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 Stefania Morgante
Stefania Morgante is an Italian visual artist, painter, sculptor and photographer, jewellery creator & scarf artist. She received an Arts, Music and Show business Degree at the Bologna University-Italy.
Her passion for drawings, sculpture and jewels was born after several experiences as teacher of drawing and theatre editor. She is a multidisciplinary artist based in Italy whose works have been exhibited nationally, as well as in the United States and Russia.
RAP: What is your definition of “art” today?
Stefania Morgante: Art is always transformation, reflection, change… any process that intercepts the present and reads it, interprets it, tries to understand it.
RAP: Art is dynamic and regenerates itself… how does it change, and how did it change us?
Stefania: Life and art are always intertwined and therefore one changes the other. Art is always capable of being new in the eyes of different generations, in my opinion it has the power to change people. In that process, art regenerates us, and it regenerates itself.
RAP: When (and how) did you understand that art was becoming very important in your life?
Stefania: When I was three years old: I declared that I would be an artist. They all laughed… so, a kind of rebellion arose within me, and an inner urge to create that I still feel today.
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?
Stefania: I believe that rediscovering the meaning of life and our role in the world, in these times of crisis, wars, climate change, is so urgent that we must necessarily rely on art. Art connects us with reality and nourishes our spiritual side. In my opinion, there are two figures able to intercept problems and solutions through art: Cindy Sherman, who reconstructs caricatured, ambiguous and absurd social environments, and is able to read the contemporary as few other artists are able to do; and Georgia O’Keeffe, who studies forms, accentuates the particular making it universal, whose unadorned life reflects respect for the environment. Both these figures lead us to see reality with new eyes, imposing a new vision of women.
RAP: Are there still traditional figures such as collectors, muses, mecenate and patrons, in today’s art and society interaction model?
Stefania: I don’t know. Galleries have often snubbed me… you’d have to be known to get their attention. I think there is not much willingness to take risks: collectors & patrons want to play it safe, they don’t bet on unknown artists. I find a big gap between artists and galleries & patrons. The Internet has bridged the gap and made it possible to bypass them, which is good, but on the other hand it has levelled everything down.
RAP: How have the new technologies and media culture changed art today, improving or worsening it…? What do you feel are your biggest challenges?
Stefania: I don’t think it’s good to be afraid of technology. It is inevitable. Even when they invented photography they said painting was dead. Technologies are a medium, neither good nor bad.
Art can always get better or worse with the intervention of mankind. When technology replaces us, maybe art will be something else. I will not be there so, I leave the problem to those who will come.
I believe that the strength of art is to have ideas. Technologies can help us but not replace us. The biggest challenge is to stay within reality, to stay in the flesh, the rest is outline.
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?
Stefania: To be honest, I see a thick fog, instead of light & shadows: banality, easy climbing with likes, improvisation. In every century we have seen great movements and artists generated out of decadence and destruction. Today we seem to pay little attention to what is happening, unwilling to see beyond it. We seem lost, staggering. We seek success, then do research… I don’t feel very optimistic.
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?
Stefania: For me it is important to know something about the artist. I have to start from the assumption that a work has multiple readings, then to be intrigued by why it attracts or repels me. I am not convinced by works that excite, there has to be something that makes me think. I have to be stimulated by new thoughts, something has to shake my prejudices and clichés first, I have to feel a little “changed”.
RAP: Which is the real role of Academies and Art schools today? What can artists learn from these institutions today?
Stefania: I attended the Liceo Artistico and Dams in Bologna. Academies and art high schools are always important to me. A good technical and theoretical foundation is indispensable. I find it inconceivable to make art without knowing techniques and theory… this applies to music, to writing, why shouldn’t it also apply to art?
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?
Stefania: Advantageous to be recognisable, disadvantageous because people don’t do research just to please the public.
RAP: How do Art Galleries and Museums position themselves today, and, in your opinion, how should they?
Stefania: For me, both should strike a balance between the need to sell tickets and to be places of research. There is often a preference for profit at the expense of education. MoMA is a good compromise.
RAP: “Figuration” vs “Abstraction”. Which of the two is better descriptive of the period we live in? Which one will have a better future?
Stefania: Both can describe life, where they interpret it with intellectual honesty.
RAP: Today we often speak of “emerging artists”; what advice based on your experience do you feel you can give to young artists?
Stefania: Sometimes I have problems when it comes to making categorisations. There are artists discovered at the age of 80, they are still emerging but not young… so what..? My advice to the art world is to forget youth as a value and include it in the inevitability of life… let’s forget it, research and create, at any age.
RAP: Art as a lens for reading the present, can it modify the space and time we pass through? …will art save us?
Stefania: Rembrandt saved me. And I think that, like me, many have been saved by art. There is an important therapeutic part; maybe that art does not change space and time, but it changes us. And so, we can change the world, hopefully for the better.
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