović, who was often categorized as some sort of Exotic Serbian Vixen. Nevertheless, she has shaped a significant slice of art history like no other.
Today, less considered for her public sexual identity, and more appreciated for her timelessness and her bravery, one could unarguably call Marina “the diva of contemporary art”, were she not so grounded.

Freja Beha Erichsen with her "Mini Me". A collaboration by Marina Abramović for POP magazine
Photography by René Habermacher

Our conversation takes place just after Marina’s return to New York from Manchester, England where she spent six weeks collaborating with Robert Wilson on a new biography, “The Life and Death of Marina Abramović”. The play was staged with accompanied music written and conducted by Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons) and narrated by a ferocious Willem Dafoe.
The audience witnessed him meticulously rummaging through the details of her life chronologically. Marina has been clear about her lack of appreciation for theatre as a concept and this play marks a sharp departure from her concept of herself as a performance artist.

She participates in what she used to essentially despise: “To be a performance artist, you have to hate theatre. Theatre is fake: there is a black box, you pay for a ticket, and you sit in the dark and see somebody playing somebody else’s life. The knife is not real, the blood is not real, and the emotions are not real. Performance is just the opposite: the knife is real, the blood is real, and the emotions are real. It’s a very different concept. It’s about true reality.”

Death mask of Marina Abramović. Photography by René Habermacher

René Habermacher: With this piece you staged something that you call artificial theatre. It lacks the realness that is central to your work. How was this experience for you?

Marina Abramović: I am his material. I completely gave all the control to Bob (Robert Wilson). That is the only way to really be material for someone else, which is very interesting, because its just absolutely the opposite of what I do. This is first time that i have this really radical approach with Bob – he absolutely refused anything to do with performance. This was an amazing experience for me and very difficult, because his approach to rehearsal is like mine to performance, – but yet it’s just rehearsal! Just be there for hours and hours in order for him to fix the light. I lose my reason, I need the public, I need another kind of dialogue. This was a huge discipline not to kill him!

RH: How did this project with Bob come together?

MA: Oh, I know Bob Wilson since the 70s. He came to ex-Yugoslavia in 1971, when I was a student, and performed. What I like about him is his relationship to architecture, to theatre, to light, to time, to slow motion. All of these elements are very close to my work. We didn’t find any difficulties to connect.

RH: What was the initial spark to collaborate for this?

MA: You know, its because I wanted to include death – to do life AND death.  And there was something about this idea of life and death in the connection with Bob Wilson’s kind of work. I think he is the only one who can actually edit it in the way that he did.

"Mini Me" in the grip of Daisy the boa. Photography by René Habermacher

RH: It is very interesting to have this forward look to your own death and play with his idea. Is there any relation with your orthodox upbringing, the kind of philosophy where the walk of life is transcending into the eternal?

MA: Yes, you are completely right, absolutely! Yes. Because, you know, thats the point. It was definitely the idea – my grandmother used to have her clothes ready for the funeral since 40 years. She lived to the age of 103, and every time the fashion would change, she would change the clothes [for her funeral].

So the presence of death in my daily life was always there, which I think is a very important eastern approach. You never know when the day will come. It is so different from the western culture. When I am here in America, the whole idea of death is removed, you never actually see that. And also there is somehow this idea of “forever young” which is completely unrealistic. The only way to really appreciate life, is to accept death as the final stage. This is the reason, getting 65 this year, I have to include death in my biography.

RH: I find your language as an artist to be very honest in its aim and blunt in its depiction. There were always traces of your upbringing and background. But, lately it seems you refer more often to your heritage as a Balkan child.

MA: That’s totally true. In the beginning of my life, when I started working in Yugoslavia, there were so many obstacles and all I wanted was to leave and get as far as I can go. The older I grow and the more I get distance with now almost 40 years of not living there, the less I want to do that. I have now sort of a big picture where I come from and what its all about. It’s an interesting thing going backwards, looking to the past and revisiting my memory and start understanding connections, which I couldn’t do when I was young. In fact, at the moment I am working with the government to of Montenegro to start a performing arts center which shows the connection of where I am from, and what I have done since.

Freja Beha Erichsen with "Mini Me" of Marina. Photography by René Habermacher

RH: Though your work is very conceptual, there is also a very strong spiritual aspect…

MA: You know I’ve become Buddhist almost 30 years ago. To me spirituality is really the core of my existence. I am not religious, I don’t like religion per se, because religion for me is institutionalized and mostly corrupted. It’s so much more interesting to learn, to actually think about spirituality and what it means. And every good work of art has a spiritual element to it. It is not always the main one, but it is always there, underlining it, and to me its absolutely important to my work.

RH: The art world is very male-dominated, as a woman was that a challenge for you? Is it still?

MA: No. I never felt the differences between men and women; i am not a feminist because of the same reason. I feel that women, by feeling vulnerable and not equal, create this kind of energy and they are perceived that way. For me art doesn’t have any gender… in America, everybody is obsessed with percentage: ‘how many percentage male, female, gay..’  I don’t give a shit about this. It’s good or bad art and who is making it is really not important. I never felt restricted because I always took my position, so I don’t have this kind of feeling. Actually everything that I ever wanted to do takes years, but I did it. i don’t have reason to complain.

RH: So you don’t think it is important to have a sexual identity in your work ?

MA: I don’t care. You know, I am not busy with this. If this comes because its natural and because I am a woman, ok. But I really don’t see this as anything important. It is so funny thinking about this… many other people deal with this much more than I am.

RH: You left your very specific background and moved from Belgrade to Amsterdam in 1974, this must have felt like a very liberating moment…

MA: Yeah, it was a huge jump for me to go to Amsterdam. It was free and everyone was completely liberated, all which I strived for. One interesting thing back in Yugoslavia at that time, socialist time, was that there were clear restrictions on what you can do and you can’t do. You could go for years to prison for something. So you know you take this risk. There I had a lot of reasons to be an artist, I was rebelling against the system. Coming to Amsterdam, i lost reason because nobody cared if I am naked on the street or whatever. So I had to create an entire set of my own restrictions in order to be able to deal with that. It was quite interesting to rearrange my own life.

RH: If you compare today to the 70s that were all about liberation, we live now in a world after the triumph of capitalism where every other ideology has kind of capitulated…

MA: Yeah, that’s absolutely something else. It’s all together different.  […]

And now especially in America, I think that the democracy is so perverse – here, it looks like things are free but actually they’re not. It’s a freedom that is in many ways fake. So it’s a completely other set of restrictions.

RH: Broad recognition of your work has come comparably late. It seems you became part of the pop culture, almost mainstream…

MA: [laughs] Yeah, that’s quite interesting. It took me so long to create this situation where performance became mainstream. That was my aim from the beginning, and it really finally starts happening.

It’s quite interesting how people take the stuff and recycle it. […] God, its just very very different. I’m wondering if I lost control, because I set up these rules for people to re-perform my pieces. But now it became like open, everybody just re-performs without asking permission nor pay royalties. So it’s a completely crazy situation.

AN ARTIST SHOULD NOT MAKE HIMSELF INTO AN IDOL. Marina Abramović and Freja Beha Erichsen.
Photography by Ren'e Habermacher

RH: What is the challenge of the re-performance for you?

MA: You know its really a different story, as performance, first of all its like a child, you have to let it go. There are so many people of my generation who would never give permission to somebody to perform their work because they feel ‘its mine and nobody else’s’. I think that this is a very egoistic point of view because you don’t let your child grow! It think performance is a time based live form of art. If you make a performance once when you are 30 and then you never perform it again, it will just be a dusty image in a book or a bad video and you never have the chance that this work lives. You have to get away from your ego and say ok, even if this is changed, even if this is not the exact same as my work because it is the charisma of the other performer, even if the performer brings his new ideas and things are different, it is still better than it never being re-performed at all. That is my point of view.

RH: Performance is considered an alternative art form because you don’t produce an object that has a price tag on it. So in the “business” of art, your work doesn’t really have a position. Unlike some of your peers, you never made objects or installations for the market.

MA: No, no. It’s really special my position. If you look at my generation of artists and the enormous amount of money they are making and how little I generate – take Damien Hirst, who is like half age of me, not half but much younger, you are talking millions. My maximum price for photographs is much less and the galleries take 50%. So my image and my price are  completely disproportionate. It’s always been like this and now I stop worrying about it. I am not attached to money – for me money is something to get somewhere and make new work.

But I really want to find funding for my foundation. I have to see how I can sell my work in a different way, or create some kind of market that can be able to give this kind of donation to my foundation.

RH: What are the specific directions and the goals of this institute?

MA: There are two things that I will be working to establish for the next 10 years.

One is in Hudson, where i want to do the Marina Abramović Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art.

It’s really for long-durational performance work. I want to make a unique place just for that, that doesn’t yet exist. Its about the idea that only long-durational work can transform the performer and the viewer in a way that no other form of art can do. After 40 years of performance, I have come to this conclusion.

And the other is this huge fridge factory in Cetinje, Montenegro where 8000 people used to produce fridges for eastern europe. It will be like a production tank, where I want the work to be produced.

The government of Montenegro has supported me by asking me o create the concept for it to become a production place for pieces of opera, dance, theatre and film. Not mainstream and not bullshit, but really with content.

I have to go to the office now and then taking a car and going to the countryside…

Ok Baby, kiss – i am running!

June 13-15, The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, Theater Basel, Basel
June  22-24, The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, Carre Theater, Amsterdam
June 28-30, The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, DeSingel, Antwerp

The POP covers of FW2012. Marina and Freja wearing Giorgio Armani. Photography by René Habermacher

Rene Habermacher – Photographer
Isabelle Kontoure – Fashion Editor/Stylist

NY CREW
Hair Stylist: Peter Gray , Makeup Artist: Romy Soleimani, Manicurist: Tracylee , Casting: Angus Munro, Photography Assistance : Cesar Rebollar, Fashion Assistance : Jodie Latham, Stephanie Waknine, Rebecca Sammon & Michaela Dosamantes, Digital Technician: Dilek Isildak, Digital Remastering: The Stimuleye, Set Design: Anne Koch, Production: John Engstrom, Studio: Eagles Nest Daylight Studios NYC

UK CREW
Hair Stylist: Chi Wong, Makeup Artist: Yannis Siskos, Photography Assistance: Jonathan Flanders & Hannan Jones, Digital Remasterin: The Stimuley, Production: Lynsey Peisinger for The Stimuleye, Snake Wrangler: David Steward for Creature Feature

Givenchy, Raf Simons, Ann Demeulemeester, Rick Owens, Gareth Pugh, Comme des Garçons…we had it all. We also had a great concept (think butoh meets inception), a fantastic cast (Ippei is an amazing butoh performer, while Matvey and Willy, both top men’s models, would film Woodkid’s IRON video a few days later), great hair and great make-up, everything great.

RAEVE stroke-inducing poster by Clément Roncier.

Only problem was, we never really found the time to edit it.

Until now.

So without further ado, ræve.

RAEVE
by Antoine Asseraf & René Habermacher

starring Ippei Hosuka + Willy Cartier @ Success Paris + Matvey Lykov@ Success Paris

styling Jean-Luc Française / photo assistant Laurent Dubain / styling assistant Tiphaine Menon / hair Tanya Koch @ B Agency /make-up Akiko Sakamoto / studio Le Petit Oiseau Va Sortir

editing Axelle Zecevic / Clément Roncier / postproduction Clément Roncier / music Oedo Sukeroku “Shunrai” + John Cage “Sonata V” / special thanks Jean-Marc Locatelli

After a galloping transatlantic spiral of frenzy, we lay exhausted for days on various shores around the globe. Meanwhile, not entirely lazy, some of the Stimuleyes danced away in Watermill or invented a bookclub of a new, performative kind, shuffling readings of MANHUNT, STILETTO and Jackie Collins’ masterpiece THE STUD into a new, exciting bootleg. But more about that later.

During this hot days another Stimuleye project rushed through printers rotation: a collaboration with Marina Abramović featuring Freja Beha Erichsen photographed by René Habermacher for POP magazine.

Freja Beha Erichsen and Marina Abramović, both posing with Marinas "mini-me" and wearing GIORGIO ARMANI
Photography by René Habermacher

The Fall Issue will feature 2 covers with Marina and Freja and an inside story with exclusive interview, plus a limited edition hardback showing Marina’s death mask. Some of our fellow readers might recognise another co-star: yes, it’s Daisy the Boa which we met in Manchester, in an attempt to strangle the alter ego of Marina, her “mini-me”.

Coming soon to the newstands, the new POP is investigating this time THE REDEFINITION OF THE LADY. As Ashley Heath, its publisher puts it:

“POP has been exploring the notion of a very particular kind of modern fashionable woman. But it’s shifting all the time in such an interesting way. There’s a very liberated, new-world perspective to it and I think Marina Abramovic taps into that. She’s a figure who will only continue to grow in influence I believe. You hesitate to use the word ‘icon’ these days, but Marina and Freja are both resonant female role models at a time when lowest common denominator so often rules the day”

POP's Special edition Hardcover with Marina Abramović's death mask and "mini-me" wrestling with Daisy.
Photography by René Habermacher

MARINA CREDITS: Styling Isabelle Kountoure , Hair by Chi Wong at Julian Watson Agency using Shu Uemura Art of Hair, Make-up Yannis Siskos at Effex using Giorgio Armani Cosmetics, Photography Assistance Jonathan Flanders & Hannan Jones, Digital Remastering The Stimuleye, Snake Wrangler David Steward for Creature Feature, Production Lynsey Peisinger for The Stimuleye

FREJA CREDITS: Styling Isabelle Kountoure, Hair Peter Gray at The Collective using Shu Uemura Art of Hair, Make up Romy Soleimani at Management Artists, Manicure Tracelee Percival at Vue using Priti NYC, Model Freja Beha Erichsen at IMG New York, Casting Angus Munro at AM Casting, Streeters NY, Photography Assistance Cesar Rebollar, Fashion Assistance Jodie Latham, Stephanie Waknine, Rebecca Sammon & Michaela Dosamantes, Digital Technician Dilek Islidak, Digital Remastering The Stimuleye, Set Design Anne Koch at CLM NY, Production John Engstrom at Scheimpflüg Digital, Shot at Eagles Nest Daylight Studios NYC

POP MAGAZINE

“An artist should avoid going to the studio every day”

STUDIO
Last night was the last performance in Manchester.

Everyone in the cast and crew will soon be returning to their “normal” life, wherever it may be around the globe, to their city, their apartment, their studio.

Over the last week, seven exhausting nights, the play is ending.
It has been seen by Viktor & Rolf, Riccardo Tisci, the director of the MoMA and many others.

But fear not, it will return, soon, somewhere else around the globe.

“An artist should be erotic”

Marina's 6th commandment. Photo by René Habermacher.

DICK
This is not a dick.
It’s a strap-on.
It’s strapped on a man, Andy.

In the play, Andy masturbates while wearing a mask of Marina, as she flirts with him.

Tonight is the last night to see this, as it is the last night the play is performed in Manchester.

“An artist should stay for long periods of time at exploding volcanoes”

Marina's fifth commandment. Photo by René Habermacher.

THE WIG
This is the wig of Willem Dafoe when it’s not on Willem Dafoe.
It’s in the make up room.

In the play, Willem appears as a demonic, cartoonish narrator, meticulously going through Marina’s life chronologically, year after year.

“Enemies are very important”

Marina's fourth commandment. Photo by René Habermacher.

THE SNAKE
After an energetic premiere, the play keeps running until the 16th.

One of the cast we havent yet introduced is Daisy, the boa constrictor.
Like bruno’s predecessor was stiffy, Daisy replaced the rolled-up blanket used for rehearsals.

She naps in her well temperated box towards the minutes of spotlight.
It was difficult to find a hotel for her, says David the “snake-man”, so many houses had refused them shelter…

Daisy and David. Photo by René Habermacher.

Marina Abramović backstage in the make up. Photography by René Habermacher

GOOD LUCK FOR THE PREMIERE EVERYONE!

Marina, Willem, Bob, Carlos and the Serbian girls.
Only a few more hours left to marinate, before the feast.

The stage doors. The note is to be taken very serious. Photography by René Habermacher.

Today Marina had her shaman coming from Santa Fe, New Mexico, in order to clear any bad spirits in the theater.

Magick is in the air, the mood has eased the morning following the preview.
Some eruptions excluded.

Willem Dafoe noting remarks on his text. Photography by René Habermacher.

Preparations in the Make up rooms. Photography by René Habermacher.

After all, the puzzle of endless rehearsed scenes makes sense now, its emotional power in effect to captivate both spectators and cast.

As the premiere nears, the ticket office and press department whirl faster.

During breaks, we hear big names to will attend.
They have to be seated the right way. Tickets are limited and getting sparse.

Carlos Soto. Photography by René Habermacher

Marina Abramović and Antony Hegarty. Photography by René Habermacher.

The Serbian girls, that form the chorus with peasant songs, cook and cater everyone with traditional baked beans.

The longer they marinate, the better they are supposed to get. Though the longer you leave the beans to marinate, the higher the risk of having your portion snapped away – perhaps we should put name tags on the glasses in the backstage fridge?

Anyway, it’s all about MARINAting. The effect is, it melts on the tongue….

Marina riding on her wooden horse Bruno. Bruno is a darling, but not too comfortable... Photography by René Habermacher.

Svetlana sings the chorus while the soldiers shout parts of Marinas artist's manifesto. Photography by René Habermacher.

Life And Death Of Marina Abramovic
at Manchester International Festival
July 9 – 16, 2011.

“An artist should not make themselves into an idol”

Marina's commandment III. Photo by Lynsey Peisinger.

MINI-MARINA
Mini-Marina is a doll that wears Marina’s own, real hair.

It just flew in from New York City.

The costume department is working on dressing Mini-Marina for the premiere…

Life And Death Of Marina Abramovic
at Manchester International Festival
July 9 – 16, 2011.

“An artist has to be aware of his own mortality”

Marina's Commandment II. Photo by Lynsey Peisinger.

MASK
Its raining in Manchester. Although sometimes not.

The first preview went on stage under the roof of that building where his architect threw himself from his landmark tower to death.
Marina thinks there must be some energy left from this.

At Marina’s funeral, who do you expect to see in the coffin? Marina, obviously. Since we have three people in both of Marina’s funeral scenes, they decided to make everyone wear “Marina masks” so that everyone would look like her.

We call them “Marina Death Masks”. They looked much more morbid before they put makeup on them…

Four more days to go until the premiere. The rehearsals proceed until late at night with great concentration. After four weeks of work, the cast, creative team and crew are almost ready for the first preview tonight. Bob Wilson, Marina Abramovic, Willem Dafoe and Antony Hegarty. An ensemble this beautiful doesn’t happen very often, perhaps just once in a lifetime.

The premiere is just hours away. Bob is orchestrating his cast and crew and the multi chromatic illumination of the play. Antony continues to conduct the music, snapping the tempo for the band while singing on stage. Willem recites his text in an endless mantra, a flood of whispers. His face and body moving through their various expressions. There is tension under the roof of the Lyric Theatre at the Lowry in Manchester. There have been troubles and tears and there have been shiny moments of camaraderie and playfulness, all in an effort to tell you a story. The story of Marina’s life. It is a story that will carve out a space for her in your heart forever…

Now, we go into our last rehearsal before the preview. The vultures are flying, Marina is slipping into her red, feathered dress and Bob….well, Bob is setting light cues.

Robert Wilson instructs Wilem Dafoe in Gunplays. Photo by René Habermacher


How Willem plays the gun. Photography by René Habermacher


And finally on stage: "Bruno" as Marina calls him is the new Horse that replaces "Stiffy".
So here Bruno, Willem and Marina. Photography by René Habermacher

“An artist should have friends that lift their spirits”

Marina's commandment I . Picture by Lynsey Peisinger.

STIFFY
The first three weeks of rehearsals were held in a rehearsal space where we used temporary props and stand-in animals.

Stiffy (aptly named by Willem Dafoe) was Marina’s stand in horse. We miss Stiffy now that we are at the theatre and the “real” horse has arrived.

He had a very wide body and Marina had to walk like a cowboy after sitting on him for too long.
But he was good to Marina for those weeks.

Life And Death Of Marina Abramovic
at Manchester International Festival
July 9 – 16, 2011.

The Stimuleye is proud to be announce the upcoming series “The Life and Death of Marina Abramovitch” – MIF Daily Diary.

Under the direction of Robert Wilson, and with the participation of Antony Hegarty, Willem Dafoe and, of course, Marina Abramovic, this exceptional performance will run July 9 to 16, 2011 at Manchester International Festival, but you’ll be able to follow all the preparations right here, on the The Stimuleye.

Stay tuned…

Willem Dafoe, Marina Abramovic, Antony Hegarty and Robert Wilson. Photo by Antony Crook.

Life And Death Of Marina Abramovic
at Manchester International Festival
July 9 – 16, 2011.