Interact

The Question You Have All Asked - PART 4

19.10.2011

This month, much to my displeasure, only one of the Circle Agents was able to take the trip down to the medieval town of Kilkenny. So I asked Siobhan how it went. Her answer went a little like this, “It was really good. [We] got to meet Lucy McKenna in her residency at the Arts Office, Ian Burns at the Butler Gallery, and we went to the National Craft Gallery in a town known worldwide for it goldsmith-ing.”
I wanted more.
Gianina: Does it have a castle?
Siobhan: Of course. with a river right by it, so cute.
Gianina: Is it green there?
Siobhan: Of course. Dude. It’s Ireland.
Make what you will of our conversations, everyone that went on the trip really seemed to enjoy it and we’ve had some lovely emails in return.

Another event that generated a great deal of success was the tour of Mason, Hayes, and Curran’s contemporary art collection. Mason, Hayes, Curran is a law firm that has been collecting contemporary art as a means of increasing their social consciousness for many years. Their collection is vast and plays a significant roles in lives of the people who work there. Although art may not be their primary interest they are confronted with beautiful and at times rather difficult notions almost at every turn. Keep your eyes out for Colman and Declan they’ve grown to be known faces in the gallery circuit around these parts.

So while Siobhan was in Kilkenny, I had the opportunity to take a few people over to visit the studios of IMMA’s resident artists. All of the artists are lovely but I was particularly captivated by the work of Vittorio Santoro.

Vittorio’s work is work that takes time. Knowing that, you’ll probably understand why it intrigued me, considering my love of slow-paced, nearly invisible work. I’ll tell you a little bit about Vittorio and his practice but I won’t tell you everything he said on Saturday in his studio as it’s best heard from the man himself.  Vittorio was not trained as an artist in the way that he did not attend art school. His father didn’t think it was a real profession so instead he studied economics at university and spent many hours reading and learning about art by himself in the library. He said, “Many of the artists became my mentors although I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me.” After some time of getting to know these artist’s works he made a list of people whom he would like to meet in order to ask them questions and discuss their art considering that at that time he had no work of his own to discuss. He spent many years getting closer to his mentors and in the end he was able to meet most of them. That doesn’t say much about his work its self, but its a small example of how, in my view, Vittorio’s time-based works on paper are so closely related to the way in which he carries his practice and leads his life.

Gianina Jimenez Barrantes

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