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 Stephen Farthing
Stephen Farthing was born in London. He studied at St. Martins, Royal College, British School at Rome; he ran the art school at University of Oxford & was Executive Director of The New York Academy of Art; he represented U.K. at the Sao Paulo Biennale and exhibited The Back Story at the Royal Academy of Arts. Currently he paints in Carthage, Tunisia.
RomeArtProgram: What is your definition of “art” today?
Stephen Farthing: Art is the stuff that artists want to make, which suggests it is not art we need to worry about, but the artists and after them the people who make the artists, the dealers , critics and museum curators. They are the ones who by default define art today. But with that said the art world today is an unregulated market place preoccupied by notions of “ The Spectacular” and peopled by Investors.
RAP: Art is dynamic and regenerates itself… how does it change, and how did it change us?
Stephen: I doubt many artist today think in the way art critics and historians do, that is in terms of movements or schools. Great artists think in terms of themselves and the now and celebrate their sense of being alive through their thoughtfulness and diverse technologies . The regeneration of art is a natural process, that either attracts an empathetic audiences or fails to connect. For the believers art galleries are like churches, places of refection and renewal , for the non-believers they are a pointless drain on the economy.
RAP: When (and how) did you understand that art was becoming very important in your life?
Stephen: By the time I was 14 it was a done deal. I had discovered that I actively disliked going to the theatre, I read novels and enjoyed them , but was genuinely excited by my visits to Art Galleries, the Movie Theatre and Museums. In short I naturally engaged with our visual culture and had less interest in music and the written and spoken word. Also at 14 my parents permitted me to stop taking piano lessons and attending church. At about this time at school I started to receive praise for the paintings and drawings.
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?
Stephen: Art generates new ways of seeing and making sense of both past and present. I have been personally influenced by: GMW Turner, Vincent Van Gogh, Marcelle Duchamp ,Claude Monet , Jackson Pollock, Chuck Close, Jean Helion, Joan Mitchell, Kara Walker and Giuseppe Penone.
RAP: Are there still traditional figures such as collectors, muses, mecenate and patrons, in today’s art and society interaction model?
Stephen: Globally there are many !...
RAP: How have the new technologies and media culture changed art today, improving or worsening it…? What do you feel are your biggest challenges?
Stephen: New technology has had a profound effect on the physical appearance of art and the way we receive information about artefacts and exhibitions . I suspect it has had little or no effect on the content of the very best art. The democratic nature of digital imaging technology has however enabled both refreshingly new voices and depressingly dull imagery into the space occupied by the visual arts.
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?
Stephen: Always light , without light there is no image, simply darkness.
Always light , without light there is no image, simply darkness.
Stephen: We should probably use our imagination to complete the story that is mapped out before us. Looking at a work of art , is an exercise in discovery, of questioning not simply accepting.
RAP: Which is the real role of Academies and Art schools today? What can artists learn from these institutions today?
Stephen: Aspirant artists can without doubt benefit from attending Art schools and Academies , I suspect however , that all art schools should be postgraduate and that it is best for a student to get a degree in another subject before embarking on a specialist course , in art , craft , design or film making. Good artists are intellectually adventurous people , who need to be challenged not simply learn a craft.
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?
Stephen: Artists who stay on a single track make it easier for their audience and possibly for themselves. Artists who have moved between pure Abstraction and Figuration have sometimes made it difficult for themselves – here I am thinking of Philip Guston and Jean Helion. I suspect however the journey is less important in the end than the destination . It is an artists late work that is so often the most challenging and the best. Late Titian , Pollocks drip paintings, late Rembrandt, late Monet and so on.
RAP: How do Art Galleries and Museums position themselves today, and, in your opinion, how should they?
Stephen: They should be providers of food for the imagination, but today stay alive through the foot fall of cultural tourism . They are in short no longer peaceful places that encourage reflection but destinations within a city break.
RAP: “Figuration” vs. “Abstraction”… Which of the two is better descriptive of the period we live in? Which one will have a better future?
Stephen: Today abstraction and figuration are of equal importance , it is like asking a drowning man if he would prefer a red or a blue life raft , either or both will do.
RAP: Today we often speak of “emerging artists”; what advice based on your experience do you feel you can give to young artists?
Stephen: Get a job that gives you time to develop your line of thinking as an artist , work on paper , don’t get a studio until it’s impossible to operate without one, visit commercial art galleries regularly and talk to the people who work in them.
RAP: Art as a lens for reading the present, can it modify the space and time we pass through? …will art save us?
Stephen: Art will not save us, we save ourselves.
@farthingstephen