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From 18 December 2004 to 6 March 2005, Martí Anson has been trying to build a boat in the cloister at the Centre d’Art Santa Mònica. It is a project condemned to failure (the boat cannot come out without being broken up), but one which has filled exhibition or working time with intensity and expectation for three months.
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Why a boat?
So I can take it away.
But won't you have to break it up to get it out?
Yes.
You're making a boat so you can take it away, but you can't get it out. Well, at least you're going to finish it...
I don't think I'm going to have time. |
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And I don’t suppose you’ve got the parts or money to finish it either?
Yes, I've got those, although the Valencian supplier hasn't kept to the delivery deadlines. In fact, someone from Menorca who was also looking to build himself a boat came here to see if the company really existed, as they hadn't supplied him with anything.
All this work is a waste of time, isn't it?
Yes. I'm working on something that has a physical value. It's a valuation of work, of physical work in art.
On something which is no use at all.
It is useful, though: for three months people have been coming to see it, and they ask you how you're doing it, whether it will come out or not (something which no one has any doubt about it). There's an everyday relationship where it doesn't much matter whether it's art or not.
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| Martí Anson, Fitzcarraldo, 2005 |
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Where does the title Fitzcarraldo come from?
From Werner Herzog's film with the same name, in which the main character tries to build an opera house in the Amazon jungle, which in itself is enough of a“pirate” type idea. But, on top of that, to do it he needs to carry a boat to a river which has no possible access, and to achieve that he transports it from one river to another by portage over a mountain. To put the icing on the cake, Werner Herzog actually did it – the film isn't fiction. He really moved a boat from one river to another over a mountain, with the help of the Yanomami Indians.
So, did the title emerge after thinking about the piece?
Yes. In fact it was François Piron who spoke to me about the film when he found |
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out about the project. Ultimately, it provides a literary facet which works very well with the piece, which is ultimately like a novel, in that it isn't a finished product I mean. It begins, you don't know what the end will be and you go on “reading” page bypage...
It is strange that only people from the art world have thought about the fact that you haven't had time to finish the piece; that it was a shame that the boat wasn't ready for launching.
It's the problem of the final object: finished, well placed, well lit, nice and clean.
And you have made pieces that are characterised by their impeccable finish.
The thing is that, actually, it is finished every day, although, of course, in a different way each time. It changes every day. And there are random elements I can't control, like the delay in materials arriving or if I have to go on a trip. All that means the work varies. And I'd never been in a situation where I wasn't in control.
You'd only worked out the basic script: building a boat.
Within a very simple thing – building a boat – a thousand random elements appear –and that's never shown. As I said before, it's the first time I haven't had everything under control. As it is a story for which you write a page every day, every day it is conditioned by external factors. I have worked for many days and all that involveseffort and enthusiasm. And it has also involved other people collaborating. They have got involved through their own free will in helping to work on a project which is a little absurd.
What has happened to you to make you talk about enthusiasm now, if your projects have been concerned with frustration?
Well, if you like you can say that the frustrating thing is building a boat that will never see the water. However, many things happen during the process.
I didn't think personal aspects would come out of it: the people who have offered to help, the taste for the physical work itself, the joy of seeing how it progresses – things you know you're going to miss. A job which seemed very cold has become very close.
If the artist's place is in the studio, you've now swapped it for this.
Yes. The piece isn't a boat, it's working on building a boat. The work is the importantthing. The fact that it is a boat is almost incidental. If you like, you can seek a formal explanation in line with my previous works: other times I've worked with architectural, inhabitable elements and this is a boat with some features of accommodation. It’s a yacht, a floating house.But, well, that's basically just a device.
Because, I repeat that the piece is the work and the documentation of the days it's being worked on. So, when the boat disappears, it is lost precisely as that aesthetic object that now seems to be enormously important. More importance will be given to what has happened and to what hasn't happened, to whether I've worked or not. Andthe object will be lost because of the very dullness of its existence, like the DVDs that document the whole process. Breaking it up will give more value to the work – to what I've been doing for three months – than to the result.
You've changed the "creative" working pattern we attribute to artists.
This is a problem related to the value we attribute to art. And yes, it's true that there are certain pre-established patterns, even in the art world itself, which you change simply by coming to work at regular times from Monday to Friday. In fact, many people have complained that I'm not here at weekends when more people come to visit, but the thing is, you don't work at weekends.
Basically, you have been exhibited there all the time.
This is the project I'm working on, but there's no personal involvement: it's a boat with instructions. It isn't “artistic” in terms of form, but the attitude I am tackling it with is an artistic one.
And this is the first time I have enjoyed a project during the time it has been on exhibition. I've always had fun during the installation and preparation process, not once an exhibition has opened.
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Are exhibitions boring then?
They could be more fun. There is a certain rupture between when things “really” happen and when they are exhibited. Everything that's involved in working in art is out of phase, not just the physical fact of making something or thinking about it, but the whole discussion surrounding it and what is exhibited. I've made an attempt to bridge that gap. I don't know if it's a good attempt, but it's an attempt. Normally, after opening, you get the feeling that an exhibition has been abandoned. I don't known if people have come here because of the exhibition or because of the boat, but I think they have come more because of the boat and this is where the participationhas appeared at different levels.
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Do you see the art scene as boring?
Yes, but that's got nothing to do with value. It's a question of lack of energy. If there is any attempt to overcome this boredom it is based on participation of a social nature by the activist public. And that's not the answer either. On the other hand, the activities around a museum are become more interesting than what's inside. It's a normal thing that they should compete like that because competition in culture and showbusiness – with music, cinema and television – is very great.
So, with this project you've offered a bit of a show.
It's a question of playing a bit. Of course there's a bit of a show. I'm shut in here working in view of the public. Artists are never “on” exhibition and here you’re exposed in a very direct way to judgement, like a footballer who they can throw cushions at. |
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And have they thrown cushions at you?
No. The public reaction has been good. They are concerned for the boat, which is something they’re very interested in, and the fact I'm doing it on my own.
This is only a little show, though?
I don't know. Sometimes doing things that are worthless is good; it's good to enjoy time itself, without thinking of money or profits, but simply of sheer enjoyment. |
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