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Pierre Restany about SI-LA-GI’s Art

Mr Restany, I would like to ask you a question. What are your impressions of this exhibition on the town’s forest lake?

Pierre Restany: The pieces of art shown here on the water are work which may be considered sculpture, pieces of sculpture.

One piece in particular stands out from this background and is neither an object nor something manufactured, and that is the work by SI-LA-GI with this luminous torch and the underwater fountain. This work by SI-LA-GI is interesting basically because it corresponds to a means of communication. This piece of work which can be seen there at the foot of the bridge, below the bridge, is a piece which intrigues people and quite rightly makes them think. It is not presented as a finished work, as a finished product like all the other pieces. No, it is presented once again as a means of communication and as a signal. I think, therefore, that SI-LA-GI is someone who is synonymous with the whole evolution of contemporary art and, let us say, with the art of our global culture.

We are living today through a dual phenomenon of cultural and economic globalisation. We are living in the Internet age and so information is distributed planet-wide and forces us also, doubtless, to reconsider its relationship to art. Art today, in our age of global culture, has become the humanist vector of communication. Thus strictly we should no longer speak of aesthetics, but of anthropology and precisely those new pieces which can now be seen in all those biennial exhibitions which at one time were exotic and which represent, if one may so describe it, the emerging periphery of the world, such as the biennial exhibitions in Cuba, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Cairo, Guangzhou, Korea; all these biennial exhibitions have shown the art of a new generation, and this new generation speaks a language of communication not, let us say, in terms of aesthetics but in terms of anthropology.

The artists of today, who can be found in the four corners of the Earth, in the former Third World, all express themselves through a sort of Esperanto which is the language of global culture and which is made up of communication signals. These communication signals are recycled industrial material, manipulation of photography, installations, performances, videos, virtual realities.

All these elements are not intended to constitute a fully completed piece of work such as you see here, entirely finished. The volumes are controlled or the subject matter is studied.

No, these are works which put the spectator in the position of receiving a message, and this message is no longer a message of beauty, i.e. of aesthetics, but an anthropological message, a message of truth. And it is precisely this truth in communication which is passed on by these methods of information.

Thus this piece of work by SI-LA-GI is a piece which is in some way the alarm signal in this exhibition. It is a beautiful exhibition taken at the level of the modernity of the pieces of art, but it is also an exhibition which opens out into this question mark signed SI-LA-GI.

I admit to you therefore that, over and above the pleasure which I feel from being in this spectacular place and seeing once again the work of my fellow sculptors, I have also had here an experience of communication thanks to SI-LA-GI, and so I truly think that I have not wasted my time, and I am very happy to be here.

Mr Restany, I would like to put two more questions to you. Have you seen SI-LA-GI’s exhibition entitled Hanging Gardens which is being held at the Fészek Gallery?

Pierre Restany: I have seen it, and it was precisely there that I developed further all the interest which I have in the work of SI-LA-GI. This exhibition is linked to the idea of death, of pain, considered in some way as means of compensating for the existential emptiness which we nurture in the depths of our very beings. Behind, if it may be so expressed, this philosophical vision of things, I was particularly struck by three photographs on one of the walls in the exhibition at the Fészek Gallery.

One of these three images, which are pictures of a road or highway taken, I believe, on an island in Thailand…

On the first there is little road and much sky, and a person can be seen in the far distance. And the idea of this image is that with distance no one particularly notices the, let us say, suffering, because the person, who is very small, is someone who is in fact crippled.

In the second, there is a little more of the road and a little less of the sky and there one realises that with a distant perspective one takes no further notice of the weather.

Finally, in the last, there is a large amount of road and almost no sky. There is a hat or helmet in the middle of the road and SI-LA-GI told me that, after having photographed this helmet that had fallen onto the road, someone told him that it was the place where a motorcyclist killed himself a few hours earlier.

Thus, with distance one also does not notice the death. And these three photos of different roads seen with different eyes make up something like the image of the Tao, of the path of existential balance and, let us say, of the peace of the heart.

Therefore, these devices of SI-LA-GI make one think, are most enriching, and make one discover signs which are not apparent at first glance. There is almost a sort of relational aesthetics, aesthetics which have a bearing on the elements of relationships. So it is aesthetics which are a part of all these rituals of anthropological non-verbal communication. These are rites, basically. And these rites which are neoprimitive rites, but also extremely modern, are without a doubt the departure point for a whole range of modern artistic research linked once again to global communication. And in this sense, I must say that the experience which I have just had was for me very meaningful.

Mr Restany, what are the possibilities open to an artist of the calibre of SI-LA-GI in a country like France or Italy

Pierre Restany: You know, these are artists who, even today, because they have a sense of history, have a sense of communication, clearly collide with all our prejudices, mine as much as anyone’s.

In order to reach these conclusions, I had to take it upon myself to make a very great effort be open to evolution and transition. This calls for an evolution of our perceptions and certainly for a new way of seeing art and thought.

I told you just now, when I spoke of aesthetics, that true as anthropology may be, that is clearly all phenomena, references, a new way of thinking with the Internet, with all these electronic communication systems.

It is certain that our way of seeing the world and other people will change radically. This transplant between electronic machines and our brains will not take place in a merely inoffensive way.

It is certain that our children or grandchildren, who will grow up entirely within this electronic world of computers, will act differently. The Internet is in the process of becoming our planetary memory, both individual and joint. Our children will tell themselves that it is useless to make the effort to memorise certain basic facts which make up our memories and our identity because we have them at our fingertips on the computer. We will free up all our mental energy, we will have to transfer it to perceptible energy and perhaps we will have a great opportunity, or rather future generations will have a great opportunity, that of developing further those of our senses which today are drugged, the sense of smell, of taste, of touch, to have a stronger and more sensual approach to the world and to our own sensitivity. Look at all the developments already made in what is called ‘body art’, which today has become in truth a situation where the body is objectified, the body, we are making an object of our own bodies, we are distancing ourselves from them to an enormous extent. This is something which was still unthinkable twenty years ago. Thus, things are evolving greatly in this area and I see that we are living in an extremely interesting age.

In any case, the presence of SI-LA-GI here is precisely… the great difference between his approach to the public and that of the others is a meaningful phenomenon.

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Bencsik and SI-LA-GI: Art Must be Used

BENCSIK: After your first exhibition in Hungary in the Ernst Museum you had another one in the Obudai Pincegaléria in the autumn. This exhibition was pointedly built on the teachings and practice of Buddhism; a part of the exhibition room was transformed into a meditation sanctum. When and how did you encounter Buddhism and in what way has the ideology been absorbed by your creative activities?

SI-LA-GI: I first encountered Buddhism through Japanese calligraphic art. Later I had a Japanese master in Stockholm who taught me karate for 12 years after 1968, and through him I got initiated into the living tradition of Buddhism since every training session begins and ends with meditation. The sport itself is a spiritual manifestation where spiritual power plays a very important part. When, in the case of karate, you are supposed to get into combat, the techniques you have practised for years will only operate properly if you exclude thoughts totally, and you completely empty yourself, because you can achieve perfection only in an empty state. This is the true artistic manifestation of karate. You learn the techniques for years, just like you learn the alphabet, first the letters, then the words, later sentences and finally the whole comes together in poetry. True karate is like that. Unfortunately in many places of Europe it has been deteriorated and considered nothing more than a sport, although the greatest masters in Japan are still living and theaching in monasteries. So I got in connection with Eastern ideology, Buddhism through my master. Then, in the early 1970′s I met a lama from Tibet who founded a monastery in Stockholm. He gave me the first teachings and I began to practice Buddhism, to meditate actively and to go in for the practical besides the intellectual part. Later I travelled to India several times, visited holy places where I spent some time to find masters.

BENCSIK: What are the criteria according to which you select your masters and what is the relationship between master and disciple like?

SI-LA-GI: On a basic level it does not have a great importance as meditation is the same in most of the Buddhist schools. You purify your body, speech and minde doing these basic meditations, and when you are done,- and they need very serious energy concentration and a long time- you become purified and more and more intuitive. It will become more and more obvious for you in which direction you should go to look for a master and you will find him and receive teachings from him. This is a mutual relationship, because if he consents to teach you, you will form a spiritual relationship, and he takes me just as I take him. It is a profound relationship with no trace of hierarchy, so much so, that beyond a certain point it is important for the student to leave his master in order not to allow a dependency to be established between them. The relationship between master and student does not have any rules. If I have the time and the opportunity I go to live in a monastery, if not I just meditate on my own to my own abilities as it is in my own interest.

BENCSIK: What is your master’s attitude towards your artistic activities ? Does he express an opinion? Does this topic have a place in your relationn-ship at all ?

SI-LA-GI: He does not care about it. It is my personal need to make these works because they help me to understand who and what I am. From the point of view of Buddhist meditation artistic creation has no significance. On the other hand art is a kind of meditation for me.

BENCSIK: That means artistic creation is an aid to meditation and it is not meditation that helps you create ?

SI-LA-GI: They have a mutual effect on each other. What I create has a certain tendency, a direction, but it also contains a large measure of intu-ition, eventuality and chance, but the end result has its washback effect by all means. Basically both are means used to achieve purity. The aim is not to fortify myself, because if I try to fortify my ego all I do is set a trap for myself. The larger the ego you create for yourself in your life, the more difficult it will be to part with it.

You must constantly be prepared, continuously condition yourself and look upon each and every minute as the most important one, otherwise you become lazy and then it will be difficult to grasp what is essential. Just like death that may come at any moment. You must be ready for that, too. You must be alert in every moment. Because you must prepare very thoroughly for death, that is the task of life, then in death you prepare for life. Meditation is preparation for death. It is very important how you die, in what mental and physical condition you are in when the last moment comes. It is like a bullet shot out of a barrel. The soul leaves the body, and this means that, like in your dreams, or in your imagination, everything is possible, every possibility of infinity may come true. The soul flying away from the body however needs a certain direction. After all it is a very great gift to be born in the human form. You are pressed into a dimension but still, within limits, you have the possibility to condition yourself, and, if there is a method, you may internalize it and with its help make certain things conscious in your thoughts, and when this state comes to an end you could use the period of relaxation and fulfil the concept you have have discovered. Everything that happens after your death happens to you still, that is still you. According to Buddhism if you take a drop out of the ocean that is an individual, when you put it back, it will become one with the Whole and it will be inseparable from it. But as long as you cling on too your ego you make it impossible for yourself to fall back into the ocean and become one with the Whole, to dissolve in infinity.

BENCSIK: You’ve mentioned that you have travelled a lot, that you have been to parts of the world strange and far away for European people. What motivated these trips? Is this craving for adventure typical of your ideas about art as well?

SI-LA-GI: I went to different countries, to different places for different rea-sons. But basically I was always intrigued by the unknown, to step on unfa-miliar ground, to experience the unknown physically, in person, and to feed on the physical experience in a spiritual way. The purpose of my trips to India and to Nepal was to visit Buddhist masters. In the majority of the cases I had to overcome serious difficulties, to cross mountains and glaciers, to go through terrifying adventures to reach my destination. During your travels you have to face various kinds of ordeals and the way you overcome them is very important. These are the teaching points of the trips. When you run into a new problem you must react and this gives the stimulus, this brings out your true personality. The same thing is true when pursuing art. I ex-periment with things the final outcome of which I cannot exactly foresee that is what makes them interesting. I am not interested in repeating or recreating things because then I would lose the spontaneity and what I do would be too manipulated and too predictable.

I have never had a theoretical attitude towards the process of artistic creation. But I have always been intrigued by change, transformation, the difference between the phenomenon and its manifestation, the relationship between material and spirit, reality and unreality, the infinity appearing through repetition even in meditation. The manifestation of good and evil energies, the constant and parallel presence of good and evil spirits in man, in the world and in works of art. How is it possible to trap the spiritual in matter? Primitive rhythms for example contain good and evil forces and connect them to a given space, how is it possible to comprise these contents into works of art? In African, Asian and Australian cultures where these things manifest themselves in very emotional and intuitive ways, if you are open enough, you can acquire a lot of knowledge. For me, it is much more important to live through things like that, than process them in a rational and analytical way.

BENCSIK: Does that mean that these are rather emotional concepts than intellectual creations?

SI-LA-GI: Yes, so to speak.

BENCSIK: What are the criteria you consider first and foremost during the process of creation? Do aesthetical considerations have any influence on you at all?

SI-LA-GI: I think if something is made really well, it will become aesthetic to a certain extent, or its innate anti-aesthetic quality will change into an aesthetic one. Anyway, I like to make things perfect for myself, and use materials in a way that they become a compact unity. Eventuality is involved in the process but the final result should not be a matter of accident or luck, presentation should be the framework which emphasizes the essential, so that content should have a form constructed exactly and meticulously. Aesthetic quality however is not an objective in itself, only spirituality is important.

When I create something I want to convey the feeling that is in me at the moment. It is almost like a conversation. If you paint a mark in a picture it will change it immediately. The painting reflects like a mirror. A conversation will be established between the work to be born and myself. This appears in the “fine tuning” of the details at times, at other times when I feel that I have been too preoccupied with the details and neglected the essential, I need to gather some more energy to fill my own work with spirituality again.

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Andy Warhol and SI-LA-GI

NEW-YORK 1985:

SI-LA-GI: By forming this book dealing with myself I should like to approach my activity and art itself from a new viewpoint. The analyses by the art historian Lorand Hegyi Land the present interview are forming and deforming, like “overlapping layers”, the works of art. But it is precisely this variety of changes which among others – I am interested in. This impermanence applying to everything.

Andy Warhol: I also constantly think of new ways to present the same thing to interviewers.

SI-LA-GI: Yes. They are very few who look for new ways. Especially if they already have success with their concept. I never understood, how some artists are able to paint one and the same thing for several decades. That’s no creative activity nor visual thinking any more, but more self-repetition, because the serial repetition has its right to exist if it is as essential as a mantra. At the very most we have to do it with an aesthetical value, but beauty cannot be the aim, since it is present around us, in everything. From the human body through a gesture as far filth, dirt on the street. It is tragical indeed, that some people mistake self-repetition for maturity.

Form is Emptiness

Of course, it is easy to recognize and to identify a work of art of this kind – a prompt experience of success is almost granted. And if all works are as equal as bills, then it is the easiest thing to “change” them for it. I think art cannot be an ultimate manifestation, it is a search. The search for highly important things and contexts. The disclosure of life and death, of the possibilities, the correlations and the limits of the individual. Referring to myself: I try to disclose what is unknown to me and to form what is present in my subconsciousness; in the course of formation these “things” mingle with the accidental and occasional, they get limited or inspired by the possibilities offered by the medium. The interaction and mingling of media present new ways of approach. This is why I am working with video, sound, hologram, painting, sculpture and space as well as with their complete and free combination. The work is mostly expected to be homogeneous both in contents and form, although man is quite different while making love or fighting, in the morning or in the evening. The work (of art) must show this difference. Art must be alive, and to be alive means to move and to change.

Andy Warhol: I like it, it’s good

SI-LA-GI: When I was teaching arts, I noticed how people are afraid of freedom, of experimentation. They do not even dare to mix the different techniques, to start making something they don’t know. And I am speaking now of arts – in everyday life the rigour is still greater. But like the still picture is continued by the moving picture, so is every art attached to one another.

Andy Warhol: Now you have to tell me your life story.

SI-LA-GI: Biography, exhibitions, publications, lists, etc. – thats dull. A biography told in a few words is as banal and false as to find out the quality of a picture from the gallery where it was exhibited. People do not dare to assume the responsibility for their own opinion. They try to find a support, a security that does not exist. They believe in the authority of galleries and museums, although you know as well as I, that the guiding principles of similar institutions are based on personal contacts, on interests and money. Nevertheless, let me tell you a few words about myself. I was born in Tokaj, on September 17th 1949 at 11.36h, as the offspring of a noble family. At four years of age I began to paint. When I was six, I saw a Dici-type photo apparatus in the shopwindow and did not stop entreating until I got it. I remember my first film roll, I made snapshots of dead fish lying on the snow-covered ice of the frozen river. I was five when I had my first traumatic encounter with death. After a pneumonia with an almost deadly issue I was taken home from hospital. That night I slept in my father’s arms when he died. I experienced it totally, how his soul was leaving the empty body. About nine years later my sister, two years younger than I died of cancer.

Andy Warhol: How old were you then?

SI-LA-GI: Fourteen. We were living already in Budapest. A strange place. A blend of East and West, of love and hatred, of pettiness and grandeur. At the same time, it is limited by the relative homogeneity of habits, the absence of extremity, of overlook and removal. I attended a high school of arts, but there were so highly explosive energies working in me, that I needed more space for them. On a rather adventurous way I justify the country with my friend in 1966, through Yugoslavia and Italy, and after a few months I went to Sweden. The absolute contrast of anything I have experienced so far. A perfectly isolated country in the artistic, the historical, the emotional and the geographical sense alike. Even the major artistic trends such as renaissance, baroque or the isms of the 20th century failed to assert themselves or were at any rate long overdue, emaciated and bloodless when arriving. there exists a Puritan Protestant rural culture, far away from Europe’s intellectuality, visuality and emotions. People are afraid of the new and the force, and – first of all – of individuality. This incites you to either reduce the energies or to intensify them still more. As for me, I have chosen the latter. And thus started the experimentation with life (continue on the next page).

Suzanne Ko: But you have attended the Academy of Fine Art in Stockholm.

SI-LA-GI: Yes, for a few years, but then I ceased, for there was a naive amateurism prevailing there too, and on the other hand, we were supposed to paint political agitations which did not interest me at all. My best “academies” were my journeys. I stayed several times and for a long while in India and it’s surroundings. It was there I felt a genuine respect for individual life. Spirituality is omnipresent there. Over here, in America, it actually also is, because history is not indoctrinating here. Cosmic consciousness is much stronger over here than it is in Europe. Europe is unable to detach itself from lineal thinking, from the historic and national conceptions. The cosmic Boom is missing. A most important step was for me the absorption in Japanese Martial Art; (karate) it gave me not only a physical discipline, but also taught me the physical transformation of spiritual force. By this way I have discovered the combination that is harmonious for me, where idea and emotion, intuition, spontaneity and force, softness and hardness are all together. Of course, this is an ideal combination which not always goes in a body, but eventually shifts to the advantage of one factor and to the detriment of another.

Laurie Rosenquist: Is there a teacher or relative who has especially influenced you in your work?

SI-LA-GI: Duchamp’s intellect, Picasso’s transforming force, Buddha’s teaching, the love of my wife and works like Tarkovskij’s Stalker.

Laurie Rosenquist: What does money mean to you?

SI-LA-GI: The possibility of quickly realizing my projects and conceptions. Of financing my assistants and the technical means. Otherwise, the organization, the search for cheaper techniques, etc., would absorb much time and energy from creative work. As soon as I shall be able, I am going to establish a foundation for helping experimental projects and artists.

Laurie Rosenquist: What does the school mean to you?

SI-LA-GI: The ideal school is a place where you have the possibility for every kind of experiments and where the teacher is experimenting together with the student in an affectionate, merry and creative environment. Besides imparting concrete technical and material knowledge, the most he can contribute to creative work is to indicate intentions.

Laurie Rosenquist: What is needed for success?

SI-LA-GI: Well, success is actually necessarry, although it has many negative aspects as well. Unfortunately it is not enough to be a. good artist for having success, you also need good managers who procure a place, facilities for exhibitions, publicity, etc., and you may call yourself lucky if you find somebody like that. The recognition of giftedness is almost as rare as the genius himself.

Laurie Rosenquist: Why aren’t you better known?

SI-LA-GI: For three reasons. First: because I did not yet find the manager I was speaking about Second: because my works, being of experimental and medial character, are hardly identifiable Third: because I am living in Sweden.

Laurie Rosenquist: How fast do you work?

SI-LA-GI: If I am not hindered by technical or material difficulties, I work rather quickly. Although I should rather speak of three phases First: when I get charged with new experiences and penetrate into new domains Second: establishment and adjustment of certain alignments, outlining and composing conceptions Third: The execution itself, which is further inspired and altered during work, begins to live and may lead me on new ways. For instance, a formerly half-finished work may now find all of a sudden its conclusion or explanation. The proportions of these three phases are most variable, sometimes even undiscernible.

Suzanne Ko: You often use photo, newspaper, xerox. Why?

SI-LA-GI: As already said, I am interested in changes. For instance, how to fill a news-photo made by someone else with entirely new contents, with spirit. Thats is somewhat like kneading man out of earth and inhaling a soul therein. As for my xerox-works, I have the feeling as though they were petrified prints of animal, or plant fossils. I mean, it’s a direct print of the human body, without any transmission.

Laurie Rosenquist: What is your opinion about Trans- avantgarde?

SI-LA-GI: Trans-avantgarde had its role contrary to the very important Concept art of the 60s, which dried out, become boring – to return emotions and enjoyment I believe that philosophical spirit of the concept is coming back, but combined with visual force of the Trans-avantgarde.

Suzanne Ko: Death is a recurring item in your works. Are you afraid of death?

SI-LA-GI: Sometimes I manage to “master” this consciousness and sometimes not. Creative work is actually the projection and construction of Ego, death is precisely the opposite, that is: contradiction. At the same time, I think it is one of our most important tasks to resolve it and to work on its comprehension. See from the perspective of death, life will also get a different sense. Like Romans used to say: Memento mori.

Suzanne Ko: I have the impression that we had a most interesting talk; what I am missing in this interview, that’s the explosiveness which is so very characteristic of you.

SI-LA-GI: Maybe, some other day you will get nothing than explosions.

New York, 1985.

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