Juan Seoane-Cabral completed his MFA degree in New York in 2008, after which he was awarded the Chautauqua Fellowship. Since then he has shown his paintings in collaboration with private art dealers. He teaches painting and drawing privately. Trained at the New York Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the field of maxillofacial prosthetic reconstruction, Juan puts his expertise in anatomy and human representation also to the service of medicine. He has owned since 2016 a private practice in partnership with a team of reconstructive plastic surgeons. He works and lives in Buenos Aires.
“Art, whatever it takes” – RomeArtProgram has made a series of interviews with people involved in art, living in Italy, the USA and the UK, to know their feelings and orientation during these times of emergency.
–Interview with Juan Seoane-Cabral:
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RomeArtProgram: What is your definition of “Art” today?
–Juan Seoane-Cabral: Artworks are singular expressions of the infinite field of aesthetics, which is in itself a genuine way towards knowledge, comparable to science and philosophy. I think of art as vegetation, and of Aesthetics as the water, sunlight and soil that make that vegetation grow. They give the power of life, but can’t determine its form.
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RAP: Art is dynamic and regenerates itself… How does it change, and how did it change us?
–Juan: I think people are dynamic and regenerate themselves. The religious chronicles of the 15th century or the allegories from the 17th century are not very appealing to most of us on the basis that we don’t need the validation of their stories in order to appreciate those powerful works. Every period in art had made a discovery (although it’s debatable if there has been an invention in painting after Leonardo), advancing art towards a liberation from some formalities.
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RAP: When (and how) did you understand that art was becoming very important in your life?
–Juan: I was raised a Catholic and stayed in that mindset until 12 (how original of me). The iconography of Catholicism had most needed balming qualities. These paintings also brought into my mind the mystery of silent and vigorous actions frozen in time and a unique sense of refinement. Decades later as an art student in New York I would learn about the extreme and paradoxical circumstances under which that kind of refinement is concocted.
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RAP: What role does art play today? What are the “great figures” who have recently changed it? Do you feel close to any of these figures?
–Juan: I’m not sure if art has now an assigned place in what we know as culture and its many aceptions. Especially now that access to closed spaces is still restricted, and conformity overpowers sensible decisions at an unprecedented level, painting exhibitions seem to have been reabsorbed into the privacy of art studios. This is a great opportunity if we know how to use it.
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RAP: Are there still traditional figures such as collectors, muses, mecenate and patrons, in today’s art and society interaction model?
–Juan: Of course there are. It’s just not the focus of my attention. I remember reading in the year 2000 at the New York Studio School’s website “passion for the work and not for the career” and feeling relieved of the fallacious social commandement to make my career dependent on promotions of different types. As a young person I found a Franciscan beauty to that phrase.
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RAP: How have the new technologies and media culture changed art today, improving or worsening it…? What do you feel are your biggest challenges?
–Juan: At one point in history, the wheel was considered technology. In itself technology does not worsen anything,
New technologies have the power to enrich our knowledge, but have also the tendency to flatten out our vision and to impoverish our thinking process. If we assume manufactured realities as codes, we’ll live within a lesser level of existence, like animals, in the succession of moments and their immediate reactions to them. We can do better than that. We were born to live metaphorically, not reactionarily.
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RAP: Art as a mirror of man, in this moment of emergency seems to be shattered …what do these fragments reflect now?… Shadow or light of the moment?
–Juan: I believe that the feeling of a shattered mirror is something most artists feel regardless of any realistic or manufactured emergency. This is one of the motives we have to generate more logical and rewarding realities.
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RAP: Understanding, interpreting, and then possibly judging the work of art; which is the right path when we are in front of a piece of art?
–Juan: As a graduate student in New York I had the privilege of studying under Carole Robb. She often talked about the necessity of developing good judgement. One of her suggestions was to surround myself with things of the highest quality. In terms of making interpretations from works of art, another thing Carole often mentioned was the idea of the practice of painting as an exploration into different regions, in which every artwork had particular qualities. The insightful and adventurous atmosphere created by Carole is unique.
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RAP: Which is the real role of Academies and Art schools today? What can artists learn from these institutions today?
–Juan: Art institutions give an opportunity to find peers.
However, this association does not guarantee good results. Comparing Art schools with Music schools, it is evident that all graduate music students can play the instrument of choice and know the repertoire, while nearly all graduate art students never develop the ability to make a good drawing or an expressive painting. They can surely write a solid statement. I find this regrettable for different reasons, one being: the logic is backwards. People everywhere are confusing conclusions with premises.
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RAP: Art too has undergone a complex process of globalization; can having an authentic and genuine style be an advantage or a drag for an artist?
–Juan: In terms of relating to the world, I think that we must study it without denials or ideologies. However, once we have learned about what happens in the world, we must prioritize what happens within ourselves. Live in the world without denying it but knowing when to ignore it.
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RAP: How do Art Galleries and Museums position themselves today, and, in your opinion, how should they?
–Juan: Industrializing art, through a circuit composed of major galleries and museums is not easily sustainable. It could lead to confusion and disappointment from artists and audiences alike. There are also many galleries working on more personal projects. They work like producers, making artists’ visions a reality.
In my experience I found it more rewarding to hold open studio parties every Spring selling my work to connoisseurs for reasonable prices. A lesson learned from the great Don Kimes.
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RAP: “Figuration” vs “Abstraction”: which of the two is better descriptive of the period we live in? Which one will have a better future?
–Juan: Abstraction is not the antonym to figuration, it’s the exact same thing, disguised through lack of information. Why should we limit ourselves from the beginning by conforming to used and abused pseudo historical terms? Working devoid of strategic thinking should be prioritized.
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RAP: Today we often speak of “emerging artists”; what advice based on your experience do you feel you can give to young artists?
–Juan: I would much rather and more enthusiastically be the one receiving advice from an emerging artist.
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RAP: Art as a lens for reading the present, can it modify the space and time we pass through? …will art save us?
–Juan: The metaphysics of painting are perplexing. We spend most of our lives making artworks that will materialy outlive us by centuries. Some painters’ works even look meaningful to us once they die. Things look better in retrospect, when seen as one single apprehensible event. We keep searching all of our lives for a perfect painting, and yet, it seems that our final masterwork will be determined by death itself. Hence, should the focus of our work be gaining recognition through a convincing style and in doing so risk to be subdued by the effects of conformity; or should we find the means to accomplishing a most clarified and unified relationship between our thoughts, words and actions, manifested through painting?
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www.juansc.com
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