It really is not very common for an award like the National Plastic Arts Award to focus on an artist who works, as you say, on the fringes and with a discourse based on the criticism of the establishment. I guess it must have been a surprise, right?
When I say “in the margins” I mean the limits, the boundaries between traditional disciplines, it’s not some damn pompier pose. Surprise yes, of course, because I had no idea that we were in awards season. Although I am aware of having been proposed other times for an award of this nature.
He already commented on it a few days ago in an interview on the occasion of the National: museums are opening up to another type of art that is less accommodating, more, once again, critical. Has your previous formula been exhausted and the sign of the times leads you to the currents, let’s say, alternatives?
The museum is a modern invention, a characteristic product of a modernity that not a few consider exhausted, right? Museums were not going to remain on the sidelines of these conflicts and the challenge, fundamentally, of decolonial, queer and feminist criticism is forcing them, who would have thought it!, to move… A museum, moving! But, well, let’s not get super: take a walk on the weekend for the offer of “the city of museums” and tell me if you see any trace of that heated debate.
An award like the National, a prize for a career, not for a specific work or exhibition, I suppose it will have enough of what I call a rearview effect: it makes one look back, all the way traveled, all the work done. Do you feel proud and comfortable with what you have done so far?
When, a couple of years ago, the exhibition at the Reina [se refiere a ‘Yendo leyendo, dando lugar’, una retrospectiva del Reina Sofía], a classification was made, a proposal for division by blocks, zones, lines, which seemed very interesting to me, above all, because it offered readings that had not occurred to you in those terms. Pride? Mmmm… A feeling similar to satisfaction would rather come from the fortune of having coincided from the beginning with people with whom you have worked, collaborated, doubted, enjoyed, discussed… If there is any success in all this, it is due to that circumstance. Nothing more painful and foolish than the vain man who boasts that he owes nothing to anyone.
And at what creative moment does the award? Do you feel established or, on the contrary, do you seek not to feel established, do you seek to fight with that comfort?
Oh, I always have to admit my low propensity for self-diagnosis. I honestly don’t know. If we talk about economic stability, the settled and well-to-do are a very small minority in this guild: the portraitists of politicians and first ladies, perhaps.
Sorry for the self-quotation… I wrote this the other day: “Depending on whom you ask, López Cuenca will be an update of the outdated Marxist with a tendency to intemperate growl or, on the other hand, an intellectual with a clear gaze, who knew how to anticipate many of the social and cultural problems that disturb our days. Perhaps it has something of both”. How does López Cuenca see López Cuenca?
Again it catches me blank. I have to work more on self-diagnosis.
I titled the piece “The man who looks sternly at the bottom of things.” Does he feel identified with that “severe”?
Yes, as the etymology seems to indicate, the root would be true, truthful, true… Well yes, I would like to. But I don’t think inflexibility is a particularly characteristic feature of that gaze. And regarding the “bottom of things”, it seems to me that it is in the appearance, in the visible, in what at first sight seems superficial and innocent where the true intentions are hidden, camouflaged.
Do these difficult times, so dark for many reasons of all kinds, confuse you, stun you or, on the contrary, stir you up creatively, encourage you to want to investigate more, discuss more?
I guess like everyone else. There are things that encourage you to believe that there is hope, others unnerve you, depress you or cause you to react. The most to be thankful for is that –and this is what should be expected from artistic work– it asks you questions from a perspective that you had not contemplated. There are also things, of course, that you don’t care about at all, that neither attract you nor worry you. The normal.
He has always expressed his concern about the precarious situation in which artists carry out their work; I get the feeling that lately she refers more to that. Has it worsened perhaps because society has turned its back on the artist as a reference or beacon? What place does the artist occupy in society right now?
It is not a concern but a claim, a denunciation of that overexploitation at the cost of a supposed reward in a future that may well never come, and of how unpresentable speculators profit from these illusions. They promise you that, if you’re really worth it, sooner or later the market will discover you and turn you into the superstar you deserve, and you happily surrender to martyrdom, trampling the other martyrs along the way. But that sacrifice is not in vain: let’s think about our invaluable role in attracting visitors and tourists, or how our presence contributes to making life more expensive in the neighborhoods where you settle. Meanwhile, most of the images we consume are no longer produced by art and it is undeniable that the logic of advertising has taken over its most visible part, which is the favorite of the media. That said, in the midst of this panorama there are young people in art, in music, in poetry, etc… doing fantastic things.
The city and cartography are fundamental concerns in his work. Now it seems that with the metaverse we could end up living more of our lives in a virtual space than in a real one, you will have to apply your research and techniques to that novelty, right? It will be necessary to countermap the metaverso.
Most likely, although, you see, this is an example of something that, at the moment, interests me zero. Metaverse… with which it is falling!
Another of your constant concerns, tourism and its aftermath. Is there no good tourist? By the way, have you ever exercised turismo?
Juan Pablo Wert, a researcher on the subject, paraphrasing Concepción Arenal’s famous maxim (“He hates crime and pities the criminal”), proposes “hate tourism and pity tourists.” Tourism protocols are ubiquitous and as forced as, that, forced labor. There is beach tourism, conferences, health, solidarity, sexual, adventure… and all possible combinations. Even trabacations sell us. Anyway…
In what sense do you ensure that Picasso is a “minor” artist?
I love that you ask me the question. There are two answers. The short is that I have never said or would say such a thing. The long one would explain it: “Don’t do interviews over the phone again, they seem like the broken phone game.” What have I really said? Of course, not that, but since it seems that the character would have liked to have done it and it sounds provocative… However, the fact is that it is not among my objectives to contribute to spreading the patriarchal model of Art History based on great artists and masterpieces, and to that model corresponds that distinction between supposedly major and minor authors.
By the way, we have just inaugurated the Picasso Year, and more articles and public discussion are being devoted to reflecting on his dark relationships with women than on his work (perhaps we have already seen, thought about, discussed, praised it enough). Is something like this necessary, this sort of reckoning?
The image of an artist, like his work, is a sign, and its meaning never remains unchanged over time. More often than not, commercial success is inversely proportional to interest and importance. Fame and appreciation rise or fall or sink, just as monuments are torn down. Which is nothing new, on the other hand. The novelty is in who knocks them down. That is what is proving most difficult to accept for a certain Sanhedrin, because the critical rereading and the questioning of what we believed to be definitive is connatural to the production of knowledge. In any case, the multi-brand Picasso seems to aspire to turn anything into gold. Do you remember that statement made by Bernard Picasso, curator (sic) of an exhibition about his grandmother in his museum in Malaga? “Picasso was a great feminist.” Well that.
Is it impossible for Rogelio López Cuenca to become a brand?
[Risas] No, null commercial hook. It is a seven-syllable, yes, that is, it goes with “I will not pick the flowers / I will not fear the beasts”.