Cosci, G. (2023) The Denied Image: Art Interventions Between Iconoclasm and Institutional Critique. PhD dissertation. LUCA School of Arts / KU Leuven University, Belgium.
Cosci,G.; Forthomme, S.; Van Buynder, E.; Deckers, L. (2023) Iconostasis. Brussels: Queens Gallery.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379655915_Iconostasis_Gianluca_Cosci_Sebastien_Forthomme
Cosci, G. (2003) "The Denied Image" in COMPROMISED VISIONS: “Lately, she’s been seeing things differently”, Working Titles, Issue No. 2. Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. https://www.uni-weimar.de/projekte/workingtitles/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/The-Denied-Image.pdf
Cosci, G. (2022) "The Denied Image" - Conference paper. Dublin 10th June. Doctoral Summer Seminar FilmEU Dublin. Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, Ireland https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361590443_Gianluca_Cosci_The_Denied_Image_-_Dublin_10th_June_2022
Interviews:
Kevin Byrne interviews Gianluca Cosci. April 2016.
Kevin Byrne: What exactly do you mean when you say: "Vorrei sottolineare il valore del dubbio e dell'incertezza"? ["I would like to underline the value of doubt, and uncertainty..."] and how do you do that in your Art? And why? What is so fascinating about this for you?
G.C.: After moving to London from Bologna I had a kind of cultural shock especially regarding the city and its role as world capital. We could say that I was totally overwhelmed and quite intimidated by it. Everything exuded confidence, authority and superiority: economically, culturally and politically. Even the sheer size of everything was something quite difficult to deal with. I was fascinated and repulsed in equal measure by corporate places like the City of London or Canary Wharf with their obscene wealth and tangible power. The cultural institutions in the capital were no less confident in their self-awareness of prestige and influence on the world's stage and the majority of people in that environment seemed to reflect all of this. My work during that moment was largely based on that feeling of being an outsider, an alien who observes things from a distance, unseen. I wanted to reclaim the right to be different from those self-confident press releases and strong handshakes. I come from le Marche region. There are no big cities there, only small towns and villages and the (rural) culture there highlights the value of humbleness and modesty. Maybe I got something about that in my work too…
K.B.: Wow, that contrast must have been intimidating while being alluring too, I bet. Is that perhaps why you like to use doubt, or to create a feeling of doubt (ambiguity) in your work as a way of undermining that corporate arrogance? Challenging it to some extent?
G.C.: Yes, I guess I tried to challenge that kind of environment through the idea of doubt. Doubt can open up many possibilities and in my view is the very base of creativity. I don't trust anyone who declares to have all the answers...
By the way, my series Panem et Circenses was taken exclusively around the Millennium Dome which at that time was a depressing no man's land after being open for only 12 months in 2000. It was Blair's vanity project to boost his image as "presidential" prime minister. That white elephant with a price tag of nearly one billion pounds of tax payers' money was standing empty while he was declaring war against Iraq. I had the need to work on that specific place in that moment.
K.B.: Beautiful. I remember that farce too.
Doubt leads to questions which leads to creative enquiry that in turn becomes something artistic, or at least becomes something... Still, totally agree: through doubt comes questioning and intellectual curiosity, doesn't it?
G.C.: Absolutely, only with doubt one can explore things in a secular, non-dogmatic way… and unfortunately in post-9/11 times, our society is more and more polarized, more extreme and fanatical. I would like to go exactly to the opposite direction and not only with my work. I always wanted to be an artist since I can remember. For this reason I studied painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna. My painting professor there (a well known painter in Italy) once said to us: "here I only want to see painting, if you want to use photography go to a photographic lab, not here". Well, since that day I had the burning desire to include also photography in my work! So… I guess it was a sort of a rebellious attitude on my part… to the point that at the end I managed to present only photographic prints for my final "painting" exam (and I got away with that despite his initial hostility!).
K.B.: I'm loving that going against the grain attitude! Wonderful that you also managed to follow your dream of being an artist.
What were you shooting with in the panem set? Can you remember? What do you shoot with now? I used a bridge for 8 years, now use a mirrorless. What do you think of all these megapixels, and full-frame fanatics that flood photography?
G.C.: I don't really consider myself a "photographer" rather an artist without a defined, strict identity… Sure, photography has been and still is incredibly important for me but also like painting, or ready-mades… for this reason I do not have any photographic "fetishism" in terms of technical tools. In fact I find it quite amusing (and frankly also childish) this continuous race towards better and more sophisticated cameras (mine is bigger than yours game). In fact I have never had a formalist approach to art making so I have never been really interested in those technical problems. Having said that, up until 2007 I was using a Yashica FX-3 Super 2000. After that, a Nikon D200 which I still use. Of course I am fully aware that this may sound inconceivable to professional photographers now, when they are supposed to renew all their equipment every six months, but then again I don't consider myself "a photographer"…
K.B.: Yes, this polarization, as you say, is alarming, tedious and, I think, unnecessary too. I recently saw a video on Cartier-Bresson, and he never thought of himself as a photographer either! He just used the medium - loved its immediacy. I too don't consider myself to be anything other than Kev Byrne, and certainly not a photographer (and certainly not comparing myself to him or anyone!) - I just love photography and taking pictures. Friends and acquaintances over the years have assured me that I needed (and still need) a reflex camera. But I did just fine with my bridge, and nowadays my mirrorless is just wonderful for my needs, my photography. I view all these expensive cameras and lenses the same way I view expensive cars: I really don't need one, but wouldn't say no to a quick spin!
GC: Ah, yes that's a nice comparison with big cars indeed...
K.B.: Another question: What exactly did/do you mean by "La fotografia mi permette ancora di avere il senso di verità e di rivelazione."? ["Photography still allows me to have a sense of truth and revelation..."] More than your other media? Is that still true today?
G.C.: This idea was based on Claudio Marra's and Francesca Alinovi's book "La fotografia: illusione o rivelazione" where the authors discussed on the natural disposition of the viewer towards a photographic image... Do you believe in what you see or perhaps there is a fundamental mistrust towards the reproduction (as Alinovi argued)? I took Marra's side, according to which, at the end of the day one tends to always believe in the photographic image even though after photoshop this is getting less and less true I guess, but the sense of "evidence" remains anyway, especially if one compares it to painting for example. They don't have the same weight in that respect.
K.B.: Both arguments seem valid depending on quite a few factors, I'd say. Firstly, can we ever be sure of anything we see, even without a camera? That's a profound and massive question that we will be asking for quite some time.
Secondly, the mind has a funny way of piecing things together to create some sort of homogeneity - not always so trustworthy and definitely not infallible, don't you think? You know that saying: seeing is believing? It should be believing is seeing! As if all our complex neurological processes that give us what we perceive as perception can be reduced to something so black and white as that saying, but still, it's very true sometimes.
Yes, painting, due to its texture, physicality, and possibly its clearly artificial, less faithful representation of reality make it seems less real. Photography, on the other hand, appears to "capture" reality, or better: capture a subjective reality, or arguably even time itself (or at least a fleeting glimpse of it), don't you think?
G.C.: Kev, yes indeed photography does suggest a kind of reality even though a highly subjective one indeed as you said. And it includes that frozen moment in time that is the essence and the allure of this medium.
K.B.: Going back to your website, Gianluca, how come there isn't any accompanying text to your sets/projects on the site?? Is that that "doubt" thing again?
G.C.: I guess so... in reality I have to confess that I don't like that much talking about my work as I feel like I'm spoiling it when I talk about it...
K.B.: So true! I agree! Besides, it's nice to leave it open to the viewer's own interpretations too, isn't it?
G.C.: Absolutely! As Pasolini once said "Truth is that thing that you feel deep down, but as soon as you talk about it, it disappears".
Kevin Byrne is a British teacher and photographer based in Taranto, Italy.
MARCHE CENTRO D'ARTE
Interview by Lucia Zappacosta, published in "Marche Centro d'Arte", catalogue of the same exhibition at Palariviera, San Benedetto del Tronto and other venues, April 2015.
Lucia Zappacosta: Your work reveals a desire to encourage reflection on the possibility of having a lateral view of reality. Where does this need come from and why?
Gianluca Cosci: Throughout my life, I have found myself observing reality from a “lateral” position with respect to a supposed normativity that is not only sexual but also socio-economic. Hence, the marginal vision is not only metaphorical but also physical, personal and related to everyday life. Lateral thinking as diversity in all its possible meanings, including that of being a foreigner (I have been living abroad since 1999).
L.Z.: The poetics of your work can be attributed to a critical and analytical approach to institutional and shared rules. What is the role of art in encouraging free thought?
G.C.: As far as I am concerned, art represents one of the very few spaces that are still free, where it is still possible to express non-conformist thoughts, free from the expectations that sometimes come even from the art world itself. Non-conformism - the authentic kind - is a value for me, even though its price can often be very high. The art world should reward this value, although unfortunately this is not always the case. My “wrong” photos inside the museum are intended to be a metaphor for subtly subversive behaviour in an extremely surveilled and prescriptive environment.
L.Z.: What is your relationship with power and censorship, which you also use as a tool to highlight contradictions?
G.C.: The structures and logic of power (including those of the art system) should be investigated and denounced, preferably from within and using their own weapons (as Santiago Sierra and Christoph Büchel, among others, do). In this way, censorship – but also self-censorship – can be somewhat curbed or mitigated. Censorship in the West is rarely overt: most of the time it is not even perceived as such, but only as a polite and subtle dissuasion. We should fight above all against this kind of “cultural bon ton” which flattens and ultimately represents the most effective and dangerous instrument of repression.
MARCHE CENTRO D'ARTE
Interview by Dario Ciferri published in "Marche Centro d'Arte", catalogue of the same exhibition at Palariviera, San Benedetto del Tronto and other venues, July 2011.
TO DISSENT
Dario Ciferri: I believe that the starting point must be dissent, the rejection of dogmas, conventions and constraints that surround us. I find this to be a fundamental step in freeing ourselves from everyday hypocrisy of all kinds, whether religious or due to a do-gooder attitude.
Gianluca Cosci: Dissent as a positive tool for responding to a reality that increasingly requires behaviour that conforms to the dictates of the powerful forces listed above. The “No” that emphasises non-belonging to oppressive, populist and demagogic logics that erase the individual in favour of an indistinct, docile and subservient agglomeration that only rarely manages to detect the intrinsic violence of power and its mechanisms for concealing it. By its very nature, dissent is a painful path that inevitably leads its spokesperson to marginalisation, isolation and, consequently, silence. This is usually the punishment reserved for those who dissent. At other times, the price is much higher.
CRITICALITY
D.C.: The critical approach offers considerable opportunities for your work, whether it is representing humanity or its products. Criticality opens up reasoning and freedom of thought and is perhaps the common thread running through all your work.
G.C.: Criticality as an essential behaviour for an existence that is not limited to Nauman's trilogy of “produce/consume/die”, as our hyper-capitalist civilisation would unfortunately have it; especially at a social level, where conformism of thought is reflected in that of behaviour. Cultural flattening and standardisation are painfully evident in the media, where barbarism and regression find free expression in products designed precisely to divert attention from the crimes committed by financial, political, military and religious bodies.
CONTINUITY
D.C.: A thread runs through all your work, and, even in the formal differences, it gives it a sense of continuity. I like to believe that this continuity also exists between the works that speak of pain and wounds and Walls. I like to think that the buildings photographed, which reflect other buildings, have a masking/unmasking function and that behind those windows there are ancient stories of pain to be shown to the outside world in order to overcome them. This is obviously my idea and I would like to know what you think and what you meant in the beginning.
G.C.: Continuity as fidelity to one's ideals and aspirations, which can manifest itself in many different ways using a wide variety of languages but which, on closer analysis, testifies to a desire for a critical spirit far removed from the logic of self-interest. The continuity of my work lies in emphasising the uniqueness and value of human behaviour, even when it falls outside the various conventions. From this, pain is an inevitable consequence of marginalisation by institutionalised power. Whether it is religious (and therefore political) power, which, especially in Italy, oppresses the individual through medieval-style social discrimination, or economic power, which is moving towards a global Third World logic where the concentration of wealth is becoming increasingly restricted. It is precisely this logic of concentration of power and resources that my series Walls refers to, where in confined places in the West the fate of millions of people is decided behind insurmountable walls, often made only of glass, where visual transparency hides inscrutability and insurmountable arrogance. The false proximity that is often nothing more than the most unattainable distance.
SUGGESTIONS
D.C.: Beloved by Jonathan Demme, Southpark
G.C.: I have many sources of inspiration, and I find myself increasingly fascinated by artists who have been part of “Institutional Critique”, such as Hans Haacke, Mark Lombardi, Thomas Hirschhorn, Christoph Büchel, Santiago Sierra and Andrea Fraser. Among writers, I cannot fail to mention Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Roberto Saviano, and Johann Hari. Finally, cinema is an essential source for my work, through the masterpieces of Pasolini and Fassbinder, but also Lars von Trier, Michael Haneke, Paolo Sorrentino, and Matteo Garrone.
ON MINOR ARCHITECTURES
Interview published in: Bridget Crone (editor) - 8 Artists Try Not To Talk About Art, SPACE Books, London, 2006
GIANLUCA COSCI: Thanks for sending me your thesis about the concept of 'corridor', that was a really an interesting reading, to get a new perspective of what architecture can be.
NICHOLAS BEECH: The work that you have looked at started out from conversations with Jane Rendell at UCL. She asked me what my 'real' interest was and although having studied architecture, buildings are not strictly what I am interested in. At the end of that report, I go back to an experience that I had as a child: Greenham Common was taken over by the US military as a nuclear air-base in the late 1970s. So there was this large women's protest movement that gathered in South Wales and moved to the air-base itself. My mother was one of them and I was there occasionally. And what remains for me is this idea that you can construct an entire social structure - spaces, environments, architectures - with very little. They used ditches and sticks, and the military used wire fences; and that was it. There was hardly anything there, but it was an extremely powerful representation of relationships. I think you talk also about the possibility of constructing buildings just using words. That the act of talking about architecture it is not jut talking about it, but it is also 'making' architecture like a sort of materialisation of architecture as well, and I think you are doing that in a way. Well, texts are particular acts as Jane Rendell suggests, and I accept that suggestion, but I think it has to be put in the context of the idea of all actions. It's not a question of writing or producing something that could be a building. It's about attempting to put into the text a way of structuring and ordering the words and sentences, and the structuring of the text as a whole in such a fashion that when one is reading it, one is going into an experience as one would through a building.
G.C.: So, are you suggesting that any reader or any user of a space plays a creative role in the process of enjoying a building or a piece of writing?
N.B.: Yes, so in that text, rather than suggesting that I have made a piece of writing in which the reader has the experience of being in a corridor, I am suggesting that I am writing in such a fashion that the only way to get inside the writing properly is to construct in the reader's mind what they would do in a real corridor. But to go back to the discussion I had with Jane, she asks: 'I want a piece of writing that is not about a wall but is a wall.' And so I take seriously the idea that architecture is not an object that we move around and about but something that is continuously being constructed everyday. Then if I am to write about a wall, I have to allow the reader to inhabit it and construct it.
G.C.: I think in that sense (talking about cities), Rendell said that as artists and filmmakers, if we talk about cities in our work, we also contribute to building the 'cityscape': this ever-growing, organic system. In this respect, how do you see for example, recent urban projects? Specifically, I am thinking about experiences like Canary Wharf, in which there isn't really any chance for the ordinary person to have a creative experience of place. Because its planning from 'above' is so strict, I think it's not really possible to have an active experience when you are there. You have just to follow the given direction or behaviour guidelines. In that sense we could talk about invisible corridors as well, because you are really forced to use the city in a certain way. In that respect you can feel behind all of that a certain concept of power, almost a totalitarian power...
N.B.: That's a typical experience in lots of cities where you're walking around, you see buildings that you can't enter, say office buildings, all marble, glass, steel and all the perfection in the detailing but you are exterior to them, you are outside and all of that is in the interior. So there is a barrier to that power that is the representation of power and its symbols. But Canary Wharf isn't actually a collection of buildings and public spaces: Canary Wharf is the Isle of Dogs, it's a total, gigantic building with lots of bits in it. So, when you think you are in the public domain, you actually are in a private network of power. But I think there is a process of erosion in that; I don't think it's sustainable. I think within that experience the question is: can you be bothered to search for it, look for that act of the erosion of power? Like the Norman Foster tube station, it's so polished that it's fascist really and there is something very dark within that, very oppressive. But I think if you spend enough time there you'll begin to see how people play tricks with the material of buildings to start to tell their own stories.
G.C.: You have mentioned an element of erosion within that urban system…
N.B.: Yes, erosion and secretion suggest the ways in which people enact these apparently minor activities, which are outside the prescribed practices. There is the act in which the very material itself can begin to be worn away, just as a hunter's tracks gradually erode a bit of the forest and then establish a path. I think that happens within the city fabric as well and at the same time there is secretion: people do start to drop things, to place things in particular places. These actions can be quite constructive as they allow you to build your story, your architecture within this monolithic machine.
G.C.: These little actions or micro-architectures are, I suppose, totally subconscious, of course you don't know that you are actually eroding a particular place or you are not really aware of your contribution to this. But do you think there is a more open possibility to do that or maybe a clearer way to do it? What I am really trying to say is that places like Canary Wharf of course are not for everyone really but just for a tiny fraction of our society. I that case, it's a totally fascist concept because of their unspoken exclusion policy. Even if I have a strange sense of fascination for the place when I'm there I feel completely isolated, marginalised and angry because I am not really taken into account as ordinary person. I am wondering if there is any possibility to sabotage places like these…
N.B.: Well, let's say that you are in Canary Wharf and you feel not isolated but purposeless, meaningless because you are! You are not contributing to that environment, you are not shopping and you don't work there. The only thing you should be doing is spending money. You could disrupt Canary Wharf just by taking 1,000 disenfranchised people there; well, you will be kicked out quite quickly but if you do that regularly you will cause a lot of problems! But who's going to do it? With these kinds of 'dead zones' within the city, the question is: do you want to engage in that, or do you want to engage in production and construction of another kind of city? The question is how you construct within a city that is so expensive? We should ask ourselves what the city is about. Is it the big skyscraper? Or actually is it a minor act, these tiny things that never really hold on, that are always swept back again by the next wave of activities?
G.C.: I totally agree with you: the big, modern symbols are not actually the city at all. They are just a sort of showcase for outside viewers: glossy covers to show what a rich city looks like. But in your opinion, what could be the humus, the authentic fabric of the city? As you're saying, in a place like London, which is almost impossible to build anything affordable apart from micro-architectures, are micro-architectures the answer to this situation?
N.B.: I think what is needed is real connecting activities. Often, as you are saying, walking around the city can be very isolating but for me it's about making more apparent that something else is possible. I think it's about trying to show that cracks exist because there is so much around that is trying to say that they don't. Every week I hear of more legislation tithing up our daily life, our practices but I think that can't be true. It's about trying to work out how to demonstrate to people that there is a wider open space that goes from intellectual practice, engagement on an academic level through more politically radical activities: anything that encourages people to believe that they actually can take control.
G.C.: Nevertheless it is true that there is an increased restriction in personal liberties for example, and physical liberties. Our actions are constantly monitored through various credit cards, oyster cards, CCTVs and so on…
N.B.: You're right but at the same time the real beginning of this struggle between personal liberties and state control goes back to the development of private property. It comes with ownership. When you have a city like London there is a constant tension between different groups of owners and individuals who own land, the environment and the objects they adorn themselves with. Liberty is of course restricted, even in those environments that are supposed to be in the public domain. But I think that this has been going on for a very long time. What changes is the strategy employed by those who have more and those who have less. If one can consider oneself to be among those who have less, it's a question of changing one's tactics and dealing with the strategies of power. I don't actually think liberties are more restricted, I think they have been changed but equally what it means to be free has changed. Whatever technique is employed by authority to restrain or control people, the question is: how am I going to use it, how can I subvert that and demonstrate its weaknesses?
G.C.: Absolutely, but my perception is that the general situation with civil and personal liberties is getting worse lately.
N.B.: Worse, better, same. It's probably all these things as well at the same time but is this useful? If it's worse, is that what I am supposed to articulate as a critical thinker? Or am I supposed to work out what it was in the first place and then challenge it? Like the issue of terror, it's so obviously dialectical that it almost becomes impossible to say anything without sounding like a cliché. To terrorise one's own society in the name of fighting against terror, it seems so obvious you never imagine it would happen and yet here we are. But what is it then? It can't be just that. What we should ask ourselves is: 'are people really terrorised?' Well, the real problem is that actually they are not! But to go back to the concept of the power of places, is it just architecture in this building that we are looking at? Or is it the representation of power? Is power actually held out there or do we have it? It's just the question of getting around and using it. Very often we allow ourselves to be mesmerised by the mythology of power. It's enticing because we imagine ourselves possibly being in that place of power. It's a great story that we attach ourselves to. It is about realising that actually that's not real, that it's a 'story'. There are other stories going on meanwhile: we are constructing every day, with our lives! We are living!
Gianluca Cosci
Interview by Luciano Marucci published in Juliet No 124, October - November 2005
LUCIANO MARUCCI: What advantages do you gain from living in London?
GIANLUCA COSCI: One of the main ones is being able to visit art venues, not just the more institutional ones and major exhibitions, but above all independent galleries.
L.M.: Are you still searching for “your” physical and cultural habitat?
G.C.: Well, I think I've now acquired my cultural identity. Not only am I solidly Italian, but I'm also from the Marche region, at least in terms of a certain way of behaving as a person in relation to the world. In the Marche region, we have (or rather, until recently, we had) a deep sense of peasant humility and perhaps even an underlying pessimism, which certainly predates the poet from Recanati. My artistic identity, however, is quite Emilian: I still carry within me the acquaintances and friendships I made at the Academy in Bologna. I have certainly had English influences, but these have been like enrichments to an identity that was already defined in some way.
L.M.: Do you manage to meet/discuss with other visual artists?
G.C.: It was only after attending a master's degree in visual arts here in London that I came into contact with other artists, but in reality my relationships in this field are limited to a few people, both in Italy and in Great Britain. Of course, I mean real exchanges, not just greetings at openings. One of these people is John Cussans who, with his lectures on visual theory, helped me to question the realities that surround us (artistic and otherwise) in favour of a more critical approach towards the outside world and towards ourselves.
L.M.: Is photography still the most congenial medium for you?
G.C.: I would say so, although it is not exclusive. It depends on the context in which I find myself working and the idea I want to convey. In general, I am more comfortable with media that can reproduce reality in the least “mediated” way possible. Perhaps because, despite everything, I need reality, whatever that word means nowadays. Photography still allows me to have a sense of truth or revelation - as Claudio Marra would say - despite the various manipulations of Photoshop.
L.M.: From the works I have had the opportunity to see, I have deduced that in recent years you have moved from the self expressed by the body to the identification of impersonal interiors of everyday life and from these serial environments to the indeterminate subjects of an urban scenario with invisible protagonists. An autobiographical journey characterised by a certain existential component, mediated by a subtle pictorial taste that subtracts objectivity from the original image.
G.C.: I think that in all my works there is, in any case, a good dose of autobiography, even where it is probably less evident or declared. This is just a stratagem, often to talk about something else; to tell, I hope, something that goes beyond purely personal or anecdotal data. Existentialism is one of my most recurring themes, although I am always somewhat reluctant to talk about it because it is very easy to fall into rhetoric or clichés, just as it can be easy to succumb to a certain fascination with pictorial taste, which one must guard against so that it does not go overboard. I am aware of this component, as I love visiting old masters museums and art galleries, and I imagine that, in the end, that influence can also be felt.
L.M.: Is the choice and development of the subject guided by an ideology?
G.C.: I decide in advance what and, above all, how to photograph or use video or other tools. Once I have established this, I go out and photograph or film what I had in mind. In doing so, chance plays very little part. My work is deeply “ideological” (another word that has become taboo), precisely because it pursues a theoretical or ideal goal that naturally goes beyond pure aesthetic and formal research, without ever (or almost ever) denying it.
L.M.: So, even if it is not openly stated, there is no detachment from socio-political issues?
G.C.: My work has always been characterised by a certain political tension, certainly even when I was less aware of it. In this sense, with hindsight, I can re-read the works I did 10 or 15 years ago, in which disarmed and sometimes painful autobiography was deeply linked to political demands, where the old slogan of the 1970s, “the personal is political”, had great relevance and freshness for me.
L.M.: It seems to me that the different thematic approaches highlight a conceptual-formal search for meaning in a less than ideal human condition...
G.C.: I would say that the human condition itself is far from ideal, with all our miseries and weaknesses. But, referring to the issues I have dealt with, we can start from another, even less ideal point of view, namely that of the “different”. As a gay man, I have always experienced, as they say, first-hand the concept of marginalisation and alienation. I therefore know the pain of not belonging, of rejection often masked by hypocrisy. From this (under)privileged position, I began to investigate my surroundings in an attempt to understand and make sense of things, trying to follow the logic behind them. This approach has always been detached and distant precisely because it was taken by an outsider, a marginalised person. In the desire to question and, therefore, to denounce, there is that political intention I mentioned earlier.
L.M.: ...There is also a desire to communicate your identity, albeit through non-places in the metropolitan landscape.
G.C.: I have a strong need to express my identity, precisely because it is an identity that is somehow denied and isolated. And I am not necessarily referring to omosexual orientation, which is now fairly well integrated and accepted almost everywhere in the West (except by religious fanatics or illiterates, who are a separate case). Rather, I am alluding to those identities that do not conform to the behavioural and lifestyle models that are more or less subtly imposed on us. These models are largely Anglo-Saxon, if not openly American, for whom consumerism is the ultimate and profound reason (religion) for the usual model of a successful and wealthy life, of eternal beauty and youth, where there is no room for anything that is not exactly what is proposed. Needless to say, even in Italy this change, or, as Pasolini predicted, this “cultural genocide”, is irreversibly complete.
L.M.: Are you developing a different way of engaging with reality in order to immerse yourself in it more deeply?
G.C.: I try to relate to the ‘real’ in such a way as to leave as much space as possible for careful, meticulous reflection. I hope that my works stimulate open questions, almost stammered. I would like to be the antithesis of the confident statement, of the certain affirmation. I would like to emphasise the value of doubt and uncertainty. In this lateral thinking and introspection, I recognise my peasant origins. I believe we need a similar approach to try to investigate the world around us, which is increasingly difficult to decipher, where reason is on the side of the strongest and where, ultimately, we are experiencing a collective regression towards unprecedented socio-cultural barbarism.
L.M.: In your most recent works, your contempt for “customs” is more painful than shouted; indeed, it seems repressed, as if knowledge were denied...
G.C.: I realise that my need to affirm the idea of an “other” identity has taken the form of an awareness of an unequal struggle, somehow lost from the outset, precisely because it is fiercely obstructed and censored. Lucidity in analysing reality can often take on tones of “cosmic pessimism”, which only reinforces the condition of being different and marginalised, in which pain is an inevitable element.
L.M.: Denial = denunciation?
G.C.: Actually, I would like to think of myself as an iconoclast. Denial can certainly be denunciation. Removing is the first step towards building, and I believe that now more than ever we need fewer things, not more. Fewer images, fewer objects, fewer words, less noise. We should go back to asking ourselves more questions, before we can really start to believe that the meaning of everything is what they are telling us.
L.M.: But what do your anonymous, blurred urban visions allude to?
G.C.: Rather than blurred, they have their focus concentrated on a specific, close-up point. That focus is meant to be a metaphor for a return to real things, perhaps small but true, humble and yet not without dignity. The rest can remain out of focus; although perhaps more important and vast, it is foreign to us, the so-called insignificant and ultimate subjects/objects. My ambition is to restore meaning and significance to a smallness - our own - that demands acceptance and recognition.
L.M.: Should artists today express dissent towards the violence that oppresses the individual?
G.C.: In 1984, Günter Brüs memorably responded to a similar question by saying that ‘man cannot exist without the fight against injustice or without the fine arts’. I believe that this is truer today than ever, given that we find ourselves living in one of the darkest and most disturbing moments in our recent history, where, between non-existent spiritual leaders and war criminal heads of government, the only voice left to guarantee rights and ‘moral sense’ is that of a very few intellectuals who, moreover, when they find the courage to express dissent, must fight for their professional survival and, above all, for their voices to be heard, given the continuous shrinking of the few spaces of dissent that remain.
Gianluca Cosci
Intervista a cura di Luciano Marucci pubblicata su Juliet n. 124 ottobre - novembre 2005
LUCIANO MARUCCI: Quali vantaggi trai dal soggiorno londinese?
GIANLUCA COSCI: Uno dei primi è il fatto di frequentare i luoghi d'arte, non solo quelli più istituzionali e le grandi mostre, ma soprattutto le gallerie indipendenti.
L.M.: Sei ancora in cerca del "tuo" habitat fisico e culturale?
G.C.: Beh, credo che la mia identità culturale sia ormai acquisita . Non solo solidamente italiana, ma addirittura marchigiana, almeno in relazione a un certo modo di porsi come persona nel rapporto col mondo. Nelle Marche abbiamo (o meglio, avevamo, fino a poco tempo fa) un profondo senso di umiltà contadina e forse anche un sotterraneo pessimismo, sicuramente antecedente al poeta di Recanati. La mia identità artistica, però, è abbastanza emiliana: mi porto ancora dentro le frequentazioni e le amicizie dell'Accademia di Bologna. Ho avuto certamente influenze inglesi, ma queste sono state come degli arricchimenti ad un'identità in qualche modo già definita.
L.M.: Riesci ad avere incontri/confronti con altri operatori visuali?
G.C.: Solo dopo aver frequentato un master in arti visive qui a Londra, sono entrato in contatto con altri artisti, ma in realtà i miei rapporti in questo ambito sono limitati a poche persone, sia in Italia che in Gran Bretagna. Naturalmente intendo reali scambi, non saluti da inaugurazione. Una di queste persone è John Cussans che, con le sue lezioni di teoria visiva, mi ha aiutato a mettere in discussione le realtà che ci circondano (artistiche e non) a favore di un approccio più critico verso l'esterno e verso noi stessi.
L.M.: Per te il mezzo fotografico resta il più congeniale?
G.C.: Direi di sì, anche se non è esclusivo. Dipende dal contesto in cui mi trovo ad operare e dall'idea che voglio trasmettere. In linea di massima sono più a mio agio con i mezzi che riescono a riprodurre la realtà nel modo meno 'mediato' possibile. Forse perché, nonostante tutto, ho bisogno di realtà, qualunque cosa la parola ormai significhi. La fotografia mi permette ancora di avere il senso di verità o di rivelazione - come direbbe Claudio Marra - a dispetto delle varie manipolazioni di Photoshop.
L.M.: Dai lavori che ho avuto occasione di vedere ho dedotto che in questi anni dall'Io espresso dal corpo sei passato alla identificazione di interni impersonali della quotidianità e da questi ambienti seriali ai soggetti indeterminati di uno scenario urbano dai protagonisti invisibili. Un percorso autobiografico caratterizzato da una certa componente esistenziale, mediata da un sottile gusto pittorico che sottrae oggettività all'immagine di partenza.
G.C.: Penso che in tutti i miei lavori ci sia, comunque, una buona dose di autobiografia, anche dove probabilmente è meno evidente o dichiarata. Questo è solo uno stratagemma, spesso per parlare d'altro; per raccontare, spero, qualcosa che vada al di là del puro dato personale o aneddotico. L'esistenzialismo è uno dei miei temi più ricorrenti, anche se ho sempre un certo pudore a parlarne perché è facilissimo cadere nella retorica o nei luoghi comuni, come può essere facile cedere a una certa fascinazione per il gusto pittorico verso il quale bisogna stare in guardia, perché non vada sopra le righe. Sono consapevole di questa componente, in quanto amo frequentare musei d'arte antica, pinacoteche e immagino che alla fine l'influenza si possa anche avvertire.
L.M.: La scelta e l'elaborazione del soggetto è guidata da una ideologia?
G.C.: Decido a tavolino cosa e soprattutto come fotografare o usare il video o altri strumenti. Una volta stabilito questo, esco e fotografo o riprendo quello che avevo in mente. Nel fare ciò il caso ha ben poco spazio. Il mio lavoro è profondamente "ideologico" (altra parola ormai tabù), proprio in quanto persegue un fine teorico o ideale che naturalmente va al di là della pura ricerca estetico-formale, senza però mai (o quasi) negarla.
L.M.: Quindi, anche se non è apertamente dichiarato, non c'è distacco dalle problematiche socio-politiche?
G.C.: Il mio lavoro è stato caratterizzato sempre da una certa tensione politica, sicuramente anche quando ne ero meno consapevole. In questo senso posso rileggere, col senno di poi, i lavori che facevo 10 o 15 anni fa, in cui l'autobiografia disarmata e a volte dolorosa era profondamente legata a rivendicazioni di stampo politico, dove il vecchio slogan degli anni Settanta, il personale è politico, aveva per me una grande attualità e freschezza.
L.M.: Mi sembra che i diversi approdi tematici evidenzino una ricerca mentale-formale per la individuazione di senso da una condizione umana non ideale...
G.C.: Direi che la condizione umana di per sé sia ben lontana dall'essere ideale, con le nostre miserie e debolezze. Ma, volendoci riferire alle tematiche di cui mi sono occupato, si può partire da un ulteriore punto di vista, ancora meno ideale, ovvero quello del 'diverso'. In quanto gay, ho sempre vissuto, come si dice, sulla mia pelle e in prima persona il concetto di emarginazione ed estraneità. Conosco, quindi, il dolore della non appartenenza, del rifiuto spesso mascherato dall'ipocrisia. Da questo aspetto (sotto)privilegiato sono partito ad investigare quello che mi circondava per cercare di capire e dare senso alle cose, tentando di seguire le logiche che stavano dietro. Questo approccio è stato sempre distaccato e distante proprio perché fatto da un outsider, un emarginato, appunto. Nella volontà di mettere in discussione e, quindi, di denunciare, c'è l'intenzione politica a cui accennavo.
L.M.: …Traspare anche il desiderio di comunicare la tua identità, sia pure attraverso non-luoghi del paesaggio metropolitano.
G.C.: Il bisogno di esprimere la mia identità è forte, proprio perché si tratta di un'identità in qualche modo negata e isolata. E non mi riferisco necessariamente a quella legata all'orientamento sessuale, ormai abbastanza integrata ed accettata quasi ovunque in Occidente (tranne che dai fanatici religiosi o analfabeti, che sono un caso a parte). Piuttosto alludo a quelle identità che non rispondono ai modelli comportamentali e di stile di vita che più o meno sottilmente ci vengono imposti. Modelli in larga parte anglosassoni, quando non dichiaratamente americani, per i quali il consumismo è la ragione (religione) ultima e profonda del solito modello di vita vincente e benestante, dell'eterna bellezza e giovinezza, dove non c'è spazio per tutto ciò che non sia esattamente quello proposto. Inutile dire che anche in Italia questo mutamento o, come presagiva Pasolini, questo "genocidio culturale", è irreversibilmente compiuto.
L.M.: Vai maturando un modo diverso di dialettizzare col reale per un'immersione più profonda in esso?
G.C.: Cerco di rapportarmi con il "reale" in modo da lasciare più spazio possibile a riflessioni minuziose, attente. Spero che i miei lavori stimolino domande aperte, quasi balbettate. Vorrei essere l'antitesi della dichiarazione sicura, dell'affermazione certa. Vorrei sottolineare il valore del dubbio e dell'incertezza. In questa lateralità e introspezione riconosco le mie origini contadine. Credo ci sia bisogno di un approccio simile per tentare di indagare il mondo che ci circonda, sempre più difficile da decifrare, dove la ragione sta dalla parte del più forte e dove, in ultima analisi, stiamo vivendo una regressione collettiva verso un imbarbarimento socio-culturale senza precedenti.
L.M.: Nei lavori più recenti lo sdegno nei confronti delle 'consuetudini' è più sofferto che urlato; anzi pare represso, come se la conoscenza fosse negata...
G.C.: Mi rendo conto che questo mio bisogno di affermare l'idea di un'identità "altra" ha preso la forma della consapevolezza di una lotta impari, in qualche modo persa in partenza, proprio perché ferocemente ostacolata e censurata. La lucidità nell'analizzare il reale spesso può avere toni di un "pessimismo cosmico" che non fa altro che rafforzare la condizione di diverso ed emarginato nella quale il dolore è un elemento obbligato.
L.M.: Negazione = denuncia?
G.C.: In realtà vorrei pensare a me stesso come a un iconoclasta. La negazione può essere certamente denuncia. Il togliere è il primo passo per costruire, e credo che mai come in questo momento abbiamo bisogno di cose in meno, non in più. Meno immagini, meno oggetti, meno parole, meno rumore. Dovremmo tornare a porci più domande, prima che possiamo iniziare a credere davvero che il senso di tutto sia quello che ci stanno raccontando.
L.M.: Ma a cosa alludono quelle tue anonime visioni urbane così offuscate?
G.C.: Più che offuscate hanno il fuoco concentrato solo in un punto preciso, ravvicinato. Quella focalizzazione vuol essere una metafora verso il ritorno alle cose reali, magari anche piccole ma vere, umili e non per questo prive di dignità. Il resto può rimanere anche fuori fuoco; benché forse più importante e vasto, è estraneo a noi soggetti/oggetti cosiddetti insignificanti e ultimi. La mia ambizione è ridare significanza e senso a una piccolezza - la nostra - che rivendica accettazione e riconoscimento.
L.M.: Oggi l'artista dovrebbe manifestare dissenso verso le violenze che opprimono l'individuo?
G.C.: Nel 1984 Günter Brüs a una domanda analoga rispose memorabilmente che "l'uomo non può esistere né senza la lotta contro l'ingiustizia né senza le belle arti". Credo che oggi questo sia più vero che mai, visto che ci ritroviamo a dover vivere in un momento storico tra i più bui e inquietanti della nostra storia recente, dove tra leader spirituali inesistenti e capi di governo criminali di guerra, l'unica voce rimasta a garanzia del diritto e del "senso morale" è quella di pochissimi intellettuali che, peraltro, quando trovano il coraggio di esprimere dissenso, devono lottare per la propria sopravvivenza professionale e, soprattutto, perché la loro voce possa essere ascoltata, considerato il continuo restringimento dei pochi spazi liberi di dissenso ormai rimasti.