The Art as Illusion –

Interview with the jazz musician and visual artist Eugen Gondi

 

by Adriana Carcu

 

 

Eugen Gondi is a reputed European artist and jazz musician. In 1993 Gondi has won the National Painting Competition in the Netherlands and he possesses a collection of European prizes and distinctions for his creative activity as an animation film director, video artist and jazz percussionist.  Today Eugen Gondi lives in Amsterdam where he works on video-installations and plays at European Jazz Festivals.

 

Adriana Carcu:  Gondi, which of the two forms of artistic expression you practice presently - art or music - is your favorite?

 

Eugen Gondi: I don’t think that this is a question of having a favorite.  Each of these is a sensitive channel of communication that helps me express myself.  They are not interchangeable and they don’t overlap.

 

In which domain are you more active?

 

Today I dedicate more time to art but my main preoccupation goes to drumming.  The drumming was and remains my first thought, my first call.

 

What is your concept of art?

 

I don’t believe in art anymore, in its traditional acceptance.  Art has accomplished its role as a provider of illusions.  I think that the experience provided by art will never compare with the direct experiences life has to offer.  I could fake all kinds of things but then my life experience and the adventure of self-discovery would be null.  If you are honest with yourself, in the moment of creation you are alone with your work and you do it because you have to.

 

How do you see the social implications of art?

 

The relationship between the artist and the social environment is a beautiful fairy tale but has no relation to reality.  Nichita Stanescu, a great Romanian poet, told me once a story I will never forget:  There was an artist who wanted to create the perfect cube.  He spent most of his life perfecting it, and when the cube was ready he displayed it in a visible place.  People went by and ignored it completely.  One day in his frustration the artist chipped the cube with a hammer.  From that day on the people were stopping in front of the cube and looking at it.  They were saying: what a pity, if that corner weren’t chipped, this cube would be perfect.  This illustrates very well the relationship between the sender and the receiver.  When you start acting consciously the danger is that you destroy the cube willfully to attain a certain reaction.  This is the social trap.

 

Is art a satisfactory means of expression?

Not really, hence my obsession about the illusion.  For a long time I have cherished the illusion that art were something different than it was.  For me now, the scope of living is life itself.  Gradually I came to the conclusion that, just like our need of unity, it is important that each object should stand in its own value.  Why do we always need to attach value to works of art?

 

Could you illustrate this statement for the readers?

 

Gladly.  I plan to do a performance: I am going to take a heap of rubbish in the street and display those objects just as I found them, without any connotation.  I will spray them with the same color; that will be only unifying trace.  They will all become yellow or red and it won’t matter if that’s a cat or a pair of undies.  I want to show the results of such a unifying process in which the objects lose their individuality.  The form will differ but that’s not important.  This is one of the tricks of obtaining unity in a work.  It is not new.  In earlier times, to obtain the same effect the artists have used varnish; a thin layer of gloss paint, usually light blue, the color of air.  This procedure kills the dissonances, the disparity that for me justifies each object.

 

What are your running projects?

 

Right now I am working on a complex one-man show in which I want to display objects and acts that are significant to me. Like my animation films or my music; everything I’ve done in my life.  I will plays drums live with a backing track I have composed I will project my films and videos.

 

What are your music projects?

 

I plan to record a CD together with an excellent musician, Nicholas Simion, just drums and saxophone, and I am participation to a Jazz Festival in Vienna in October together with other 3 musicians

 

Is there a statement that would represent you best?

 

My life is a perpetual search for means and forms of expression that can help me define my own condition and communicate it to the others.  This is actually a succession of interior revelations, a never-ceasing process.