I'm the Other
Ja to Inny
Photographs by courtesy of the artist
Ja to Inny
In conversation with Romeo Gongora by Kamila Wielebska
01.09.2009
During his stay at CoCA in Toruń (Poland) as part of a residency program in May-June 2009, Romeo Gongora revisited and revised Lygia Clark’s Estruturação do Self (Structuring the Self) work by doing a series of experimental actions for which he used tactics of appropriation, derivation, and reinterpretation. Also when dealing with the local context of Toruń, he thus produced in-situ objects, and inhabitants of the city were involved in his 'therapy' sessions. The interview took place in CoCA on 29 June, 2009.
Why are you interested in the work of Lygia Clark?
I've always worked with people in my projects. However, working with a group is very rare to me – in my previous videos and performances, I usually cooperated only with one person , which made the connection between us very strong, intense. I found out that this kind of relation with people is quite similar to what Lygia Clark was doing during the last period of her work, in her therapies. Despite some differences between hers and my previous works, this kind of relation is always very intimate, and the core of my project is also based on empathy, on genuine emotions. And then I started to read what she wrote about her ideas. I felt that it could be interesting to be in a close connection with that. It turned out that I could learn a lot from her. To me the project I have made here is also a way to gain a kind of knowledge from her.
So, it means that you treat her like a teacher in a sense...
Like a mother... I think. At the end of the book we have talked about before there is a text, a letter she wrote to her son(1). She wrote there how he should treat life. And I feel that this project I have done here became a kind of her letter to me. Lygia Clark's position on art was really radical. I've learned a lot from her how I should treat art, art production. The primary goal is not to make artworks for sale but to create meaningful objects.
Yes, she was very radical, especially in the last, therapeutic period started in the late 70s. Nonetheless, it seems that all her artistic way from the very beginning led her to this point. It was also a kind of process. And you, what did you do here, in Toruń?
Actually, the project consists of two parts. During my first stay I created some objects inspired by Lygia Clark's relational object but also responding to the context of Toruń, functioned for me as a kind of metaphor of this place. Those objects were very simple: tennis and ping-pong balls, restaurant napkins, plastic bags, empty yogurt container and empty juice glass from the grocery store, textile gloves and sheets from a local textile store, etc. Some of the objects were also ones that I had found, for example, stones, a tree twig, elastics or a plastic pipe. I found them during my walks, on my way back from the local restaurants or stores to the Centre. Those in-situ objects had their own history independent of my control or will, they enriched the sessions by their past 'experience', adding new meanings to my actions. The second part involved a series of 'therapies' with participation of local people and with the use of the objects which I had made previously. Thus, the whole project was in a way a response to my first experience of Poland, how I open myself to this new context and, of course, it was inspired by Lygia Clark's Structuring the self – relational objects. In the beginning it was mainly the contact with the power of her work, her thoughts, then – my feedback on it, my own reflection about the process of creation. So I did here some 'therapy' meetings with local people based on Lygia Clark's therapies from the last period of her life and work. During those sessions she used some special objects which she called 'relational objects' and she interacted with them on patients' bodies. It was a way to come into a very intimate contact with the people. The sensual contact which could also be considered erotic in a way. I found this activity so extreme that I felt the need to try to put it into practice in order to see if I was able to do such extreme things, and to see what would happen... Where is this extreme experience going to take me, an independent artist? It was also a question to what degree I could involve in this project based on the work of another artist? And I would rather not call it reenactment. The idea was to work with the therapies of Lygia Clark and do it in the context of Poland. So I came to Toruń...
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, dokumentacja fotograficzna, Toruń 2009
Why Poland?
Well, one pragmatic reason was, of course, that I met the curators from CoCA in Toruń and they invited me here. It was a kind of site-specific work, so the place dominated the project during the production process. For example, the fact that Poland has a tradition of radical art and radical artists strongly influenced the work. I learned more about artists like Grotowski who did extreme work with people. He interacted with them, maybe not with the same purpose as Lygia Clark but he also tried to reveal the truth about people, about life and its meaning So I found Poland an interesting place to do it.
Tell me some more about working with people. How did you find them here and what exactly happened?
The participants found out about the project mainly from a newspaper advertisement. I wanted to work with people without any previous connection with art, any such experiences and without any anticipation. I thought that they could be more open to what would happen. And also – if somebody replies to such advertisements it means that this is probably somebody who is really interested in it. There is nothing that forces this person to do it. So, it was one way how we recruited participants. Another was the personal network, we informed people who could be interested. First, the participants were given some general information about the project and then I met with them in order to conduct the 'therapies'. It was a really radical start, especially that I don't speak Polish and some of them spoke almost no English. So, I couldn't even explain what exactly was going to happen. There were 8 people. Those people started only with the knowledge that it was a kind of 'massage' with objects. They didn't know that it was related to Lygia Clark, they even didn't know who she was.
Did they know that you are an artist?
Yes, they knew it. They got a short description of my project from the CoCA. The language barrier was, indeed, a very interesting factor, because it forced us to establish a very physical contact. Although some of them could speak English, I found out that the language always became a kind of an invisible barrier, because people were trying to rationalize what was happening, and then they stopped feeling. It was really fascinating to observe the difference in reactions between the people who spoke English and those who couldn't talk with me at all. How they opened themselves up to the project. So, I met them, every person individually three times, and just started to interact with them availing myself of the objects. And every time it was more and more intimate. I kept a diary and I wrote some notes after every meeting: how they responded, what objects I used, what I should do the next time.
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, dokumentacja fotograficzna, Toruń 2009
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, dokumentacja fotograficzna, Toruń 2009
So, there was progress during the therapy.
Yes (laughter). And I was trying to change my way of interaction if I felt that a particular participant didn't respond in the way I had expected. I was trying to be flexible. Flexibility is something which is, indeed ,present in the work of Lygia Clark. It is a kind of 'organic' logic when you try to be quite open and to be able to 'follow the flow'. So, I met those people three times for 'therapy' sessions and then they were asked to answer a set of questions to give me feedback on what had happened. And the end of the work was a presentation of the project in the CoCA in Toruń, the complementary and a significant part of it.
We have been talking mostly about the people in your project but now I would like to ask you about the objects. Lygia Clark, like it has previously been mentioned, was very radical and at one juncture of her career, of her artistic 'evolution' she decided not to produce the objects although she used them as tools in her therapies. You, like Lygia Clark, worked with people and you also produced certain objects. Tell me more about them. Do you consider these artworks or not? How do you treat them?
I'm an artist who produces artworks. And I think that the work of Lygia Clark is of particular interest to me, because of this tendency to resign form the production of items. Something very similar happened in my previous artworks. For example, in the project realized in jail, Forgiveness, during the meetings with prisoners many things happened and there were no objects to represent them.
No objects to hide behind them.
I have a feeling that in my previous works there was also something similar to her ideas. To her, artwork production wasn't the primary goal. When I started making the objects here I didn't intend to create artworks. Also I didn't do this whole project to make an exhibition. In the very beginning when I presented my idea to the curators from the Centre I told them that I didn't want to have an exhibition. I think that the presentation is a more appropriate format.
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
But you brought these objects to your presentation and displayed them to the audience.
Yes, but I showed them not as an art exhibition, but as a kind of evidence of what had happened. I presented there the photo documentation, and the objects were also a kind of documentation. I simply wanted to get people close to what happened here.
But documentation can also be an artwork, it can be shown, it can be sold...
To me, it was one of the problems when I was preparing this presentation. I was aware of it. How to show the photos only to present some events without any artistic quality? What helped me, I think, was the text I had written which accompanied the photos during the presentation. But, returning to your question about the objects, the process of their production was really a fascinating experience. However, my goal wasn't to turn them into exhibits, I was trying to create something of aesthetic quality and practical at the same time, I would like to emphasize once more that, to me, these objects have no artistic value but only a documentary one. They are not the core of the project.
Lygia Clark didn't treat her relational objects as artworks either, but some of them are now in art collections.
I think this is another question. It is more about recuperation of artworks by the system. Lygia Clark wanted to use objects only as tools in her therapies. To me, working with people in this way was like making a sculpture, a living sculpture. And these objects were only tools to implement it. If you are making a sculpture from wood, wood is not art, it is only a material. To me, the objects are like a material and also a kind of documentation. And actually, it was a very strange feeling when during these meetings with people I didn't know where was the work of art... or if there really was any artwork.
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
When I first saw your photographs taken during the sessions – the documentation like you said – I thought that these were very beautiful compositions. People lie covered with strange colorful objects. So I was under the impression that you had, in fact, derived aesthetic pleasure when you were creating them.
Taking pictures during those meetings was a very difficult decision to me. First, I was thinking about recording with a video camera, I also took sound recording under consideration, and in the end I decided to take photos, because in my opinion the presence of a photo camera would be less conspicuous, and thus, interfere less with my relation with the participant, and lie more within the tradition of art documentation. If I had recorded it using a video camera it would have been video art. The aesthetic quality of the photos wasn't my primary goal. I put the camera in one place in the room and the photos were taken automatically by means of a special program. There are also pictures from Lygia Clark therapy sessions, somebody took them, so there was somebody else in the room besides her and her patient. I was alone with one of the participants and the photos were taken more or less every 5 or 10 minutes.
So you didn't choose the moments at which the shots were snapped.
No. I chose only the position which gave the broadest view to record what was happening in the room, and then I left the camera on its own. So I cannot say more than that the camera was taking the photos and if it makes nice compositions it is maybe because what was happening there was quite beautiful.
During the sessions I didn't know who the viewer was. The participants couldn't see anything, they were blindfolded. They had only a sense of touch and hearing. Who was the viewer, if it was me who could see everything, all that was happening?
It is very meaningful that when you are talking about the audience you call them viewers. We go to the museum, to the gallery to see art. Not to touch, not to smell, sometimes to hear, but mostly to see. Lygia Clark tried to extend our perception, to open it to all senses. So maybe it is not so obvious that they weren't the audience only because they couldn't see what was happening?
But I really don't know if they were the audience. To me, they were sometimes tools I used to create a sculpture. Sometimes I feel that these people weren't the audience any more, they were part of the project. There was a kind of confusion in this project. The idea of confusion is quite important in my work, I'm not an artist who produces clear statements or clear objects. The potential of the confusion is powerful. Confusion means that you cannot give names easily and then you cannot categorize things. The moment you start doing it, you will not see anything any longer. In Clark's work there is a lot of confusion. You don't know if these therapies are artworks or not...
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
Lygia Clark was talking openly about the crises in her career. She confessed a few times that she didn't believe in art any more and asked herself what art actually was. At the end of her life and artistic career she conceived of the idea that she would not produce art objects, things. I think that she opened up to changes and she let the energy flow. This kind of lifestyle is not so easy, could even be a bit scary to most people.
She was really honest in what she did and she wrote, explained her ideas in a very sincere way. Honesty is, to me, one of the most key elements of her work. In Lygia's correspondence with friends, other artists you can find sentences like 'I'm lost'. It is not so easy to tell people that you are not sure what you are doing.
Right. We don't usually like this mood of hesitation and feeling lost when you don't know what to do, what is exactly happening. It is really a very strange state, but I believe that this is part of the process , and in the end something new can emerge from this chaos. I think this is quite a natural element of development, of creation. It is amazing that we admit to it so rarely.
This is something quite extreme again. I think people are afraid of failing to be successful. Moments like these, the moments of hesitation and uncertainty show us that we are not perfect. The idea of the perfection is very interesting in the context of Lygia Clark. She was not interested in the creation of perfect objects, she was not looking for a perfect therapy method. But she was looking for something genuine, really profoundly meaningful. And the quest for truth is a kind of perfection. In the letter she wrote to her son she explained to him that there would be some moments when he would feel lost and he should not try to avoid the emotions accompanying them. She wrote to him that being lost is a demonstration that you are coming closer and closer to something important. Then you have to follow it, face it. It takes you somewhere deeper. It is incredible that a mother writes things like that to her son. This is particularly powerful because mothers usually want to protect their children and make them utterly happy. She recommended a more difficult way of life. It is a vocal statement and this is something that I would like to take from her and use in my work, as an artist. I don't like easy things.
Yes. I'm also interested in difficult things (laughter). But I noticed that we are talking mostly about life, not so much about art. However, you are convinced that Lygia Clark was an artist and things she did were art.
Yes, I'm convinced. But it doesn't mean that it was not connected with life. In my opinion, in her work there was something that was going much further beyond the therapies. The idea of a poetic aspect of life. How to touch this dimension? And I think that this is the way to make our life also a kind of artwork: to have this poetic perspective.
To create life, not only to receive passively what it brings.
In French there is a notion 'état poétique', the poetic state. It is present in her therapies. She made those interactions with the objects, but the main goal was to bring people to this poetic state, to this poetic dimension. To make them able to respond to life in a fresh way. This is not only a concept of art, this is also her concept of life, it is connected with life. But I found in the work of Lygia Clark this poetic dimension which I'm looking for in art.
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
You told me previously that you are interested in the theatrical aspect of her work.
Yes. When I was working with the people, with the 'living sculptures, sometimes' I felt that I was not only a performer who was playing with objects but also an actor who was acting in front of the audience,that is, the participants. So, if I was acting like an actor, it means that I was doing a kind of the theater. It takes me to the concept of the theater developed by Grotowski who was also trying to break down the borders between the actors and the public. What happened during these meetings here was also a way to blur these barriers. And currently I'm also doing a work connected with the theater. I read a lot about the ideas of theater directors and it influenced me also somehow during these sessions. So yes, in this work there is a strong relation with the theater.
Lygia Clark started to work with a group of people in Paris where she taught in the late 60s and in the early 70s. At that time we could observe something like an international movement with a very similar activity, pursuits for example in the theater, in the dance.
Yes. Here, in Poland you had Grotowski, in Brazil there was Augusto Boal. There was a group of people involved in the theater at that time all around the world. And you can find this influence in the work of Lygia Clark. This is also one of the most absorbing parts of her project, the context of the times in which she created present in her works. This is not only the influence of the theater but also other disciplines, like social science. You can find there a lot of ideas of deconstruction.
And also this climate of openness so characteristic of that time.
Yes. Roland Barthes, Lacan, Deleuze...
...Foucault who we were talking about this morning when we were passing by the panoptic prison...
I think it wouldn't be going too far to mention that because she was there, she was in Paris those days, from about 1968 to 1976 among these people, she was considerably influenced by them. She started conducting the therapies on her return to Rio de Janeiro. And Bataille – Lygia must have been influenced by his texts, his way of thinking that stipulates the interrelation of the poetic state of life and eroticism. Bataille, René Girard, Roger Caillois – these thinkers were interested in the concepts related to rituals. And Lygia Clark came to Paris from Brazil where a lot of indigenous people were to be found, who were familiar with the practical dimension of the ideas of black magic, sacrifice, mystical experience, which was considered desirable by such thinkers as Bataille. She originated in there. The concept of anthropophagy in her work was derived from a Brazilian art movement Tropicalismo which she was involved in for a period in her career. It is about just that! Her work had a strong connection with that kind of mystical experience.
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
When you are walking along a certain 'path' sometimes suddenly it appears that you are not alone on it, somebody else is walking along 'with you' and looking for the same things. Meetings like these are highly improbable.
When I meet somebody at a certain point on my 'path' I always discover that we've got so many common 'roots' that have lead us to the same point. For example, for both of us an important question is, how we behave as part of society which conditioned us? That is why we are sensitive to on Lygia Clark work. Such meetings, situations like this make me feel that I'm not alone. It is a nice feeling to be in a community. And I think that it was something that Lygia Clark was creating: a kind of communion with the other.
Maybe it is the most important...
28.06.2009, Toruń
Note:
(1) L.Clark, Mon Fils, a letter of Lygia Clark to her son, written c. 1970', [in:] Lygia Clark, de l’œuvre à l’événement. Nous sommes le moule. A vous de donner le souffle, (ed.) S. Rolnik, C. Diserens, Nantes 2005, p.94. The publication accompanied the exhibition with the same titled which took place in Musée des Beaux-Arts, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, 8 October-31 December 2005, curators: Suely Rolnik i Corinne Diserens.
Proof-read by Ola Hołubowicz01.09.2009
During his stay at CoCA in Toruń (Poland) as part of a residency program in May-June 2009, Romeo Gongora revisited and revised Lygia Clark’s Estruturação do Self (Structuring the Self) work by doing a series of experimental actions for which he used tactics of appropriation, derivation, and reinterpretation. Also when dealing with the local context of Toruń, he thus produced in-situ objects, and inhabitants of the city were involved in his 'therapy' sessions. The interview took place in CoCA on 29 June, 2009.
Why are you interested in the work of Lygia Clark?
I've always worked with people in my projects. However, working with a group is very rare to me – in my previous videos and performances, I usually cooperated only with one person , which made the connection between us very strong, intense. I found out that this kind of relation with people is quite similar to what Lygia Clark was doing during the last period of her work, in her therapies. Despite some differences between hers and my previous works, this kind of relation is always very intimate, and the core of my project is also based on empathy, on genuine emotions. And then I started to read what she wrote about her ideas. I felt that it could be interesting to be in a close connection with that. It turned out that I could learn a lot from her. To me the project I have made here is also a way to gain a kind of knowledge from her.
So, it means that you treat her like a teacher in a sense...
Like a mother... I think. At the end of the book we have talked about before there is a text, a letter she wrote to her son(1). She wrote there how he should treat life. And I feel that this project I have done here became a kind of her letter to me. Lygia Clark's position on art was really radical. I've learned a lot from her how I should treat art, art production. The primary goal is not to make artworks for sale but to create meaningful objects.
Yes, she was very radical, especially in the last, therapeutic period started in the late 70s. Nonetheless, it seems that all her artistic way from the very beginning led her to this point. It was also a kind of process. And you, what did you do here, in Toruń?
Actually, the project consists of two parts. During my first stay I created some objects inspired by Lygia Clark's relational object but also responding to the context of Toruń, functioned for me as a kind of metaphor of this place. Those objects were very simple: tennis and ping-pong balls, restaurant napkins, plastic bags, empty yogurt container and empty juice glass from the grocery store, textile gloves and sheets from a local textile store, etc. Some of the objects were also ones that I had found, for example, stones, a tree twig, elastics or a plastic pipe. I found them during my walks, on my way back from the local restaurants or stores to the Centre. Those in-situ objects had their own history independent of my control or will, they enriched the sessions by their past 'experience', adding new meanings to my actions. The second part involved a series of 'therapies' with participation of local people and with the use of the objects which I had made previously. Thus, the whole project was in a way a response to my first experience of Poland, how I open myself to this new context and, of course, it was inspired by Lygia Clark's Structuring the self – relational objects. In the beginning it was mainly the contact with the power of her work, her thoughts, then – my feedback on it, my own reflection about the process of creation. So I did here some 'therapy' meetings with local people based on Lygia Clark's therapies from the last period of her life and work. During those sessions she used some special objects which she called 'relational objects' and she interacted with them on patients' bodies. It was a way to come into a very intimate contact with the people. The sensual contact which could also be considered erotic in a way. I found this activity so extreme that I felt the need to try to put it into practice in order to see if I was able to do such extreme things, and to see what would happen... Where is this extreme experience going to take me, an independent artist? It was also a question to what degree I could involve in this project based on the work of another artist? And I would rather not call it reenactment. The idea was to work with the therapies of Lygia Clark and do it in the context of Poland. So I came to Toruń...
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, dokumentacja fotograficzna, Toruń 2009
Why Poland?
Well, one pragmatic reason was, of course, that I met the curators from CoCA in Toruń and they invited me here. It was a kind of site-specific work, so the place dominated the project during the production process. For example, the fact that Poland has a tradition of radical art and radical artists strongly influenced the work. I learned more about artists like Grotowski who did extreme work with people. He interacted with them, maybe not with the same purpose as Lygia Clark but he also tried to reveal the truth about people, about life and its meaning So I found Poland an interesting place to do it.
Tell me some more about working with people. How did you find them here and what exactly happened?
The participants found out about the project mainly from a newspaper advertisement. I wanted to work with people without any previous connection with art, any such experiences and without any anticipation. I thought that they could be more open to what would happen. And also – if somebody replies to such advertisements it means that this is probably somebody who is really interested in it. There is nothing that forces this person to do it. So, it was one way how we recruited participants. Another was the personal network, we informed people who could be interested. First, the participants were given some general information about the project and then I met with them in order to conduct the 'therapies'. It was a really radical start, especially that I don't speak Polish and some of them spoke almost no English. So, I couldn't even explain what exactly was going to happen. There were 8 people. Those people started only with the knowledge that it was a kind of 'massage' with objects. They didn't know that it was related to Lygia Clark, they even didn't know who she was.
Did they know that you are an artist?
Yes, they knew it. They got a short description of my project from the CoCA. The language barrier was, indeed, a very interesting factor, because it forced us to establish a very physical contact. Although some of them could speak English, I found out that the language always became a kind of an invisible barrier, because people were trying to rationalize what was happening, and then they stopped feeling. It was really fascinating to observe the difference in reactions between the people who spoke English and those who couldn't talk with me at all. How they opened themselves up to the project. So, I met them, every person individually three times, and just started to interact with them availing myself of the objects. And every time it was more and more intimate. I kept a diary and I wrote some notes after every meeting: how they responded, what objects I used, what I should do the next time.
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, dokumentacja fotograficzna, Toruń 2009
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, dokumentacja fotograficzna, Toruń 2009
So, there was progress during the therapy.
Yes (laughter). And I was trying to change my way of interaction if I felt that a particular participant didn't respond in the way I had expected. I was trying to be flexible. Flexibility is something which is, indeed ,present in the work of Lygia Clark. It is a kind of 'organic' logic when you try to be quite open and to be able to 'follow the flow'. So, I met those people three times for 'therapy' sessions and then they were asked to answer a set of questions to give me feedback on what had happened. And the end of the work was a presentation of the project in the CoCA in Toruń, the complementary and a significant part of it.
We have been talking mostly about the people in your project but now I would like to ask you about the objects. Lygia Clark, like it has previously been mentioned, was very radical and at one juncture of her career, of her artistic 'evolution' she decided not to produce the objects although she used them as tools in her therapies. You, like Lygia Clark, worked with people and you also produced certain objects. Tell me more about them. Do you consider these artworks or not? How do you treat them?
I'm an artist who produces artworks. And I think that the work of Lygia Clark is of particular interest to me, because of this tendency to resign form the production of items. Something very similar happened in my previous artworks. For example, in the project realized in jail, Forgiveness, during the meetings with prisoners many things happened and there were no objects to represent them.
No objects to hide behind them.
I have a feeling that in my previous works there was also something similar to her ideas. To her, artwork production wasn't the primary goal. When I started making the objects here I didn't intend to create artworks. Also I didn't do this whole project to make an exhibition. In the very beginning when I presented my idea to the curators from the Centre I told them that I didn't want to have an exhibition. I think that the presentation is a more appropriate format.
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
But you brought these objects to your presentation and displayed them to the audience.
Yes, but I showed them not as an art exhibition, but as a kind of evidence of what had happened. I presented there the photo documentation, and the objects were also a kind of documentation. I simply wanted to get people close to what happened here.
But documentation can also be an artwork, it can be shown, it can be sold...
To me, it was one of the problems when I was preparing this presentation. I was aware of it. How to show the photos only to present some events without any artistic quality? What helped me, I think, was the text I had written which accompanied the photos during the presentation. But, returning to your question about the objects, the process of their production was really a fascinating experience. However, my goal wasn't to turn them into exhibits, I was trying to create something of aesthetic quality and practical at the same time, I would like to emphasize once more that, to me, these objects have no artistic value but only a documentary one. They are not the core of the project.
Lygia Clark didn't treat her relational objects as artworks either, but some of them are now in art collections.
I think this is another question. It is more about recuperation of artworks by the system. Lygia Clark wanted to use objects only as tools in her therapies. To me, working with people in this way was like making a sculpture, a living sculpture. And these objects were only tools to implement it. If you are making a sculpture from wood, wood is not art, it is only a material. To me, the objects are like a material and also a kind of documentation. And actually, it was a very strange feeling when during these meetings with people I didn't know where was the work of art... or if there really was any artwork.
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
When I first saw your photographs taken during the sessions – the documentation like you said – I thought that these were very beautiful compositions. People lie covered with strange colorful objects. So I was under the impression that you had, in fact, derived aesthetic pleasure when you were creating them.
Taking pictures during those meetings was a very difficult decision to me. First, I was thinking about recording with a video camera, I also took sound recording under consideration, and in the end I decided to take photos, because in my opinion the presence of a photo camera would be less conspicuous, and thus, interfere less with my relation with the participant, and lie more within the tradition of art documentation. If I had recorded it using a video camera it would have been video art. The aesthetic quality of the photos wasn't my primary goal. I put the camera in one place in the room and the photos were taken automatically by means of a special program. There are also pictures from Lygia Clark therapy sessions, somebody took them, so there was somebody else in the room besides her and her patient. I was alone with one of the participants and the photos were taken more or less every 5 or 10 minutes.
So you didn't choose the moments at which the shots were snapped.
No. I chose only the position which gave the broadest view to record what was happening in the room, and then I left the camera on its own. So I cannot say more than that the camera was taking the photos and if it makes nice compositions it is maybe because what was happening there was quite beautiful.
During the sessions I didn't know who the viewer was. The participants couldn't see anything, they were blindfolded. They had only a sense of touch and hearing. Who was the viewer, if it was me who could see everything, all that was happening?
It is very meaningful that when you are talking about the audience you call them viewers. We go to the museum, to the gallery to see art. Not to touch, not to smell, sometimes to hear, but mostly to see. Lygia Clark tried to extend our perception, to open it to all senses. So maybe it is not so obvious that they weren't the audience only because they couldn't see what was happening?
But I really don't know if they were the audience. To me, they were sometimes tools I used to create a sculpture. Sometimes I feel that these people weren't the audience any more, they were part of the project. There was a kind of confusion in this project. The idea of confusion is quite important in my work, I'm not an artist who produces clear statements or clear objects. The potential of the confusion is powerful. Confusion means that you cannot give names easily and then you cannot categorize things. The moment you start doing it, you will not see anything any longer. In Clark's work there is a lot of confusion. You don't know if these therapies are artworks or not...
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
Lygia Clark was talking openly about the crises in her career. She confessed a few times that she didn't believe in art any more and asked herself what art actually was. At the end of her life and artistic career she conceived of the idea that she would not produce art objects, things. I think that she opened up to changes and she let the energy flow. This kind of lifestyle is not so easy, could even be a bit scary to most people.
She was really honest in what she did and she wrote, explained her ideas in a very sincere way. Honesty is, to me, one of the most key elements of her work. In Lygia's correspondence with friends, other artists you can find sentences like 'I'm lost'. It is not so easy to tell people that you are not sure what you are doing.
Right. We don't usually like this mood of hesitation and feeling lost when you don't know what to do, what is exactly happening. It is really a very strange state, but I believe that this is part of the process , and in the end something new can emerge from this chaos. I think this is quite a natural element of development, of creation. It is amazing that we admit to it so rarely.
This is something quite extreme again. I think people are afraid of failing to be successful. Moments like these, the moments of hesitation and uncertainty show us that we are not perfect. The idea of the perfection is very interesting in the context of Lygia Clark. She was not interested in the creation of perfect objects, she was not looking for a perfect therapy method. But she was looking for something genuine, really profoundly meaningful. And the quest for truth is a kind of perfection. In the letter she wrote to her son she explained to him that there would be some moments when he would feel lost and he should not try to avoid the emotions accompanying them. She wrote to him that being lost is a demonstration that you are coming closer and closer to something important. Then you have to follow it, face it. It takes you somewhere deeper. It is incredible that a mother writes things like that to her son. This is particularly powerful because mothers usually want to protect their children and make them utterly happy. She recommended a more difficult way of life. It is a vocal statement and this is something that I would like to take from her and use in my work, as an artist. I don't like easy things.
Yes. I'm also interested in difficult things (laughter). But I noticed that we are talking mostly about life, not so much about art. However, you are convinced that Lygia Clark was an artist and things she did were art.
Yes, I'm convinced. But it doesn't mean that it was not connected with life. In my opinion, in her work there was something that was going much further beyond the therapies. The idea of a poetic aspect of life. How to touch this dimension? And I think that this is the way to make our life also a kind of artwork: to have this poetic perspective.
To create life, not only to receive passively what it brings.
In French there is a notion 'état poétique', the poetic state. It is present in her therapies. She made those interactions with the objects, but the main goal was to bring people to this poetic state, to this poetic dimension. To make them able to respond to life in a fresh way. This is not only a concept of art, this is also her concept of life, it is connected with life. But I found in the work of Lygia Clark this poetic dimension which I'm looking for in art.
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
You told me previously that you are interested in the theatrical aspect of her work.
Yes. When I was working with the people, with the 'living sculptures, sometimes' I felt that I was not only a performer who was playing with objects but also an actor who was acting in front of the audience,that is, the participants. So, if I was acting like an actor, it means that I was doing a kind of the theater. It takes me to the concept of the theater developed by Grotowski who was also trying to break down the borders between the actors and the public. What happened during these meetings here was also a way to blur these barriers. And currently I'm also doing a work connected with the theater. I read a lot about the ideas of theater directors and it influenced me also somehow during these sessions. So yes, in this work there is a strong relation with the theater.
Lygia Clark started to work with a group of people in Paris where she taught in the late 60s and in the early 70s. At that time we could observe something like an international movement with a very similar activity, pursuits for example in the theater, in the dance.
Yes. Here, in Poland you had Grotowski, in Brazil there was Augusto Boal. There was a group of people involved in the theater at that time all around the world. And you can find this influence in the work of Lygia Clark. This is also one of the most absorbing parts of her project, the context of the times in which she created present in her works. This is not only the influence of the theater but also other disciplines, like social science. You can find there a lot of ideas of deconstruction.
And also this climate of openness so characteristic of that time.
Yes. Roland Barthes, Lacan, Deleuze...
...Foucault who we were talking about this morning when we were passing by the panoptic prison...
I think it wouldn't be going too far to mention that because she was there, she was in Paris those days, from about 1968 to 1976 among these people, she was considerably influenced by them. She started conducting the therapies on her return to Rio de Janeiro. And Bataille – Lygia must have been influenced by his texts, his way of thinking that stipulates the interrelation of the poetic state of life and eroticism. Bataille, René Girard, Roger Caillois – these thinkers were interested in the concepts related to rituals. And Lygia Clark came to Paris from Brazil where a lot of indigenous people were to be found, who were familiar with the practical dimension of the ideas of black magic, sacrifice, mystical experience, which was considered desirable by such thinkers as Bataille. She originated in there. The concept of anthropophagy in her work was derived from a Brazilian art movement Tropicalismo which she was involved in for a period in her career. It is about just that! Her work had a strong connection with that kind of mystical experience.
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
Romeo Gongora, I'm the Other, photo documentation, Toruń 2009
When you are walking along a certain 'path' sometimes suddenly it appears that you are not alone on it, somebody else is walking along 'with you' and looking for the same things. Meetings like these are highly improbable.
When I meet somebody at a certain point on my 'path' I always discover that we've got so many common 'roots' that have lead us to the same point. For example, for both of us an important question is, how we behave as part of society which conditioned us? That is why we are sensitive to on Lygia Clark work. Such meetings, situations like this make me feel that I'm not alone. It is a nice feeling to be in a community. And I think that it was something that Lygia Clark was creating: a kind of communion with the other.
Maybe it is the most important...
28.06.2009, Toruń
Note:
(1) L.Clark, Mon Fils, a letter of Lygia Clark to her son, written c. 1970', [in:] Lygia Clark, de l’œuvre à l’événement. Nous sommes le moule. A vous de donner le souffle, (ed.) S. Rolnik, C. Diserens, Nantes 2005, p.94. The publication accompanied the exhibition with the same titled which took place in Musée des Beaux-Arts, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, 8 October-31 December 2005, curators: Suely Rolnik i Corinne Diserens.
Photographs by courtesy of the artist
