Page 65 - BECOMING EVA SHOW CATALOGUE

ric sense, is perfection. world of ceramics, and even not. I don’t believe anything
there alchemical practices I’ve written. I don’t believe
SN: Indeed. The performer are mentioned extensively, in the sense of the term ra-
Melissa Ghidini, is a gender the biggest debt that Euro- tionally, but I am strongly in-
fluid individual with very pe owes to alchemy is the fluenced by it.
particular characteristics discovery of porcelain, be-
that we voluntarily inser- cause it was discovered by SN: That’s a really beautiful
ted, from a purely formal an alchemist, who was lo- thing.
point of view, there was this oking for something else
reasoned thing. Eva is the and found porcelain. It is SG: It’s very important to
combination of two oppo- said that the alchemist was me that I’m a rational old
site poles. Basically, this is locked up in the basement man, an engineer, I’ve denied
a lot of my artistic action: of the castle, where a tortu- everything, except that I’m
coincidentia oppositorum. re machine in the shape of convinced that the more
Taking an extreme, taking a woman with rotating me- rational and logical one is,
the opposite and bringing chanical arms was also kept. the more one looks for so-
out a work that is a balance The secret of the porcelain mething else. Rationality is
between two opposing for- was then defended by silen- a construction that serves
ces. ce for many years. Now, I to protect us from the ir-
don’t know if it’s legend or rational drives that are una-
SG: It’s interesting how you not... but there’s this story voidable, I’m convinced of it.
put the idea of perfection circulating... The more one is servile to
into play. Paradoxically, sin- logic the more in reality, un-
ce perfection is unattainable SG: True or false does not derneath it all, he is frighte-
by definition, you condemn make any sense for the ned by the irrational aspects
yourself to processuality. point of view we are adop- of life and is strongly influen-
Magnum Opus, entering the ting. Ninety percent of the ced by them...
path of perfection is such things that the alchemi-
an extreme paradox that sts said were ideological IB: From that magma, why
anyone who has thought constructions that had no does magma recur...
of achieving perfection has physical, philosophical re-
never succeeded, precisely ferences. It is precisely the SG: And so hermeticism
because they are fundamen- process and the idea that has this function of hiding
tally unattainable dreams, are powerful. powerful images, powerful
because perfection does words, words that are never
not exist, only chaos exists. IB: That silence also happe- only with a sense, so here
ned inside the performance also emerge many word ga-
IB: Yes it’s true, it’s a tension. was a fundamental compo- mes.
nent, it allowed moments to
SG: So when you put your- be perceived. It’s true that SN: I think I have taken up
self in the condition of thin- we were all in the dark and this task as an artist, who
king about perfection, you we didn’t have our sight du- therefore uses his own lan-
put yourself in a condition ring the climax, but we di- guage, autonomous, because
of continuous journey, con- dn’t even have a voice, you now we are faced with the
tinuous research, and that were in a moment of asto- industrialization of every
was what the alchemists did. nished suspension, and that sphere of existence with
That then there were a se- final phrase Eva says about the field of art that is sub-
ries of crazy, paranoid and the mask can be a mask of sumed in the entertainment
charlatans inside is another vision but also of speech. industry. To go back to the
thing, but surely the idea idea of shaman, something
is that: to seek perfection SN: The final phrase is con- also in the ancient rites of
even if intimately they knew ceived precisely as a sibylli- Eleusi, an echo that comes
very well that it would be a ne, as something polysemic, from the cosmic magma,
path that would never end, catapulted into a new era precisely, and goes through
instead here utopically or directly from classical thea- all the history covered and
dystopically, to each one the tre. alive thanks to the treasure
choice, the final station of chest of mystery. It is not
contact takes place. SG: It’s still an airtight phra- something in itself, but an
se, my writing is intolerable artifice that hides an action
IB: And it happens in the ab- Hermetic Guide why? Be- within the space that delimi-
sence of speech. I make an cause in the end this herme- ts.
important premise for me ticism does, it can do it well
about the notion of “absen- or it can do it badly, it can
ce of speech”. I come from do it by deceiving us or ho- 61
the -somehow obsessive- nestly, one can believe it or