ART, WHATEVER IT TAKES

Since the early pandemic in 2020, Rome Art Program has conducted a series of interviews, “Art, Whatever It Takes.”
Artists, Art Critics, and Art Historians living in Italy, the U.S., and U.K., share their insights during these powerful times.

Interview with Tim Roda

Italian-American Photographer and Sculptor – Fulbright Scholar

Fulltime Faculty in Fine Art at Molloy College, New York – USA

RAP: Where do you live? And what is your background?

Tim Roda: Absolutely, but it is different for everyone. My method is a blend of limitless questions and answers, calculated risk, and chance. 1st comes a question of intrigue. 2nd is choosing the medium or arena, examining the topic, considering every angle in a literal and metaphoric way, and exhausting all variables by making intuitive decisions. 3rd is trying to understand how this creation works in relation to the world.

RAP: The “lock down moment” can set you on the path of some important change(s) in your creativity and style…Has this happened to you?

Tim: My studio and art making has always been created in a solitary space. I noticed this more in my teaching. The lock down moment forced me to make audibles in the classroom, from asking my students to switch from traditional to non-traditional materials and methods.

RAP: What normally inspires you? Which is the most important inspirational source you have found in Rome?

Tim: Typically, what inspires me is a new interaction with an object or encounter. When we lived in Rome during my Fulbright Award, I was inspired by the craftsmanship of fashion store windows. I would see sweaters made to look like wool or feathers and juxtapose that in my mind to observing how an artist crafted and stylized wings or hair on a stone statue.

RAP: Is there a difference in working in Rome for an artist? What art medium do you prefer to work in?

Tim: It took me several weeks to understand where my place as a contemporary artist fits into a place like Rome. I make impermanent installations documented through photography compared to a stone statue that continues to stand for hundreds of years. For me, the answer of preferred medium is still within the idea of impermanence like clay, paper, tape, or wood because I’ve never made anything important enough to bronze or marbleize.

RAP: Specific events and historical conditions have a significant role in the creative process; how does this pandemic emergency affect the Arts?

Tim: Very few things that I can remember in my lifetime have really brought people together. This pandemic has highlighted the need for people to want social interaction throughout the world.

RAP: How are you feeling at this difficult moment and what made you feel this way? …are you optimistic for the future?

Tim: The pandemic has shone a light on all of the inequities and injustices in our world related to race, health, and economics. I am currently optimistic that we will come out of this moment stronger, smarter, and more compassionate.

RAP: What can Art contribute to history? Will “Art save us”?

Tim: Art is a visual record of time through content and style. Art will not save us, but artists can use their practice to document this moment and find a temporary escape.

RAP: What is your most ambitious dream?… and the greatest sacrifice that you have made for your Art?

Tim: My most ambitious goal is to get a Guggenheim Fellowship. I don’t make sacrifices for art.

RAP: Recently, the artistic and cultural message of Italy and Rome was reemerging as a great “work in progress”…is this your point of view?

Tim: I think this is a healthy way to approach life. We can always strive to be better.

RAP: Which is your favorite Italian, or Roman, place(s) of art (Museum, Gallery, Monument…) ?

Tim: I don’t think there was just one favorite place. It was a culmination of walking through the Jewish Ghetto, sitting under the Giordano Bruno statue, seeing monuments like the Pantheon or Trevi Fountain while picking up groceries at the outdoor market, getting lost on the cobble stone streets, or looking at the Vatican’s personal Art collection.

RAP: Which period of Italian Art do you prefer? What is your favorite Italian work of art?

Tim: I think my dramatic nature leans towards the High Renaissance and artists like Titian or Raphael. There’s so much to choose from that influences my work. I loved taking a day trip to the Basilica of San Francesco d’ Assisi and seeing Giotto’s work. My friend Claudio took us around and gave us a personal tour, even as someone on the loud speaker would periodically say, “Silencio”. Afterwards, we had a wonderful meal at his restaurant, @la_stalla_assisi

RAP: How has Rome personally influenced you as an artist and a person?

Tim: It’s impossible to visit a place like Rome and not have it change your life. As an American, it puts into perspective the idea of what “old” really means. Observing everyday culture and seeing traditions in a place where surroundings could be from 230 BC is indescribable. After I returned from Rome, the experience became a consistent reminder to slow down. That as stressful as now can sometimes be, it’s just a fleeting moment.

RAP: What’s your goal? What role does the artist have in society? Any final thoughts and advice?

Tim: Throughout time from the cave paintings to abstract expressionism to California Funk, the Artist’s role seems simple, to make work. Through that work is a reflection, documentation or fingerprint of what’s happening socially, culturally, and politically. What’s my goal? I had a curator once tell me in Chelsea, “I’m looking for the flavor of the month.” My goal is to hopefully make something that can withstand time a little longer than that.

RAP: Art as a lens for reading the present, can it modify the space and time we pass through? …will art save us?

Tim: One major, historical, function of art is its distinctive educative function. Now, very recently, we have read that the government of a European country with a long tradition in art, transformed Botticelli’s Birth of Venus from a humanistic painting, imbued with beautiful symbols of the classical age – the Roman goddess of love born from the foam of the sea and driven by the Zephyr winds – into a commercial campaign with a sort of little toy doll/cartoon dressed up and transformed into an Instagram Influencer. So, in a situation when those same people and institutions that should preserve and protect the integrity of art, instead detract from its original values and significance, and use it as a mere commercial commodity, possibly your original question: “Will art save us?” should rather be “Who will save art?” And in the event of a negative answer the next question would be: “What will become of our existence once art will have disappeared in a perfect oblivion?”.

www.timrodaart.com