Even that will not cause you any pleasure or is indifferent is still art?
Silvio Cró: That's when it breaks with structures, we break with a dialectic that has been established and that we all spook the same way. If I use language that is outside the established standards, that happens automatically? Or I will be heard because it is different, because they want to learn, want to know how far the difference goes. Or simply ignore. The bypass is also a form of no value. In small ways, and this is a small way, I cry here, and not all hear, but the closest people are they know who cried because they heard it. Soon pass the message they heard a scream. And one question: Why crying? The questions that arise from this gesture, also apply to art. Like when you questioned me earlier the reason of using an unusual material such as silicone in a painting. I wanted to give it another plasticity, art is this, take a chance on ideas and forms. I'm reinforcing it, due to the material and I'm using that material in itself have any information. Everything I do transmits information. Material may not even be inserted in that context and this is where the fun is. There is also a technical intention. The know-how, using a method to go down this road and not otherwise, to be a sequel. The methods are just that. People also through different stages can reach a particular purpose. Along these steps, I broke the set and introduce a technique or unsuitable material, but the proper procedure, it automatically creates a note, an audience, even one that ignores had to follow to reach that conclusion. We are not alien to our wills. I may not have wanted to see, but I can opine on what I saw and say that I dislike. They can even send information that were not expecting, but I got in contact with that person. The reality is very visual.
The fact of living in a island limits yourself as an artist? Having studied here and being here in this geographic area were you develop your work, it somehow limits?
SC: The limit is created by people themselves. Being in a room, the limit is implied. The Internet passes thru easily this message, even being shy and not wanting to expose myself, but in a very step I want information about my work outside. I use facebook to pass certain messages and articles that interested in my opinion be disclosed. The people in these social networks are more interested and active and will see it. There are limitations, the internet came to help in this regard.
Yes, but before the facebook, even before the Internet be used as a promotional tool, not did you feel limited?
SC: Maybe because I never follow anything, in the end it help to create no boundaries. That thought never cross my mind. When I say that the limit is within you, is because you created these limits and your weaknesses. People are only part of your life to solidify your route. Some will facilitate this track and they will give you a hand, others not. And in this road called life, there are many paths, sometimes risky and you may not know where to go. Since I know myself I was always like that. I have always been seen by critics as a different artist, the issue of difference with me always. Already as a kid in the kinder garden, I drew and people talked and that never worried me. My only concern is doing. The work appears only if someone else does. And I never asked myself the reasons, if this space is limited to the island. It's okay if I go to another place and I have to mingle. Soon I meet people, but to me they may establish limits or constraints that I thought the island was causing me. The environment greatly influences the person and I know this.
This environment inspires you?
SC: Yes, in one thing. People tell me I should travel to see other realities. It's not my main concern. I've had works that were submitted outside of our country, I have expositions in Belgium and other countries. Participated in the 24 hours of comics, just by the taste and was the first time, dragging with others is doing. When you feel like you're being useful in the area, you can have only two positions, one, you're a hater and just want for you and everything else that appears is an obstacle. Or, you are caring person, open, spontaneous and you bring others with you. I'm so. As a teacher, I have many little heads at my responsibility and they tell me, professor is ugly. I mean, is not ugly, you're done. You concluded something to your taste, like what are you doing? Do not do it to seek my approval, is according to your taste. Students are limited in this way because they want to please, and not worry about what was sought. It will always be the result of reasoning that person. We have to think differently. If you have made openness to this type of thinking, anything is possible. Even when I ask you to paint it pink and a student chooses the blue, which led them to think that way? And this form of questioning is art. Art questions. Why within the classicism appeared in another school? An artist thought and has no concept of time. There is a demand, not of himself but the way around is like a spiral. They have a beginning and there is a coordinated development and is always different from another. The work does that.
Do you have a definition for your work?
SC: I do not walk in search of definition. If I find it one day cease to be. The human being has the tendency to define everything, which is logical because we need to organize ourselves. And this communication we are having is an organization of ideas, I have to have a language so that the message passes. If I am concerned to define what I am, I'm creating the brakes and may not be that. When I put a title sometimes limited the reading, but it reinforces on the other. Put the title is not thought it thru, but arises in the course of the work and I'm not worried about pleasing this or that.
If you do not have a definition for your work that allows you more freedom regarding the choice of unusual materials?
SC: Art is a free process. It is a process why? Because following steps, it is free because it comes without you having to worry about it. After her appearance she may become more restrictive, or more added, but it comes with freedom. When she begins to enter an area with certain procedures, may be constrained in many ways, the environment and the people themselves.
Was there ever a material that let you down, left unsatisfied? That part was not what you thought it will be?
SC: In terms of material, along the way the piece will appear. Dissatisfaction is typical of people who do things. It's also the artists. If there is a work in which there is a partnership we must see that those people are other worlds, other ways and be seen.
Are you ever satisfied?
SC: I do not use ever. I'm not unhappy, because the material responds to the idea, may have been worked and the start up may have had an effect that did not mean, after seeing the natural reaction of the material, you must accept it. Their reaction gives the answer. Maybe it is not seeking what is most important. I have a piece in the Gallery of the Moorish quarter that represents the tenth anniversary of this space. Within the issue of crisis and the world, a country that is Portugal, I wanted to present a work that raises the reflection. And then the idea was developing a site with hangers and a toilet seat.
There are many things that should be communicate and are not. Communication to others, what society is doing. I'm critical at this point, there is a certain group that is under consideration at the expense of another. If they show something, the others are not. And I'm not talking about me. The growth depends on the value of the things attributed to it. If you want a plant to grow, we watering it. If I treasure it, I watered, but I not let the rain take care of it. There are things to be done, but a handful that do not talk about it.
Then you defend the idea of speaking of art even it is bad?
SC: We do not have a notion of art.
Even when you look at a piece and does not make any sense?
SC: Durant is an artist who presented his faeces as something that comes out of the artist and was also questioned. Get this thing out of here! Are these things, these little foods that make art persists. As supplements. There are proteins that appear and do not know what will be the reaction that will be creating, developing. If I tell if I like or dislike, this is my reality applied to what I see.
So the art critic is someone irrelevant?
SC: We have art critics, or people informed of the history of art that combined with the professional opinion and taste classify things.
Then think its superfluous when they look at a piece and say, this is not art?
SC: No, but he has that kind of information, makes this kind of comments come to such conclusions, because the information it has. Within the time and the person who is defending the institution, I can look and say that a work is not art? I accepted is the manifestation of man. It is a thought that has materialized. I do question me, can this wealth of works, styles, trends, what can I convey to others?
Within a more technical review, a line on a canvees, must go to the genesis of this work. We go the origins, how it can classify a work of art? With that parameter, that content and that reading, which leads me as an observer, understood as an educator and researcher who classifies the risk of art? People lack knowledge. Many fail to make art because they believe in each other and not themselves. Not to be egocentric is to be a free spirit who speaks a little while. The idea appears to materialize and sometimes this information, and art history is full of these cases, tears were created with the existing movements to create more questions. This is also art. It is what makes the human being as being? The artist as a maker? And then the works that were not understood in his time came to be valued. We even give you more value. And then we reached a point where the artist has to die to be recognized. While living being is appreciated by some, but after his death is questioned and valued.
Do you have a favorite material?
SC: No the idea chooses the material. You should ask me, you let things like that to chance? So what is chance? You don't now? It is a concept that someone called. I do not know what it is.
Then you leave everything to chance?
SC: If a light appears on my mind and I record, is itself a process. And what happens is the appearance of that light.
The ultimate aim of art is not being appreciated by the public, because without it there is art?
SC: Is Part of the end of the process, got the idea, I will materialize it and present it to the public, it will be appreciated involves attention and be observant. It exists even without the attention. I do not know, this is another dimension, which I believe will be a work of art with no audience? I'm the public? There is a triangle of public works and artist and you can reverse the corners and you will always have art. Maybe this is my quest to do things and present them.
There are some artists you admire in particular?
SC: By relevance at risk by breaking structures, Duchant. He never cared whether this was art, I think in my simple view. Perhaps is art.
Do you think art should be kept in museums?
SC: What is the purpose of the work? That has a durability and move to the most public possible. The artistic work of several times in these spaces has a more didactic function. It is a work that has gone through several generations, in another kind of people and nations. It's good to be aware of those times, because it is this knowledge that will make you understand why you're here and what I do at the moment. A concept that was explored traditions, if there was no record had a lot of information that had not. Or would imagine without this knowledge, but that was reinventing the wheel. Art is action in images. Maybe if we spoke with artists who have died and if questioned about his work, sculpture, painting, maybe they'll even say this, that my concern was not being recognized around the world. I'm not concerned with labels. Labels are for boxes and containers. It is a form of organization and society to understand each other.
