Louis Salkind

Louis Salkind. IM INTERVIEW. IN|DEEDS.

Two sentences concerning your curriculum vitae.

I’ve had  a quite uncommon course as I started studying Theater, then contemporary Dance and Lyric singing. Painting came later and it offered me the creative independence I was seeking.

What are you thinking about most at the moment; what are you up to right now?

I am creating a series that I named « Floating Presences » which I develop in several acts. I created the first act in Paris, the second one in Barcelona and I have just completed the third one in Berlin. This series is just about to be displayed in a contemporary parisian art gallery. I am considering painting the fourth act fo the series in Tanger.

How did you get to art? Why art?

I had violin lessons when I was four and Art since then, in every aspect and form, has become an absolute necessity. To live without Art seems to me as irrational as living without the Earth – I would feel lost in space.

What makes you happy these days? What frightens you?

I am happy to see bold people contributing at their level at inventing a better world. Conscious people who are laying fertile acts, even the tiniest contribution is worth it. On the contrary, what frightens me and really upsets me is that the personal interest of some people seem to weigh as much as a whole continent. It is totally irrational !

What is typical for your art? Could you please share with us the intention of your art?

My work as a painter is to break taboos. Poetry can express a lot as it fears nothing. And as the image is constitutive of the thought, I try to elaborate an iconography that questions the spectator, that stimulates him, that wakes him up.

How do you protect yourself from too much inspiration these days?

I hardly ever watch TV and I seldom use the internet. Pasolini said « Culture is a resistance to entertainment ». I choose what  intellectual food I want to digest, to me it si a fundamental political act and the basis for any freedom.

How do you assess the current development of the art market?

As any other market it is filled with irrationality and fantasies. It is a reflection of the modern world

Two sentences about your current project.

The series that I am now creating and which is called « Floating Presences » gives me the opportunity to put images on some eternal universal existential questions: hence sexuality, religion, gender, consumption, death, are as many questions that I try to translate with signs and colors.

What are your (next) targets?

I chose some sort of «clinical poetry» to create my fist act, a more «shamanistic esthetic» for the second, a more «regressive atmosphere» for the third one  and for the fourth … it will be a surprise, I don’t even know myself yet, I appreciate not  knowing in advance so as to stay fresh and curious to whatever comes by.

If you would not have become an artist, what would you have become instead?

I don’t really know. Maybe someone completely different but one thing is sure: I would not have been the same person. You are what you do!
How much of your work is planned – how much emerges intuitive?
It’s a mix, a fascinating but fragile balance, between knowing exactly what you want to do and knowing nothing at all. Creating is destroying and building at the same time.

What are your art works about?

I am interested in a lot of things, but above all what interests me the most is what we hide, the taboos. They reflect the best and worst parts of the human being

Do you believe that art has a social responsibility? What do you believe it can cause?

I think that Art, whatever form it takes, is political. Creating is anything but neutral. To create a work of art is, for each one at his level, to take part in the creation of a new world.

In what artists are you interested in?

I am not interested by any artist specifically but by a lot of them whose practices, origins and cultures are different. I like transversality in Art as in anything else. I need poetry to live. I draw it from wherever I can in the Fine Arts : Theater, Literature, Music, Dance …

How does an idea to an artwork occur?

I don’t think there are rules to follow in order to create. The process of creation is a mix of emotions, pulsions and intellect. Some ideas happen to vibrate with these different components and stand out.

How far would you go? Are there taboos?

There is no taboo in Art as the sublimation process gives ugliness beauty and interest. And that is what makes life so interesting.

What are from your point of view the attributes of really good art?

A great work of art changes the view of the onlooker. It modifies him, wakes him up. It whispers to his ears that it is never too late to live. Some artists cross barriers, open new paths.

What does the first hour of your day look like?

I have a daily ritual which provides me with a lot of pleasure: every morning after breakfast and shower I go sit in a Café to read. It has become a necessary oxygen to put in motion my thoughts through the powerful drive of a wonderful author. Each act is political. I am what I do, what I consume. It is through here that we can start to change the world, starting by transforming  the world within us.

Hier geht es zur Webseite des Künstlers

 

Foto: André Remark