Interview with Jacopo Benci

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.

Jacopo Benci is an artist whose work includes photography, film/video, installation. He was Assistant Director Fine Arts, and Senior Research Fellow at the British School at Rome (1998-2018). He has lectured and published on the works of Antonioni, Pasolini, Ghirri, Tarkovsky.

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

Jacopo Benci: I’ve been living in Rome since 1969 but I grew up in Milan, so I understand the experience of all those who come to Rome from another place, as was the case for the artists and the architects at the British School at Rome where I was in charge of the Fine Arts residency programme for 17 years. As for my background, I studied the history of art as well as film studies, anthropology, English and American literature, at the Sapienza University of Rome.

RAP: In your opinion is there a “creative method”?

Jacopo: There is no such thing as a creative method that’s good for everyone. Instructors in art schools may teach students their own creative method, and that’s wrong in my view. Everyone has to find their personal method starting from ‘ce qui te ressemble’, what resembles you, as Baudelaire said. There are as many creative methods as there are artists, and there often are as many creative methods as there are phases in an artist’s work.

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

Jacopo: The lockdown months were a very productive time for me. I read a lot more and I watched more films than I usually manage, and I made work in different areas, so in this sense it wasn’t a difficult time – it was almost like being on a long residency in an isolated place, as is sometimes the case for artist’s residencies.

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

Jacopo: What inspires me is probably a combination of what I see in the physical world and what I have learned from art. Many artists filter what they see through their knowledge of arts and media images. I look a lot at the world around me, in all its grand and minute aspects, but I’m aware that what I gather from my direct observation is filtered through art, cinema, but also literature and poetry. What I find inspirational about Rome is its mixture of old and new, of order and disorder, high and low, buildings incorporating fragments of other buildings, ancient ruins alongside modern buildings… Michel Serres wrote that Rome is “above all, a mixture of outsiders“, and added, “only the mixture withstands time, because the mixture is time”. This mixture is a teaching in itself.

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

Jacopo: As I said above regarding inspirational sources, maybe it’s the mixture that is intrinsic to Rome that made me realize that it is possible to work in different ways and across media. Sometimes I’ve concentrated on one medium, such as photography or installation or film/video, other times I’ve worked simultaneously in different media. It’s fair to say that my work is driven by themes, by subjects, rather than by a medium or process.

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

Jacopo: The pandemic is bringing with it a global economic crisis, and this surely affects what we call ‘the art world’ – the private galleries, contemporary art museums, art fairs and global biennales – but that’s a self-referential domain that will happily go back to ‘business as usual’ as soon as possible. A change of mentality will only take place in those willing and able to look at the wider picture rather than just the narrow field of the ‘art world’.

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

Jacopo: A vaccine will be eventually found for this pandemic, and it will be forgotten sooner than we think now. Global warming, however, will stay with us for a long time. That is the most important issue at stake, and artists can contribute creatively to devising sustainable ways for humans to live on the planet without destroying it.

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

Jacopo: Art can ‘save’ us if and when it’s a form of criticism of what exists, of the status quo. If art is only about creating consensus and the production of sumptuary goods for the rich, it may be pretty, nice to look at, but it cannot possibly make any difference.

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

Jacopo: My most ambitious dream is to continue to live the life I’ve had up to now, that is, to be an artist. As for sacrifices, the life of an artist is often strewn with sacrifices but it’s worth it if you live exactly the life you want.

RAP: Recently, the artistic and cultural message of Italy and Rome was re-emerging as a great “work in progress”. Is this your point of view?

Jacopo: On the surface, it looks like things have happened in Rome over in the last 10 or 15 years in the arts. But the opening of contemporary art museums or a larger number of private galleries does not in itself create an artistic and cultural environment. Rome still leaves much to be desired in that sense. Indeed, Rome was a very vibrant centre for visual arts, cinema, theatre, fashion, literature from the 1940s to the 1970s, but not comparatively thereafter. It still has to recover that vibrancy.

RAP: Which is your favourite Italian, or Roman, place(s) of art (museum, gallery, monument…)?

Jacopo: It is impossible for me to answer this question. Rome is so rich in the most diverse things from all eras that the answer could be different every day. Today I could choose a Borromini building, tomorrow the early medieval frescoes of Santa Maria Antiqua, and the next day Moretti’s Palazzina Girasole or Libera’s Post Office at Ostiense…

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

Jacopo: Again, I cannot give a single answer to this question. I could say Romanesque architecture today, Quattrocento painting tomorrow, another day I could say Mannerism, Italian modernist architecture and design, or post-war Italian films. If I had to choose just one Italian work of art, perhaps Pontormo’s Deposition… but it could equally be Leonardo’s Cartoon for the Virgin and Saint Anne, Bramantino’s Adoration of the Kings, or Antonioni’s L’Eclisse.

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

Jacopo: Rome is a place truly shaped by art and architecture, so it can be the best place for an artist to live, provided that you have a constant contact with the rest of the world. In my case this happened through foreign practitioners whom I’ve met and befriended from the 1980s onwards. All those who make sense in the arts sooner or later pass through Rome so if you’re living here and you’re alert, you’ll be able to tap into this endless flow of talent and ideas.

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

Jacopo: In recent years, in addition to working as an artist I have also been teaching contemporary art history, and I have come to understand how important it is to convey to students a passion for things but also a critical attitude. So my goal is to bring my artistic projects to fruition as much as possible, but also to continue helping younger people understand how to ‘follow their bliss’.

www.jacopobenci.com