{"id":579,"date":"2011-05-27T06:03:28","date_gmt":"2011-05-27T06:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/?page_id=579"},"modified":"2012-01-30T11:40:04","modified_gmt":"2012-01-30T11:40:04","slug":"vanessa-paschakarnis","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/art\/vanessa-paschakarnis\/","title":{"rendered":"Vanessa Paschakarnis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Unbearable Lightness of Being<\/strong><\/h1>\n
Patrick Iberi in conversation with Vanessa Paschakarnis<\/em><\/h6>\n

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Patrick Iberi: <\/strong>I\u2019m glad you found time for this exchange Vanessa. Let\u2019s start with your latest showing –Beasts and Burdens<\/em>. This exhibition was hosted by Galerie Samuel Lallouz<\/em> and a paragraph of the media release by Andria Minicucci examines the dichotomy between physical and metaphorical weight of your sculptures; can you please add some flesh to this?<\/p>\n

Vanessa Paschakarnis:<\/strong> Minicucci writes about \u201creconciling the dichotomy between physical weight (beasts) and metaphorical weight (burdens).\u201d And your question somehow goes right to the core of what making sculpture is for me. The same paragraph espouses my \u201cexploration of the human condition\u201d. I am trying to get at something very deep and very basic by confronting you with these sculptures that first engage you physically and then hopefully envelope you in a larger exploration that leads you to consider the metaphorical depth of meaning behind the work. In this case I am talking about the relationship of us (humans) to our inner beast, as well as to what we may consider beasts (animals) and to whom we as humans are and have been connected for a very long time in a reciprocal relationship. Sculpture for me allows for an experience and in this exhibition I tried to confront the viewer with some serious issues – \u201cweight\u201d if you want – that reflects on our being in the world. Physically this ended up as an exhibition with large sculptures that you encountered on various levels in regard to your body upon entering the space. This relationship of the viewer to the sculpture \u2013 the thing \u2013 on a phenomenological level is a main concern when installing an exhibition that is meant to work as an entity rather then a collection of individual works. In \u201cBeasts and Burdens\u201d I felt this was successful. This is the interesting and exciting part of having solo exhibitions \u2013 especially, when the individual works were originally not conceived as a coherent body of work and then open up a new thread of concerns and experiences in relation to each other.<\/strong><\/p>\n

P.I.: <\/strong>Is there an objectified component to your work that goes beyond the corporeal intent from yourself as the creator? How accessible is this to the viewer?<\/p>\n

V.P.:<\/strong> For the first part of your question \u2013 I think there is. I am working with images that seem to be familiar, but rest unknown. You can\u2019t really define what they are and that for me is a calling to explore beyond what you call \u201cthe corporeal intent\u201d. My sculptures are very specifically and consciously \u201cmade\u201d. I never work without a Marquette. So I assume that the viewer takes this into consideration \u2013 that the sculpture, that I literally confront them with, is made for a reason. People often don\u2019t know how to look at sculpture. They think that if they don\u2019t recognize it right away, if it doesn\u2019t \u201ctalk\u201d to them, they don\u2019t get it, don\u2019t understand it and that makes them not only disinterested, but somewhat nervous. This, of course is disappointing to me because it is where the encounter starts for me, where the engagement should begin. If an object looks like something that I think I should know but I don\u2019t, then this hopefully makes me look a little closer and question it. This is for me the basis for an active experience as opposed to a passive reception: \u201cOh, I know what that is!\u201d Every detail of my sculptures are important, as well, as the way they are placed in a room, because, as a sculpture, they do not belong, they are placed there to be considered. So you really have to ask the second part of your question to a viewer, not me. I try not to second-guess a viewer. That, for me, is a dangerous game. I propose to be honest and engaged and trust that the viewers are, too. I use certain \u201ctools\u201d to engage the viewer, in the language of sculpture and then hope that they get inquisitive. There is no pre-conceived answer to my work.<\/p>\n

P.I.: <\/strong>The use of space is very often the basis for sculptors to incubate their moulds within themselves before anything else. Is there a limit to the size and scope of future projects? Also do you think your art addresses the continuum of space sufficiently?<\/p>\n

V.P.:<\/strong> That is really not the way I deal with space. I don\u2019t see my sculptures as existing outside of real space and in an idealized and separated space. All my forms and shapes are made to be in a relationship to and with the human body. This is even the scale that I use in regard to the drawings. I am not so much interested in the picture plane as an illusionary plane, but what interests me is what the marks and pencil lines and the scale of a shape do to a viewer in a more physical way. I think that is what people consider a sculptor\u2019s approach to drawing; it is either maps in a relative scale, or a one to one consideration of the object in space. That said, the scope and size that I am really interested in, regarding my sculpture, works on the human level. Literally scaled to a humans reach, or just beyond in order to correspond to a body, torso, legs, arms, and the head. I often talk about wanting my viewers to \u201clook with their knees and feel with their eyes\u201d. For me that is right now a \u201climit\u201d that I chose. Of course it does not feel like a limit, as this is a pretty wide spectrum.<\/p>\n

I am very interested in the idea of a continuum of space; which is why, to the surprise of some people, one of my main influences for my work and thinking about sculpture, are and have always been the Minimalists. One very important exhibition in that regard is for me \u201cFore<\/em>shadowing\u201d from 2006. Here I am placing five amorphous forms, five shadows, in a space. The viewer becomes an object among objects, one among many. He or she has to move through a field of these sculptures. The sculptural space is the real space, these things are made in order to put the viewer in the same environment with them, share the room with you. A work like that needs a specific space. Here, it is flooded with daylight, but you can\u2019t see out, you are immersed in the experience. This, for me, is a very exciting way of exhibiting sculpture and I was able to realize a number of exhibitions that work on that level, e.g., (Installation in a water basin,1997; New works, 1998; Ten black forms, <\/em>2000) to name a few.<\/p>\n

P.I.: <\/strong>The physicality of your work especially the horned being<\/em> pieces brings the naturalistic element of your sculptures to my attention. What is the idea behind this?<\/p>\n

V.P.:<\/strong> I am not quite sure what you mean with \u201cnaturalistic\u201d in this case. This is curious. Do you refer to them as looking like natural objects or found things? Or \u2013 naturalistic as in \u2013 they look like certain animals? This is in some way already the answer to your question. I am making these Horned Beings to look like something they are not, but because of that, you engage with them in a very physical way. You try and find in them the images of a particular animal (as in the titles suggested) \u2013 that really is not there. Upon closer examination you realize that these beings look like very many other things: the horns are like arms, legs, snakes, goose heads\u2026 the heads are like shells, or rocks, or bone, or skin,\u2026 you can\u2019t define them as a specific animal.<\/p>\n

After all, they are heads without a body. The pedestal is a placeholder that gives them a confrontational scale, a body. The surface is textured and scarred. It looks \u201cused\u201d and partially scraped and beaten, but overall smooth from a distance. All these are physical clues that hopefully make you question your relationship to this sculpture as a thing and the thing as conceptual other.<\/p>\n

P.I.: <\/strong>Some of your sculptures like Shadows of Domestication, Shield for a Human, Blue Bells<\/em>, and a few others could pass for relics from centuries ago. Do you set out to replicate the same starkness as seen with antique objects in your work?<\/p>\n

V.P.:<\/strong> No, I don\u2019t. I am not at all interested in the \u201clook\u201d of my works when I start out making them. This may sound odd, but for me there is a difference between how a three-dimensional form makes sense to me as a form \u2013 as opposed to how it appears. There is the dichotomy again, that I am trying to reconcile. I try to get the form and its appearance to merge. Practically that means that I am interested in a \u201cnature\u201d of form. I am not interested in the surface details so much, adornments, anything that makes it timely or specific. I am interested in a timelessness<\/em>. So to your question, and that is something that I have not really thought about before, all these extra elements would be what gets lost on a relic from centuries ago (or a fossil for that matter). A piece that has survived long times usually would be worn off and then reveal the basic shape, the \u201cnature\u201d of form, that I usually seek to find in a natural object that I look at to start my work. I do work with surfaces that show a lot of traces, but these are not traces that are put on later in order to get at a certain look. They are the literal traces and scars and the marks of the tools that I use; they happen when I make something. Most sculptors would continue and take all of these marks out. But I stop before and reveal them. In a way, I am trying to reveal in an object, in a sculpture, the history of its own making. It is essential for me that you, the viewer look at my work and know this has been made. It is not found, even if it may appear that way. I want you to start thinking about what that means conceptually for the particular object. I am not very romantic about the process of working. As for stone, I usually have it cut to a cube in specific dimensions. In plaster, I work with an armature that is very close to what the final form will be. I don\u2019t believe in this myth, that the material talks to you and tells you what is buried inside. That is my job. I shape the material until it is right. And then I step aside and hopefully the work takes on a life of its own. I know when a sculpture is finished when I can look at it as an object that can engage me in an experience and it does not matter to me any more if I made it or not.<\/p>\n

P.I.: <\/strong>Though not a dangerous activity as imagined but stone-carving and most of the concrete materials you work with could present a health and safety issue in the studio. How do you deal with this hazard?<\/p>\n

V.P.:<\/strong> I am a professional. I studied what I do for many years and I have been doing it now for many years. You use common safety precautions for everything you do. I don\u2019t think I am exposed to any extreme hazards. In a working environment you have to use a lot of common sense and you have to know what you are doing, then you will be safe.<\/p>\n

P.I.: <\/strong>In his essay Eleven Theses on Sculpture<\/em> published in 1997 in the Journal: Art & Design, John Letche writes about the sculptural moment to include not just a visual experience but also a tactile one. He goes on to describe this \u201cas a moment that evokes touch as much as it entails the real touch\u201d. Do you think this is a grandiose statement aimed at situating sculpture as an artform beyond its realm of experience?<\/p>\n

V.P.:<\/strong> Unfortunately I am not familiar with this essay but I am not sure if one could consider this a \u201cgrandiose\u201d statement. I certainly think that sculpture- good sculpture, for me, does exactly that, it opens up a meaningful encounter; something that lasts after you experienced it and changes your life. I think it is more than breaking an experience into a visual and tactile component, because for me, the word \u201cexperience\u201d connected to art has to be used very specific. An experience for me is an encounter on a phenomenological level and it opens up a real quest and I agree that it touches a viewer in a \u201creal\u201d way. I use the word \u201cexperience\u201d a lot in regard to the viewing of sculpture. It is for me opposed to the engagement with art on the level of \u201cinformation\u201d. This way of engaging with an art object is for me a way of distinguishing what I would call \u201csculpture\u201d from the \u201csculptural\u201d or \u201cinstallation\u201d. Installation works on the level of information. You look \u201cat\u201d something. You understand it and receive information, but the engagement is not a real \u201cexperience\u201d. This is of course very specific terminology, but I think it is necessary, because it seems that people in general are not very clear about how to look at three-dimensional work. Sculpture can add to your life in a very different way than other artworks do. That is not a question of better or worse; it is just a different way of engaging with art and living with it.<\/p>\n

P.I: <\/strong>Is it normal practice to go back to refine an already finished piece? When is a work of art ready <\/em>for showing?<\/p>\n

V.P.:<\/strong> No, not for me. I am a person that really does not go back to refinish a piece (unless there is some damage and you have to repair it). My works may look very amorphous and thus open-ended if you just briefly look at them, but they are not. They are very specific and worked very close to a model. So there is usually a very definite moment when a work is done. At that point then you step aside and it feels right. You know, when the surface does, what you want it to do.<\/p>\n

P.I.: <\/strong>How does the internal structure of your work affect the shape of the surface? Do you work with ready-made casts? Kindly let us into the conception and make-up of some of your sculptures?<\/p>\n

V.P.:<\/strong> That is a very interesting question, because a lot of my work feels like there is an internal structure and I of course use that very consciously in order to direct the way you engage with it; but, when I really think about it, there is no internal structure \u2013 physically – to my work. That might sound surprising. Stone is solid. Bronze is a skin. My plasters are only skins. I developed a working method that allows me to make large forms that are actually only skins. The question of skins touches the second part of your question. But I want to be precise and will dissect your term here in order to explain my approach. There is a \u201cready-made\u201d and then there are casts. I work with models and maquettes, (usually very small objects), but I don\u2019t make casts from found objects. I do make moulds of my own works, because I like using the \u201cskins\u201d of them to develop new shapes. So that is probably what you are referring to. I have been experimenting with that and for example my \u201cbells\u201d and \u201cshadows for bells\u201d are all a direct result of this working method. They are, literally, a cast of the surface of a different sculpture that I used in order to form new objects.<\/p>\n

P.I.: <\/strong>Given the three dimensional property of a piece of sculpture, is it important to contrast the view exhibited in different dimensions with that of the preferred perspective and angle?<\/p>\n

V.P.:<\/strong> No. And I am saying that so firmly, because I get often asked about the relationship between my drawings and my sculpture and it is important to me to understand that they are two different activities. I don\u2019t think that you understand the sculpture better if I show drawings and sculpture in vicinity to each other. It may even be more confusing, but I like the dynamic between the two, especially, because my drawings are very physical and appear often to be very three-dimensional because of their scale and the surface qualities. They don\u2019t work with a picture plane in that sense, but show objects on a plane, there is no illusion. My drawings are not illustrations of or for my sculptures; they are more of an investigation of the same idea in a different medium. They work as separate entities. I think that a lot of people nowadays don\u2019t really know how to look at a sculpture, because they are so conditioned from Computers and TV\u2019s to understand things as images. They seek to recognize things, they look for the information, but miss out on the experience, just because they think they should understand first what they are looking at.<\/p>\n

I noticed too, that because of that reason a lot of people could not imagine living with a sculpture in their home.<\/p>\n

P.I.: <\/strong>In your response to an earlier question, you explained that the peculiarity of your horned pieces lie in the physical clues all over the work and this questions \u201cthe relationship to the sculpture as a thing and the thing as conceptual other.\u201d Is there a depth to this relationship?<\/p>\n

V.P.:<\/strong> I certainly hope that there is a depth in this relationship. I am trying to touch some deep, hidden parts of a person\u2019s being, a seriousness that matters. To \u201cunderstand a sculpture as a thing that is a conceptual other\u201d, means for me, that you have to engage in a profound way with the kind of language that I am proposing to you as an engagement in a physical way. Since the beginning of my adult life I have been deeply involved in existentialist writing and thinking. It forms a ground for my work in many ways. I try to investigate the idea of being here by avoiding definite propositions. I would like to link with a person\u2019s own experience without wanting or needing to know what that is. I am not trying to give you answers or quick solutions. Unfortunately in today\u2019s world people are trained to respond through what I am trying to avoid in my work. A consumers mind is often scared to open up to the unknown and the unpredictable, to something different. So, I think looking for depth is probably not in fashion. But that may change, too. I like to use the analogy of food when I describe this search for depth and \u201ctaste\u201d: When you think of canteen food, you probably won\u2019t remember it. It is shallow, because someone is trying to feed the masses. In order to do this, they have to take the spices out. Everybody eats it, but nobody thinks about it, or feels it anywhere deep down. When you add the spices, you have to become very specific and you will not reach the masses, but there will be a few people that really love it \u2013 or hate it. For them you have created a meal that they may never forget and it may change their eating habits forever.<\/p>\n

P.I.: <\/strong>Are you still keeping busy? You had your latest exhibition not too long ago. Are there any future plans you want to share?<\/p>\n

V.P.:<\/strong> I have an opening in early June as one of two artists contributing an artwork to a sculpture park in Italy: La Serpara, just North of Rome. The piece is a new work of this year: \u201cCavallo\u201d \u2013 and leads into a new body of work that I am preparing for a solo show in October 2011 with the title \u201cTight Rein\u201d at Studio 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.<\/p>\n

I am participating in an important group exhibition: Sculpture Today: New Forces, New Forms, opening in September 2011 at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan USA. Also, there will be a new catalogue this year of my large scale works with the title \u201cPhysical Encounters\u201d. A young art historian from Montreal, Andria Minicucci, will write the text for it. So I am pretty excited about a busy year.<\/p>\n

P.I.: <\/strong>Thank you for your time and painstaking response to my questions Vanessa.<\/p>\n

V.P.: <\/strong>Thank you very much for the opportunity Patrick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Patrick Iberi in conversation with Vanessa Paschakarnis   Patrick Iberi: I\u2019m glad you found time for this exchange Vanessa. Let\u2019s start with your latest showing –Beasts and Burdens. This exhibition was hosted by Galerie Samuel Lallouz and a paragraph of the media release by Andria Minicucci examines the dichotomy between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":154,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"authorpage.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-579","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":876,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/579\/revisions\/876"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}