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Swide caught up with artist Antonio Riello to ask him why humans - not art works are his X Factor and how this all leads to mutant tartan...

We caught up with young Italian artist Antonio Riello, and the first person we've ever met who describes himself as an ideas tamer (do ideas bite we wonder?) to quiz him on his latest exhibition B SQUARE! currently showing at the U.K's Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.

SWIDE: For your latest project B SQUARE! at the Baltic, you’ve made the museum staff the subject of your work. How did this project start?

"Usually museum visitors only pay attention to the surrounding exhibitions and their architecture: things, even if they are amazing things."

"For me though, what's more interesting and exciting are - people. My simple idea is to interact with the “human factor”. Weirdly I started thinking about this concept about three years ago when I was actually in front of the BALTIC space."

SWIDE: Here at Swide we were intrigued as to what goes through museum staff’s minds as they sit for hours. Any thoughts? Dinner, the X-Factor? Their washing?

"After chatting with people working in art museums – they’re usually very aware of the cultural importance of being there, and their position. In some way they are observers, but “active observers” - personally involved and possessing a lot of pride and commitment.

In fact it’s amazing how many unexpected things I’ve learnt from interviewing museum staff - I can now really visualize the “invisible” aspects of contemporary art."

SWIDE: You’ve used tartan as the foundation of this project – but of course it’s mutant tartan (!) – imperfect.

"I’m attracted by the simple fact that creating a digital loom to perform a task incorrectly is very difficult, comparable in fact to the famous (even untrue) story of Giotto.

His idea was to prove great artistic skill through simply trying to draw the perfect circle freehand. A digital machine that produces mistakes is the contemporary artistic approach to the “virtuoso” concept."

SWIDE: What’s next for you after B-Square? Fashion design perhaps?!
"No. I’m an artist and my project is only related to the fashion system on its surface. No, I’m content to stay “one of me most inelegant gentleman of the world”…and be proud of it!"

SWIDE: What's the one essential thing when you’re working?
"Pencils, a lot of paper and my sketchbooks. All the rest is important but unnecessary. I also like to have with me a unique portable shrine of Saint Antonio from Padua. I’m very devoted to this particular Saint. In many ways he inspires my work - not in a direct religious way, but as a Saint for people searching for something, as an artist I’m always looking for excellent ideas …"

SWIDE: What’s the one thing you can’t work with?
"Noises and telephones ringing are a type of plague for me. I need to concentrate and to focus on my ideas and my art. The mountains of the Engadina Valley in Saint Moritz are the perfect place for me to work."

SWIDE: What other new artists do you admire?
"Wim Delwoy, Maurizio Cattelan, Arcangelo Sassolino and Tom Friedman."

With special thanks to Antonio Riello

 

 

Kerry Olsen

Source & Photo Credit: www.antonioriello.com

Photo Credit: Colin Davison

Above portrait: "Thank you Freya".

Photography of lady: Courtesy Gaddo/Riello
 

TAGS: antonio riello the human factor x factor the baltic b square contemporary art