Maddison Bond is an artist living in Portland, Oregon. He draws figures with pen and ink, sometimes with reference, sometimes made up by himself.

You are here in Italy on a trip. Let's start by you telling me something you have seen or experienced by now which you think you cannot forget about here – be it artistic or not.

 In Venice there's Peggy Guggenheim collection, which is a collection of American abstract expressionist works and a couple other Europeans, like Picasso. There I saw René Magritte's La voix des airs. I've never had such a reaction to seeing a piece in person. I knew some Magritte, I knew enough to enjoy it, but for some reason this time I saw this piece and I almost cried. That is very difficult to do, I mean, doing something that speaks to somebody so deeply that it actually moves them to tears.

 

This makes me think about Stendhal's syndrome.

 Yes, that's it. I can close to Michelangelo's wooden Crucifix.

Let's go on to another question: do you know who Piero Manzoni is?

No, unfortunately.

 

He was an italian artist born in the early tirties of the past century and he is mostly reknowned for his Artist's Shit (Merda d'Artista): eventually he put his excrements inside 90 tin cans and since each one of them was a "product" he made and then signed, they were determined as works of art. I asked you if you knew who he was because before, in the first question, I specified "artistic or not", can you remember? My question now is this: do you think that there is a parameter/are parameters that defines/define something (like a painting or a book) or some-non material thing (like a thought or a concept) artistic? And if yes, what is it/are they?

There's sometimes an intention behind something, right? Saying I am making art, what I am producing is art, and you can say that for you it is art and the society can look at it and they can see your intent, right? But the way that they feel the impact of it may not be art. And so I think that what I consider art to myself is my own sort of experience and then what society perceives as art is that share collect of experience. To say something as art or not art, it really depends on who's the viewer of it: somebody can see there's skill in that even if they do not understand it, but for me art is more than just skill. That kind of art, this "artist's shit" in the can... I find that very funny, I find that to be good art.

 

It is quite similar to Duchamp's Fontaine.

Yes... I do love Duchamp's works.

 

Then you may also like his Étant donnés. The artwork basically consists of a big shut door. You can't see what is behind this door. But if you get near it, you see that there are are small holes on the wood it is made of. And if you get even nearer you see that there is a big painting hidden behind it. This painting depicts a woman laying down on the grass, nude, defenseless. All this conerns also my next question. In fact another interesting thing about Manzoni's work Artist's shit is that none of the 90 tin cans has ever been opened and nobody can tell if inside there truly is his excrements. Sure enough the work of art would be ruined if the can is opened. What's more what is inside cannot be figured out by x-raying or scanning the cans because they're made out of steel. This makes me think that what causes most of the people to be attracted to art is not the visible beauty, which for example can be a body perfectly balanced by following the classical canon, or anything else that anybody is able to assume, even though differently, since it is as I said external and visible. To specify, this anyway gives a certain amount of pleasure, which is different for everybody, and makes people interested, but not attracted. Artist's shit makes me think that people are attracted to art because of its part that is concealed and that would be recognized as outrageous by the society; in reality we do not want to open Manzoni's cans not because that would ruin a work of art, but because that would ruin our consciousness, and for some people unconsciousness, of the outrageous, of the...

Obscene?

 

Yes. Like Étannt donnés. Getting near the door anybody can see a woman's nude body. But we can only imagine that she could be dead, since her position it's not natural, since the reason she's lying there is not clearly shown to our eyes. It is that imagination that makes us attracted. The same way we can see Botticelli's Venus covering her intimate parts with her hands but we cannot and would not want to see the pudency expressed visibly in her divine and relaxed acts; we want it to remain hidden, as if the deity is trying to cover it too with her hands, so that it can be found out and we can feel attracted to it. I talked long, but what do you think about all this I said? And above all what attracts you, as an artist, to art?

I think, looking at art growing up... I grew up catholic. I often went to church (not as old as this churches, ours is 1910) and I was exposed the beauty of its statues, its classical sort of forms everyday. But then growing up there's also children's books, little demonstrations and all these made up things, things that don't really occure in the world, and so there was kinda this melding and clashing between the two of them, you know, representative world and then this other unseen world, or world you don't really know about. At a young age I was always trying to keep drawing these things, things I was afraid of because I could not know them and somehow giving them form made them less scary maybe, making them into something, it gave me control in a sense. I don't think I "really" realized what it was at the outset wanting to make art. I just knew, I had this thing that I could not do: it was the most challenging thing to do, because... school was easy, you sit, listen, take a test, sit, listen, take a test. And there was all this unknown staff in art. You could make it look nice and teachers would tell you "good job", "look at your pretty picture", "put it on the fridge in your house", but I felt it was more than that, as I grew it just became more and more like: there's not an "A", there's not a "B" [some types of international grades], there's just what you think, rather than there's this object of skill, looking at things. It was the most challenging thing I had to do, organizing my thoughts and not have them organize for me. I really love good forms, but I like a sense of at least a sort of unnaturalism in human figure. I think there was always something about it being undefined as to how you were succesful in art that really appealed to me. It was nothing like going to regular school. The things that I was attracted to were things that were not necessarly nice looking pieces. As a kid I don't think you're really supposed to enjoy as much as I did. And so there was something a little bit taboo about liking what I liked, about making that kind of art I wanted to make, which was... I never really wanted it to be overly shocking, just a sort of unveiling, removing the veil to something so that you can maybe see with different eyes. At least I think that's what a lot of really good work does: it might seem shocking, but really it's trying to remove a filter from you so that you experience something in a different way, you go into this unknown, you go into this uncertain area. There's always mistery. For me, when I looked at that Magritte it was like the pinnacle of mistery. I remember trying the rosary growing up and I always liked the Glory Train and reflecting on those, and so... for me good art is always misterious, in some sense.

 

I can understand what you're saying. Now let's move on to another question: can you name and/or describe one of your works which is particularly important to you and tell us why it is?

Lemme think about it... what's your opinion? Which one do you like most?

 

That's one difficult question. I really enjoy the works where you use mixed media, just like the one I bought from you some time ago, Angel no. 4... do you often work with mixed media?

I'm trying to, more and more. It's becoming more natural. I used to think that they were different things, inks and pencils drawings, paintings, but as I go on, further and further, I realize that things don't necessarly have to follow rules. I think I got caught up in that.

 

You use a lot of black ink, but I like the colored ones a lot too.

Yeah... anyway I think I figured it out. The artwork is called RedRawSwollen. During a period when I was trying to communicate more emotion I think, rather than maybe mistery or sort of whatever kind of dysmorphia of the body... this is more about feeling. And it was an interesting technical period as well, because I was working with newish themes of emotion rather than the subject matter still being figurative. Technically it was a mixed media as well: two types of ink that not necessarly go together. One is sumi ink. It's just like water and organic things, to make it a little bit warmer than other kind of inks, like India ink. And so, when I was working on another piece I just happend to dislike it and I painted over it. The chemical properties of the materials made this nice, natural sort of fracturing. What happens is that when you mix the two of them they become gray, but if you let them separate, the black would sit on top of the white.

 

It reminds me of a Turkish technique... It is called Ebru, I think. But go on.

Then I used carbon transfer paper, I traced the outline of a drawing into it and I painted inbetween with wash over the top of that. It was a point where I realized that I didn't have to follow my separation, this is painting, this is ink: they can go together. It brought into a new round for me. I was able to work much faster. It was an opening up for me. I kinda communicate a little more personally, I guess. You know, I feel there's this idea... or at least in my mind there was this idea that I didn't want to put my emotion overly into the artwork, to expose too much, and this was just like saying "it doesn't matter, let's see how it works". So it was a big change in therms of how I was willing to work, what I was willing to put in, what I was really willing to show and expose of myself, not just as the creator, I'm not presenting this facade, this simulacrum. I want people to see not just pieces of me looking around the edges: here I was at the centre, I was totally exposed.

 

When did you do you it?

Last year. Recently I have been doing a sketchbook. Every single page is filled with some sort of something. It is all mixed media.

 

This one, with these black birds-like creatures... is it called Feed? It is recent, right? I think I've seen it online.

Yes. I work fast, I do a lot. I have lots of ideas. Sometimes I do the bones, then I go on and when I go back to the sketch I can't remember what I was thinking at that moment. But I usually do not erase, I draw on them again.

 

To conclude, I'll ask you the question that maybe I should have asked at the beginning of this interview: how can we call you, since your real name it's nowhere to be found on your online channels?

That's true. One day I deleted all the informations about myself from the net. You can call me Maddison Bond, if you want.

Gaia Botarelli

RedRawSwollen

Maddison Bond

 

Foto di Riccardo De Marco