BE SQUARE!
A project which uncovers and celebrates the identity of contemporary art museum staffs and a sort of
"longlasting-collective-performance"
BASIC CONCEPT
Riello's working methods pretty often mix "Popular Culture" with "High Culture", creating displays of sophistication and irony. BE SQUARE! is the name of his ongoing artistic project concerning various important museums of contemporary art from around the globe, whereby the artist wants to take care of the so-called "human factor" of an artistic space, to create a new focus on the people who work there (from the museum director to the guards and café staff).
The artist seeks to highlight the particular identity of a cultural institution, related to a specific place, local traditions and working experience. So he studies the historical background of the museum, visits the venue and interviews the museum staff. This process, establishing contact and maintaining collaboration with the director and the curators, usually takes several months.
In practical terms, the artist’s idea is based on the design and production of a specific fabric (the "museum’s own Tartan"). This fabric is used to produce the outfits for the entire museum staff, a type of cultural uniform, elegant but at the same time comfortable.
The uniforms have been conceived by a young team of outstanding fashion designers, under the direction of Antonio Riello, and custom-made in northern Italy. The usual working process of the fashion system has been inverted: they are designs from the Third World produced in one of the most expensive places in Europe.
WHY A TARTAN
In this project, the artist works with a raw material that is normally considered to be "obvious and squared", but which is in fact infected by small mistakes and errors difficult to recognize at first sight (in this way like a virus or a genetic mutation inside an organism). This is part of Riello’s viewpoint of the "wrong side" of social contexts, always balancing on the precarious edge between the politically incorrect attitude and the politically correct one.
Tartan fabric from Scotland is recognized as a worldwide symbol for a certain sort of square, regular Modern-Classicism. It is something that we know well, which recalls the strong traditions of Western civilization, a sort of reassuring home-like feeling, especially in Continental Europe.?However, in this case, Riello’s Tartans are all distinguished by inbuilt mistakes (some small malfunctions in the repetitive grid). At first, these errors are hidden. It is necessary to pay attention..... what is apparently perfect at first sight is full of problems when you look at it more closely. Every real identity is in some way controversial, and not really "squared" at all.
The difficult task of producing flaws using a high-tech industrial loom is an artistic challenge in itself (almost a "virtuoso-conceptual" artwork) and comparable to a "perfectly squared" Tartan pattern that has been entirely hand-painted.
WHERE and WHEN
BE SQUARE! was launched at Kunsthalle Wien (2007) after (2009) at BALTIC (Newcastle/Gateshead) and after, in 2010, at GAM in Torino. Different and specific outfits have been created for each venue.
Each project is conceived as a temporary project, for a duration of 2/3 months. As well as spare outfits for normal wear-and-tear, the suggestion is to keep some of the outfits in stock, after the end of the project. These can be used on future occasions as a sort of "formal dress" for important events of museum life (openings, lectures, etc). Each project needs 6-7 months - from concept, discussion, production to completion.
BE SQUARE! at KUNSTHALLE WIEN, Vienna, Austria (2007) from 07/11/2007
Cured by Dr Gerald Matt. Here the outfits are inspired by the twenties Austrian style and individually bespoken. Kunsthalle Wien decided to celebrate its 15th anniversary by this project.
B.SQUARE! at BALTIC Center for Arts, Gateshead, UK (2009) from 16/01/2009
Cured by Alessandro Vincentelli The style of BALTIC outfits celebrates the local identity (black and white from the traditional Northumbrian tartan), the special attitude of BALTIC for the so-called "street culture" (T-shirt and hoody) and a larger European identity (the "wrong" European tartan).
Photographs by Colin Davison
BE SQUARE! GAM at GAM (Galleria Arte Moderna e Contemporanea) of Torino from 23/10/2010
Coinciding with the opening of the fall exhibitions, the GAM- Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino presents the project BE SQUARE! GAM, designed and created by artist Antonio Riello and carried out with the collaboration of Gianluca Marziani.
GAM in Torino is the only Italian museum to have taken part in BE SQUARE!,
A “TartanTorino” has benen designed for GAM, Riello has chosen the colours of the city’s football teams - garnet red for Torino F.C. and black and white for Juventus F.C. - together with the colours of the city’s emblem– blue and gold. He has also added a touch of green, from the Italian flag, not only to recall the role of Torino in building the country’s national unity, but also as a reference to the large Islamic community living in Torino nowadays. With these concepts in mind, the artist has created two patterns made of two different materials: one for the uniforms and a second one for the “catalogue-scarf”.
An interview of Antonio Riello about BE SQUARE! for SWIDE
For your last test project “B Square” you have made the museum staff the subject of your work. Where did the concept begin?
Usually museum visitors pay attention to the exhibitions and to its architecture: just things, even if amazing things. What is really interesting and exciting is people. So my simple idea is to interact with the “human factor” that is always behind a museum existence. I started thinking about this idea about 3 years ago exactly in front of the BALTIC (Gateshead).
I often wonder when I see museum staff sitting for hours next to exhibits what goes through their minds. Any suggestions?
After many interviews and meeting with people working in art museums I can just say that usually people are aware of the cultural importance of being there, doing their job. In some way they are watchers, but they are “active watchers” personally involved and with a lot of pride and commitment. It is amazing how many unexpected things I have learnt from my interviews with museum crews, now I can really visualize many “invisible” aspects of Contemporary Art.
You have used tartan as the foundation of this project – but of course it is mutant tartan (!) – imperfect. There is a Japanese theory called “wabi sabi” – which means to find beauty in imperfection. Is this a concept you were thinking about during your work?
As a Western one my approach is more practical than theoretical. I don’t deal with beauty by itself, instead I am attracted by the simple fact that to make a digital loom doing wrong is a very hard kind skill comparable to the famous (even of not true) story of Giotto that, as a proof of great artistic skillness, decided simply to draw a perfect circle freehand. A digital machine that produces mistakes is the contemporary artistic approach to the “virtuoso” concept.
The Baltic is an exciting project for the North of England. What are your feelings about the space and what is the museum like to work with?
The space of BALTIC (5 different levels involving usually 5 different kind of exhibitions at the same time) is amazing but is also an epiphania of the multicultural attitude of BALTIC: The “street culture” is mixed with historical exhibition (Fluxus running now), with the cutting edge alpha-artists and with projects very involved in social and human problems. For me it is not only the place where B.SQUARE! was born but also a place where local and international identities can be detected and celebrated in the best way.
What’s next for you after B-Square? Fashion design perhaps ?!
No. Not at all. I am an artist and my project is only apparently a project that has to do the fashion system. Really it involves mostly the contemporary concept of collective and personal identity. It is an ambiguous art project, like most of my artworks, in which I use fashion as a color of the artist palette. No I ‘ll keep being “one of me most inelegant gentleman of the World”, and I am proud of it.
Where do you work? Can you describe your studio (send us a pic?)
Really I work in different temporary studios around the World (basically one in NorthEast of Italy and another one in Switzerland) but everywhere I stay for a while I arrange a place for my working. I need just of a huge table, a lot of light and of a couple of PC plus some stuff like paper and canvas. The making of artworks is managed all the time in specific places where I am assisted by some very skilled craftsmen.
There is a new website called Daily Routines
It is fascinating to read the routines of writers, artists and how other creative people organise their day. Can you tell us how you organize your day when you’re working?
I am used to waking up at 9 and I start working at 9.30. I don’t stop at noon but I like to have a rest at 5pm for my tea. I cannot avoid to stop for a while for my tea. What I really hate is to take care of mail and e-mails (facebook is strictly forbidden in my life) These kind of processes throw away a lot of time everyday and alas assistants are not always perfect to take care of it.
I don’t stop until I finish what I want, so sometime I stop working very late. But basically I try to spend my evening with friends somewhere. I am not a real foodie but I like to eat great food and I do all the time I can.
What is the one thing you need when you’re working?
My pencil and a lot of paper and sketchbooks. All the rest is important but not necessary. I like to have with me a special portable shrine of Saint Antonio from Padua. I am very devote to this Saint. In some way he is inspiring my working (not in the religious way directly, but as he is the Saint of people looking for something, as an artist I am always looking for excellent ideas …..)
What is the one thing you can’t work with?
Noises and telephones ringing up are really a sort of plague for me. I need to concentrate and to focus on my ideas and my artworks. Indeed the mountains of Engadina Valley (CH) are for me a perfect place where to work