Mandalas and Incense Holders

Despite this poetic underlying tone, two things, constant throughout your body of work, come to mind when looking at the Mandalas, a certain political (or critical, if you prefer) position, and derivative or not from the previous, a humorous and playful (or ironical, perhaps) approach to the subject. Is this something you like to achieve in a conscious way or can it be considered a by-product of your artistic concerns? Do you consider yourself a skeptical?

The humor is central in my own work and to the art of other artists that I appreciate the most. The construction of a great joke makes for masterpiece in my mind. It is therefore not clear to me why we have chosen to banalize humor, or to see it as anti-intellectual, when we all agree that the best jokes contain the sharpest and quickest analysis of our societies and selves. And sure, skepticism or irony or at least an attempt to try things out, only to fail, but still be able to laugh, makes for a big part of my method.

How do the Incense Holders relate to the Mandalas series?

They are these little accessories I made, unique for this show, to accompany the Mandala drawings. They are basically these spontaneous paper sculptures in all shapes, with bends and folds that are held up by nothing but the memory of my drawing paper. Their function is to hold up a colorful incense stick. I thought it could be pretty and fragrant in the gallery.

Since you use all media available to you, why did you choose drawing for this project? The title "The Church of Sharpie" comes directly to my mind.

Drawing is the most immediate way for me to work out an idea and have it speak back to me. In art school we learn to associate drawing as a preparatory method for painting. I couldn't be further away from that idea. For me, Drawing is an extension of writing and of performance, the physical trace of movement and the direct imprint of language.

Is there any connection between the spiritual aspects of Mandalas and the community (a certain togetherness) aspects explored in that project?

That is a little far fetched but OK. I often hire assistants to help in my work and we do form a type of community around the labor, the conversations we have while we work, the food and music that we consume, but this is not particularly unique to the Mandala project. The 'Church of Sharpie' was a title born out of the recognition of a devoted community, but it is hardly spiritual in its impetus, simply kept together by a social (capitalist) contract of work between myself, my galleries and my assistants. The development of my concepts also precedes the collective work in the studio. I do most of the thinking alone, in front of the computer.

Sharpies became a signature mark of your work, despite the fact your work is so hard to categorize in terms of traditional artistic disciplines. You've written that they are the marker of your time and the trace of a frail act of performance. What is it that interests you in these marker pens?

Using a marker pen that is simply part of my daily environment is a handy way to make something contemporary and to demystify the artistic process. Art can be made with anything, anywhere at anytime. So "traditional media" seem quite limiting to me.

The demystification of the artistic process seems to be a very central aspect of your production. Departing from contextual social practices and personal histories and arriving to open systems that people can relate to, you undermine pre-established conventions of art-making. Once a critic told me " walking with a big umbrella in the middle of the street isn't art". How come did this become a concern and what would your answer to that critic be?

I have nothing to hide, nothing to lose, and I sleep well at night.

November 2008.