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| Enrico Tommaso de Paris Italy |
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Born in Mel-Belluno, Italy in 1960. Lives and woks in Torino and Venezia, Italy. Exhibition include Artiscope, Bruxelles, Ermanno Tedeschi,Torino, Zonca e Zonca, Milano, In-Arco, Torino, Guido Carbone, torino, 51° Biennale; MONA, Detroit, Galleria Civica d'arte di Trento; PACD - Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea di Milano; Musem Vam Bommel - Vam Dam, Venio; Koninklijnk Museum S:K:/I:C:C:,Anversa; Galleria d'Arte Moderna Bologna A interview with E.T. De Paris 'Immagine a snow of blue foam...' The studio of Enrico Tommaso De Paris is a small grey concrete building on the roof of a supermarket in Turin, two steps away from the Mole Antonelliana. The entrance is blocked by a canvas to keep out the cats of the neighborhood. 'Can we enter?', we jump over the canvas and dive into the ocean of De Paris, an explosion of colours, materials and visions. We park the Yellow Submarine and we start talking. Location: De Paris Studio, Turin. Time: 18:15, June 8th 2006. Q: Hi Enrico, we have known each other for quite a while, but let's pretend that this is the first time we meet. The first question could be: who are you, after all? A: Well… I am a fragile man… so I am an artist that works keeping in mind everything that revolves around him every day. I am interested in practically everything: social issues, political issues, all sorts of studies. I like physics, chemistry, engineering, medicine, biology… I am interested in everything that man is, in some sense, creating, and in the way man's life changes, and how he is forgetting Nature. As an artist I feel part of this process – I don't know if it is improving life, but it is certainly defining an advancing path. And I like the idea that I goad other people on with their lives. At a social level, as an artist, I feel that this is my responsibility: to say things in a certain dreamlike way, to carry the message that everyday life also has a sensitive side, quite beyond the world of production. Man creates things that have a meaning, a function. Me, I like not making any sense (laughs). Actually, these machines that I am building now are completely useless and they go nowhere: although I am positive that, poetically speaking, they go and they will go places. Q: Ok, more or less you have told us who you are. The next questions could be: and what do you do? A: I am an artist that uses various means of expressions. My language is quite complex: I paint, I make videos that suck (laughs), but still I try, and I make large scale installations with various materials. I use materials as if they were words, I try to create a language that can be difficult to understand because different materials are brought into play and they must talk to each other. Or perhaps they don't need to talk to each other, but they must form a message…like today’s humanity, living with great communication difficulties… Q: One thing that piques our interest in your first question is your interest for physics, chemistry and medicing. Where do these interests come from? A: Well, my career is a bit peculiar. I have always drawn, and when I was a kid my family was very supportive. Verbally. 'What a nice drawing, Enrico…', but when it came to choosing schools they put obstacles in my path. I was prevented from attending Liceo Artistico (a high school that specializes in art) and the Accademia. I always studied things that my parents like. I studied electronics, because the future was in electronics, then I studied medicine, because it was a serious course of study leading to a respectable work. Then, when I was in my third year of medical school my father died and I said to myself 'Now I will become an artist. I don’t give a damn what happens, and I became an artist'. This is why my training is in science and technology; partly because of my family interference, and partly because I have always been interested in those topics since I was a kid. The interest for science and technology has not left me even today. I read a lot, and science keeps fascinating me. I could say that I have extended my interests into sociopolitics: how people move, why they move, how they are treated. All these topics are present in my work, although perhaps they are not so easy to notice. It is primarily because of these interests that I use all these little guys in my work, all of them in a different scale, placed in worlds that never have a single viewpoint; simply because I believe that there can not be a single viewpoint on reality… like the media would have us to believe. Q: It is interesting that you tell us about your education in electronics and medicine, because one of the images that we associate with your work is the AllegroChirurgo children's game. A: (laughs) Indeed, there is a bit of that tension… let's say that I have not forgotten my studies. Electronics taught me how to develop a thought that closes back on itself; I think of circuits as systems that produce a signal that is then caught, retransmitted, opened, closed. In my mind there is a kind of neverending circuit of this kind, complete with loops that come, go and change. Science is one of the most interesting things ever. The more you study, the more you learn, the more you realize how small we are. The more you study, the smaller you get. And this is the most beautiful thing, you build more and more, and you become smaller and smaller. It looks like God said 'Let them have brains, anyway they are going nowhere…' (laughs) Q: Let's come to the topic of this issue of idCAST: materials. When we enter your study, we have the impression that this is a big toy store for adults, overflowing with objects, colors and materials. We see works of craftsmanship and stationery store goods. One thing that is very interesting in your work is that you mix materials of different nature and worth. A: I have started my artistic life as a painter, and after a while I did my first shows. The people liked what I was doing, and I was selling my work, but I got bored of asking myself what I was doing. Canvas was not enough, two dimensions were not fun any more. So I started doing small three-dimensional things, materic work on the canvas surface. The next step was thinking what I could glue on these blasted canvases, how could I develop my own language. I started using color as a three-dimensional material, then I started making small pieces of wood that I would glue on the canvas after painting, but it still wasn’t enough: like the singer Jovanotti used to say, Non mi basta mai, I can't ever get enough (laughs). So I carried on this road that led me to the kinds of work that I am doing now, works where I put together many heterogeneous materials that I find everywhere: stationery stores, hardware stores, chemical products stores, electronic shops. I try to produce my own language by letting all these materials speak … an anarchically democratic work. Going back to what I was saying before, I am fascinated by materials precisely because they are made by man and they have a function. The fact that I am making them do what they are not supposed to do is another issue, but at the same time my works become and archive where all the objects that I find are complemented by the feelings that are in the air. The fascination that materials produce is amazing, because each material has its own history: and this is true also for a screw, a bolt, plastic, rubber. Then, with time, you realize that some of these materials live with you while others decay, and this is something that at times gets on my nerves, and then I deal with it and actually I believe that this is beautiful too; that decay is a part of the life of materials, of life in general, of all those things that at a certain point stop working, they don't turn on anymore, and this is the way of the world after all… they are not there anymore, they don’t talk to you anymore, and that’s ok, that’s the way it goes… the best complimet I received was when an important critic defined me “vandal of painting”…probably my desire to create a language –in step with times- leads me to create some neologism maybe horrible-devastating-dissonant but concrete and open to the future and to everyone. Q: Do you follow a process in your work? A methodology? A: The process is that every day I wake up thinking simply and serenely to my works. I go out and I buy something different in any type of store, and then I paste up, I assemble, I store, I file. Then, when the moment to do a piece of work comes, I have the stuff on hand, they are my team. It never happens to me that, while I am working, I miss something. I work only with materials that I have already in my study. I buy, say, one thousand different things. Once I am in my studio, these objects become the friends that help me make my works become reality. I never miss anything, and at the same time I miss everything, which means that I make do with what I have, and what I have is really OK, because I happened to like it when I bought it and when I decided to keep it. Q: We keep looking around in your studio. We see all these materials that you buy, and there are all these very beautiful pieces of craftsmanship, carpentry, thin glass vessels… we have the impression that there are other people that work with you. A: Indeed. I work with a blacksmith that builds the stainless steel structures that I, or an architect friend of mine, design, with a very good glass blower that, to make ends makes all the knick-knacks that are sold in Venice: but I ask him to all these unlikely objects, and he has fun having them. He is a guy that I work with very well and he is a great interpreter of my drawings. Then there is a chemist that helps me understand how the chemicals I like work, whether they are dangerous, if they go bad after a while and if they can be coupled with certain materials. Since some months ago, I have started working with a company that makes the machines that produce car lights: they let me use this very expensive piece of equipment that machines Plexiglas. As you can see, the materials I use follow the evolution of my interests and of the company I keep. I meet people by accident, and then I work with canvas, wood, foam, and then glass, steel and recently as I mentioned plexiglas. In a way, I chance upon materials, I don't look for them. This is something that I love because it matches my creative process. I never go crazy because I think that I must do a job strictly in a certain way – no – I change the job and I let the events carry me. The main thing is always interpreting events through your own sensitivity. Q: While we are having this talk, we feel like we are in one of your works, sitting on the grass in a miniature fluorescent world. Talking of colors – if we look around there are many different colors, but the palette looks very precisely chosen, very personal to you. A: In my paintings (because, after all, I keep on painting) color is always very positive, signal-like. For example, I have never used earth tones, brown in any form is completely out of the world of my painting. Even in my sculptures color is a message, it is a clear, positive signal-like message. I use Day-Glo color that often are exactly the ones used in road signaling, the same source of the strobe lights that I put in my works. These are very strong elements, almost hard and disturbing in themselves, yet they acquire a certain harmony when they are all together. Frequently I dye my materials; for example, I dye silicone blue, orange and yellow. My friend the chemist once gave me a couple of tips on how to do that, and then I started experimenting. I like very much adding color to plastics, it is a fundamental part of my language. Q: Another peculiar element of your work is that, additionally to working in paint, sculpture, objects and installations you also do a lot work with a computer. But you do it in a very naďf work, without being a great expert, mucking around with software that you buy at the newsagent – and at any rate you achieve your objects. We can face this issue starting from an anecdote that our common friend Mauro Calvone, movie director and great expert in visual effects. He said 'Get this: Enrico has asked me how to make Power Point presentations, and then he made one and he sold it as a piece of art!' A: (laughs) Actually, Mauro has been precisely the person that pushed me to use a computer. Years ago, my studio used to be next to the place where he lived. He used to visit me, and ask me questions about this and that, because in a way he too wanted to be an artist. As I was telling him my ideas and preferences he showed me incredibly beautiful stuff, made with a computer, and I felt like I wanted to have a try. So I bought a computer, actually his old computer and I started using it, but in a very simple way; a bit of Photoshop, really, that I still don't know how to use properly, but that lets me have results that I like. It is the same thing with painting: I really don't know how to paint, but I sell paintings, I don't know how to sculpt, and yet I sell these big installations. It is not a matter of how many things technique allows you to do, but rather of how much the tools let you develop your own thought. And all the tools are good, brushes, Plexiglas, computers, as long as the are used in a natural and spontaneous way, like reading a newspaper, having a shower, it has to be a very simple dialogue, not something to lose your mind over it must be a vital flow, even painful at times. Computers fascinate me because I can do things very quickly, and this is certainly the part of computers I like best. Computers do not remove effort, but certainly accelerate ideas. Q: And how is your relationship with Internet? A: I don't use it very much. Primarily, I use it to poke around in the world of strange materials. Frequently I visit the archives of the companies that sell electromedical equipment, chemistry supplies, electronic components. I see things whose purpose I don't understand, but if I like them I buy them. I am not a victim of the Internet, or maybe I am – actually I had the studio Internet connection removed because I was wasting too much time in front of the computer monitor. Q: Despite the fact that your studio is packed with colors, objects and pieces of work everything looks very well archived and in order. Are you organized? A: I look like I am… Q: What about work? Are you a methodical person? A: You know, a story comes to my mind; a gentleman looking out of the window, and thinking of how his father in law does not understand that he, in that moment, is indeed working… work is a practical and mental issue. Actually I work in a rather systematic manner, I am here very early in the morning and I leave late at night, but even when I am traveling or having a walk I am actually working. Let's say that I work all the time. I like my work, and this is why this condition does not weigh on me. Furthermore I have a distant girlfriend and I don't have any children, which means that I am not tormented by the thought that I am depriving someone of something. My work is my life. It is lucky that I like what I do (laughs) …I’m a solitary man. Q: Do you travel a lot? A: Yes, but always for my work, never for fun, I don't like vacations. Let's say that I never have to think about where to go, other people decide for me… Q: You started with painting, and progressively you got closer to sculpture. Now you make large scale installations. As designers, our curiosity is piqued by the process that is behind those large scale works. A: Painting is easy. Paintings are very convenient to carry around, they are easy to show, easy to sell. As long as someone has a wall, a nail and a hammer, everything is peachy. Sculpture, on the other hand, takes up lebensraum, and this is its natural limit. Houses are getting smaller and smaller, and this has necessarily ejected sculputer from home spaces. The only form of sculpture that is still extremely widespread are ornaments, that are like bonsai sculptures… (laughs). And installation work… installation work is even worse, because not only it takes up space, but it interacts with the people that are going to live in this space. This is also what is so cool about it. Another part that is very cool is that installations have to be disassembled, packed, transported, assembled, or destroyed, or reinvented, or thrown away. Q: How do you design you installations? How do you decide which piece goes first? Where to put it? Where to hang it? A: These things all come afterwards. First I work at the piece, I assemble parts that I have in my studio, I let the piece drive me, and then I solve all these things. It helps me a lot to work with modular parts. This way, every time that a new space is available I can decide to assemble the piece in a different way, and as I change the way the piece is assembled the work itself is changed. Q: Who buys works on such a large scale? A: Private collectors that place them in their offices, their homes, their companies. Q: Nice piece of work it must be installing these things in houses... A: Usually these people have nice houses… Q: Do you help them with the assembly? A: I always do the assembly. I go there, they invite me to lunch or to dinner, we spend some time together and meanwhile I assemble to work. And then I do maintenance because, as we were saying before, there are pieces that can wear out or simply fail. Some things can be found in any electronics shop, others, like some peculiar neon lamps, must be supplied by me. Q: So you do a maintenance contract? A: It is more the case that they make me sign one, if it were for me I would not sign one… but to them it is important. But in the end I have fun, I like it and what is more important I learn. For example, I have stopped using rubber bands, because over time they dry up, they lose their elasticy and they break – just like some plastics that, under a strain, crystallize and eventually snaps. You mess up a couple of times, and you learn, and this is good of experience… Q: Your installations also include video monitors showing video materials, and loudspeakers that reproduce sounds. We would like to know more about how you associate sounds with your works. This certainly is something that was not there in your first works. How did you get there? A: I always try to fuse the various outputs that surround me. After a while I realized that these works were too quiet, or more simply that they needed something more, and then I understood that they were not speaking to me or better they were only whispering at me. And so I decided to add this new signal. It is not actually music, but rather sounds and noises that I manipulate and put together with my computer using the same approach we mentioned before (laughs). It is always all about living with what I have around me, letting my life go on and channeling what I have inside me. In other occasions I get a friend musician to help me and I give him total expressive freedom, he is a very clever contemporary musician and an expert in music and surround effects. Q: Last year you had the opportunity to show an installation at the Biennale di Venezia. It is curious that under circumstances that are very important in the life of an artist you decided to involve other artists in your work, by asking eight or your friends that work with moving images to curate eight floor-mounted video monitors. A: Particularly in this types of work, that live off what they have around them, and in that specific occasion I really wanted that my installation could enrich itself with the input of my video-maker friends. I wanted to place video material in the installation, I have friends that work in video, these friends are part of my inputs, and so I just put their works in my installations. I told them nothing, no suggestions, no starting points. I just said 'There are video monitors there, would you give me a work of yours that I can put there in loop?'. I like working with friends. I think of materials themselves as my friends. We are molecules in this world of atoms. Q: Is there a material that you are specially fond of? A: No. Materials talk to each other, they argue, they change the topic. When one material is not there, another one shows up and the discussion goes in another direction. …my idea of material is amplified in the different states of “matter” like the digital, verbal, acoustic, etc… Q: Do you give titles to your works? A: Yes, but in groups, mostly in order not to call them senza titolo, something that I always found very perplexing. The small pieces are all called 'genesis' followed by an index number, the paintings are called 'flussi' (flows) followed by a number, the large installations that I do these times are called 'cromosoma' followed by a number. The cromosoma series represents very well the way I work and I express myself. You know my interest for medicine, and the human chromosome is this very small objects that contains all the genes that give human beings their features. The chromosome, since it is rich in genes, is rich in different things, and this set of messages that are carried by it has inspired me to build these very big sculptures that are really assemblages of many small details that activate or zero each other out depending on the closeness or distance, and depending on the relation that is created between them. Q: You have a scientific training, electronics and medicine, you like chemistry but on this table I see many poetry books. A: I read a lot of poetry. I read a lot in general, but I have a lot of trouble with literature, with novels, because I forget the names of the characters. After three pages I have forgotten who is who… I really can't do it. The only things that saves me is poetry, because even if I read a verse here, and a verse there it takes me places. It is a way of working very related to the way I see the world and to the way I do art. My works are really very open works, fractioned, you can see a little piece, then the following day you see another one, piece after piece you can cure yourself and enjoy the emotions that it gives you, put them together or even leave them as separate pieces. You are not forced to read my work from page one to page six hundred, you can leap here and there, re-read the same part more than once, give it different meaning,s, go backwards. You can start where you want, and get where you like. Interview by LineUlrikaChristiansen, StellaColaleo and SimoneMuscolino |
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