Artistic Approach: 5 axioms

The End Justifies the Means (and the Media)

At first glance, each message has its ideal medium. Some messages will work better in photos, others in feature films, others in paintings, poetry or installation.

You can limit yourself to a single medium, and specialize as much as possible in it. Personally I have a particular interest for video, photography and sound (or music). But even within this context I prefer to be more eclectic in the means to get the message across better, even if I am a bad poet and I cannot draw.

The public has been used to very intense communications since the 1960s. The advertising and political messages are, on the one hand, undone of any superfluous ornament and, on the other hand, filled with subliminal, seductive elements. Their dubious and penetrating allusions are effective, and (above all) disseminated in cross media. To touch the soul of the public in 2020, you have to catch all of the spectator’s senses.

Every Process is sacred

Each work of art (and each communication) is based on a process, voluntary or involuntary, conscious or unconscious. This process is the basis of individual works and the work of the artist as a whole.

From the moment an artist has chosen / started a process for an individual work, he must respect it, assume his own choices and accept their result.

Say What You Have to Say

The idea of art for art is misleading. Each communication, therefore each art, takes place in the context of the society in which it is expressed. Inevitably, it transmits a bundle of values (and prejudices). The idea of art for art, or individual expression in the romantic sense, is attractive, but generally results in conformism. I respect this vision, but I can’t avoid using art as a means of explaining my ideas and beliefs.

However, everyone has the right (the duty?) to interpret the works the way they wish.

We Live in an Historical Context (or: the language is made to play with it)

As many 20th century semiologists said: “each expression is necessarily intertextual”. It would be unfortunate not to play with the symbols, icons and other signifiers that our ancestors already used. I like to put them in a new context and to rejoice in the unexpected results.

All is relative

Each opinion, each vision, even each religion is relative, just like the works I produce and the axioms I have just written. Nowhere does this imply disrespect: we can respect something that is not perfect (otherwise we cannot respect anything).

The world is ruled by chance. I see no need to exclude chance and its imperfections either in the creation or in the representation of my works. Nothing is fixed.