Milos Zahradka Maiorana is a mixed-media artist, scholar, and curator. Born in Rome, he graduated with an MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute and went on to receive an Masters of Philosophy (MPhil) in art theory and philosophy from the Institute of Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts. His work investigates the relationship between body and space, content and form, pop and avant-garde, with a particular attention to cultural and philosophical issues.
Art, whatever it takes – RomeArtProgram has made interviews with people involved in art, living in Italy, the USA and the UK, to know their feelings during the emergency. – Milos Zahradka Maiorana interview:
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#1 RomeArtProgram: What is your definition of “Art” today?
-Milos Zahradka Maiorana: Mediums have changed through time but art remains the same, by this I mean that there will always be the mysterious gesture of art. Art is like philosophy, both artists and philosophers need issues to problematize. Both practices generate crisises of understanding.
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#2 RAP: Art is dynamic and regenerates itself… how does it change, and how did it change us?
– Milos: Artwork is a zip file of consciousness. We cannot understand the impact of a Caravaggio painting the way it was experienced in the Papal State of the XVII century yet that revolutionary potential is there now. Here I am in favor of the idea of a classic work of art, meaning a work that can maintain its potential through time.
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#3 RAP: When (and how) did you understand that art was becoming very important in your life?
– Milos: I started off refusing art because my father is a painter. Painting and sculpture seemed out of pace with the fast world. Later on in college in California, I started getting into film studies, the next step was Vito Acconci, from then on I was hooked. During graduate school I experimented with any form available, from radio broadcasts to food as art.
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#4 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?
– Milos: For me, the most influential modern figure is John Cage, his work and writings offer endless possibilities of interpretation. He aslo had a huge impact on painters at Black Mountain College such as Cy Twombly, my Roman favorite.
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#5 RAP: Are there still traditional figures such as collectors, muses, mecenate and patrons, in today’s art and society interaction model?
– Milos: What might have been a war of ideas, for example during the Counter Reformation, is now a war of great economies. Njonetheless art remains the holder of enormous power.
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#6 RAP: How have the new technologies and media culture changed art today, improving or worsening it…? What do you feel are your biggest challenges?
– Milos: The relationship of art with technology is crucial. Could we have abstract expressionism without the economical acrylic paint or the ready-made paint tube? This is not to say technology is always a positive force, I do share fears of a technological algorithm-based art without the beauty of errors. How would a performance work happen without the beauty of error?
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#7 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?
– Milos: If it reflects well, art should show a state of emergency. Art should reflect the system while also showing the cracks in the system (and a possible new system). Art has a utopian power.
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#8 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?
– Milos: We should approach the work musically. What I mean is that we should try and think the visual object with different paramaters such as timbre, tone, rhythm, instensity, sustain, etc.
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#9 RAP: Which is the real role of Academies and Art schools today? What can artists learn from these institutions today?
– Milos: There is nothing we cannot learn on the internet except learning to communicate. The best experiences in art school often happen on the margins, through the people we meet and ideas we share. Artists need communities and art school can be great generators of community.
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# 10 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?
– Milos: Paradoxically, artists that have succeeded in style have been able to calibrate an overwhelming amount of influences. Philip Guston can be taken as an exemplary of style, although his highest moments of style were an unworking of strong painterly influences.
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#11 RAP: How do Art Galleries and Museums position themselves today, and, in your opinion, how should they?
– Milos: Part of the curatorial job is already done by the choice of gallery. On the other hand, galleries choices should not reflect solely financial interest but should advance a much wider conversation in the service of art.
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#12 RAP: “Figuration” vs “Abstraction”: which of the two is better descriptive of the period we live in? Which one will have a better future?
– Milos: If we look at the cybernetic models of today both abstraction and figuration are present. In many ways computers are trying to generate the human form (A.I) while humans become dependant on abstract forms such as the digital algorithm (just ask Google). As artists, I think we should look back to Minoan or Cycladic art to see a stunning synthesis of figuration, abstraction, and humanity.
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#13 RAP: Today we often speak of “emerging artists”; what advice based on your experience do you feel you can give to young artists?
– Milos: Learn to be unproductive. If you are not making art read a book. It might not seem like it but ideas move art “on doves’ feet.”
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#14 RAP: Art as a lens for reading the present, can it modify the space and time we pass through? …will art save us?..
– Milos: I do not believe art can save us but it can help to humanize our experience of the world. Humanize not in the sense of making something similar to us neglecting the natural world but in the sense of finding a dwelling in the world.
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