Art, shamanism and the future. Interview with Nicolas Bourriaud

In the column edited by Spazio Taverna, Nicolas Bourriaud talks about the shamanic power of art and the invisible power that nature has over our world

After leaving the world of museum institutions, the art critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud (Niort, 1965) at the beginning of the year he founded the curatorial cooperative Radicants, with the aim of creating a totally independent company. The first exhibition of the project, Planet B: Climate Change & the New Sublimewas presented during the Venice Biennale at Palazzo Bollani to explore the impact of climate change on today’s art through the idea of ​​the sublime.

Nicolas Bourriaud. Photo Sergio Rosales Medina

What are your references of inspiration in art?
My main references are not necessarily artists, they can come from literature, like Jorge Luis Borges, Witold Gombrowicz or Georges Bataille… Or historical figures, like Humboldt or Charles Darwin. In the long run, of course, I will always be inspired by Marcel Duchamp, Alighiero Boetti or Louise Bourgeois. But, in general, my references are quite dynamic, because they adapt to the circumstances. I am always surrounded by some kind of field of inspiration, which corresponds to a moment. And at the moment it is classical Chinese painting, or the Metamorphosis by Ovid.

Which project represents you the most? Can you tell us its genesis?
The project that best represents me is necessarily the last. And at the moment I’m 100 percent in Radicants, the curatorial cooperative I recently founded. After my five years of experience in the south of France, leaving behind a new institution for the city of Montpellier (MO.CO), I felt that experimentation in the institutional world was coming to an end. Now, the limits are very thin between the private and public spheres. So it was logical to move towards total independence, and build a company that would allow me to produce exhibitions – my own and not – but also to intervene in various fields: commercial exhibitions, museum exhibitions, consultancy on contents and strategies, publication of books … what is Radicants.

Do you believe that the genius loci is important in your work?
When I am called to curate a biennial, or any exhibition, understanding the city is my first concern. And I have a rather irrational method. I am very attentive to the signs, to some elements that may seem non-essential, but which will guide my work. For example: the first time I visited some places in Istanbul for the 2019 biennial, I was struck by the incredible number of birds that gathered near the venue, strolling along the banks. And it reminded me of Pasolini’s film, Birds and little birds, which has become one of the images in the exhibition, or Francis of Assisi talking to the birds… They are flashes provided by the city, like those you can have during a psychoanalytic session. When I curated the Kaunas Biennial in Lithuania, I felt like there was the presence of ghosts, a haunted atmosphere in the post office where the exhibition was planned. And I asked Carsten Höller to make the building ‘shake’ every ten minutes …

Cloud Point.  Exhibition view at Paradise Row, Paris 2022. Photo Mirko Boffelli
Cloud Point. Exhibition view at Paradise Row, Paris 2022. Photo Mirko Boffelli

PAST AND FUTURE ACCORDING TO NICOLAS BOURRIAUD

How important is the past to imagine and build the future?
If you do not have a profound knowledge of history, no one can fully understand the present, so even less predict the future. Perhaps this is why there are no more utopias: because there is less and less interest in history. Piero della Francesca or Mantegna invented a new way of painting by rediscovering the sculptures of the Roman Empire. In general, in order to anticipate the next step, it is necessary to understand all the above.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to go your own way?
My first advice would be to ask this person to follow their own path. I believe in singularity and only your personal journey can provide this singular point that a curator must explore and develop. What builds a personal journey? Some encounters, some tracks you follow, but also all the others you haven’t followed.

In an era that has been defined as post-truth, does the concept of “sacred” still have importance and strength?
I am not necessarily thinking of a religious sacred, but of a spirituality that seems to be increasingly important. I tried to explain how contemporary art is anthropologically linked to the sacred in my latest book: Inclusions. Aesthetics of the capitalocene.

Could you give us three ideas that you think will help us face the challenges of the coming years?
Who has the leading role in world politics today? Number one, the microscopic: glyphosate, carbon dioxide, tear gas, endocrine disruptors, viruses … And two, the immensity: the climate, the atmosphere, the fossils … The invisible is increasingly present in art, because it determines the our life, appearing very concrete.
The political role of the artist, therefore, comes from a new perspective: a new generation of artists, instead of focusing on objects, things or products, are observing the molecular structure of social realities.
It is also important that artists play the same role in our societies as shamans play in their societies: they are certainly not shamans, but they occupy the same systemic place. The anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro defines shamanic activity as “establish correlations and / or translations between the respective worlds of each natural species”Creating flows between humans and non-humans. Both artists and shamans can be described, in his own words, as “cosmopolitan diplomats, commuters or prospects“. And one last thing: it will be fundamental for the future to continue judging art by comparing it with history. Pierre Huyghe’s work has its place next to Vermeer, but you can’t see contemporary art as an amnesic place full of NFTs…

Marco Bassan

https://www.spaziotaverna.it/
https://radicants.com/

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Art, shamanism and the future. Interview with Nicolas Bourriaud