Interview with artists of fatpapas collective taken by Michael Corbin before the December exhibition in Tel-Aviv.
Why did you become an artist?
MS: I could not see any better field worth of my effort.
AV: For me it is the most natural way of life.
AK: I was born an artist - I had no choice.
AO: Did not find a better occupation.
Do you paint everyday?
MS: I'm not, but I would like to.
AV: I try to paint and eat everyday.
AK: Rather everynight.
AO: No.
Who do you think was the most important artist of the 20th Century?
MS: I think it was a long century for art, and its development during this period was more significant than works of any individual artist. In a way, all the 20th century artists positioned their art on the fundament of immediate predecessors - that is to say they were just team-players in the art history game and could be hardly judged out of context.
AV: My teacher Michael Vakarchuk. And probably a few others - don't want to offend anybody.
AK: Kuingy, Magritte, Renoir, Chontvary and my father.
AO: Malevich.
Is painting dead?
MS: I see it not as dead, but as captured in the post-post-modernism realm. To make a truthful painting today one has to put aside too many established concepts of the art-world. I think painting will be reborn and the way to it would lead via breaking the continuity of tradition, or, perhaps via private detachment from the current art trends. It may not be that hard to achieve, considering overall devaluation of such trends.
AV: No it is not dead. Just its perception changes. The perception of painting dies and gets reborn all the time, in a cycle of one generation. Now it is a birth cycle of the new/old painting.
AK: It is not dead but in a deep coma.
AO: Yes.
What is your exhibition about?
MS: It is about seeking for art that I can call MY art.
AV: My previous exhibition opened 15 years ago around these dates of December. So you may call it a "regular" exhibition.
AK: What any exhibition is about? It is about exhibiting.
AO: About nothing.
I think art made by Russian artists is very beautiful and deep and rich. Why is that?
MS: I can't completely agree with the statement. I know many Russian artists whose art does not fit this criteria. But talking of the art that does fit it... I would guess that it comes from under-developed art market in Russia - at list it was so for my generation. This situation turned art in Russia to more of a self-realization hobby rathe than business.
AV: Because of the great old tradition (beginning with Andrei Rublev). Yet, I think the deepness and beautifulness of Russian art is partly a myth - French or Italian art is not at all inferior.
AK: Because artists in Russia have never gone with a mainstream but always against it.
AO: I do not think so.
Why don't you move to New York City to be an artist? I think you should come to America.
MS: In my personal 'to-do' list moving to a different place (New York City for example) gets pretty low priority. I may do it one day though.
AV: The moment a bikeway from Tel-Aviv to Manhattan gets built - I'm taking a ride.
AK: If I had visa, tickets an a free studio in New York City - I'd come at once.
AO: I don't want to move to US - I do want to move to Canada.
Would you like to become famous?
MS: I would like of course - it comes together with many useful bonuses.
AV: I'm famous already. I think that at my age (42) more people saw my works than the works of Rembrandt or Cezanne at their 42.
AK: Yep.
AO: Yes
Can artists today make a good living in Israel? Artist life is so hard.
MS: Very few sincere artists managed to get a good living in Israel. And even they (as far as I can say) had to go for a certain compromises in their art. The way which I do not consider for myself to be an option.
AV: Thanks to the Internet, artist can make living even in Antarctica. My works for example were bought in Dubay, while there is no even postal communication between United Arab Emirates and Israel.
AK: Can, if art for him/her not a career but a hobby.
AO: Yes.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — posted by matvey on December 09, 2005