Francois

Age：32

City：Berlin

Can you please introduce yourself?

I’m Francois. I’m from Bretagne in France. It’s a really good part of France. I was beginning my art study over there before I came to Berlin, and then I started to make a lot of exchange studies in Germany. I studied for my bachelor’s degree in art history, culture and cultural science in different places. After that, I studied at École des Beaux-Arts in Paris for 4 years and got my diploma there. Then I went for my Master’s in Berlin, but I didn’t finish because it was boring. I had so much in my head, it was time to stop and to make something with my life.

How long have you been in Berlin?

I’m in and out in Berlin. If I add all my time in Berlin together, it would be 3 years minimum. But this time I’ve been here for one year, and I’ll go back soon to France. I don’t want to spend another winter here, I don’t want to.

What are you going to do in France?

I don’t know. I will be between my home place in Bretagne and in Paris. I have a project in September in Paris with an artist friend who invited me. Then in October, I have another project in Strasbourg.

I hate this word “project”, but I have to use it sometimes. I am the artist who doesn’t want to speak about the project. I don’t want to do applications. I do it sometimes because I don’t know what to do to get in, but I don’t want to get in. That’s the problem.

Why?

Because I don’t like the style of how they do it. I like art. I make art. I like to exhibit. I want to exhibit. But I don’t like the art game and I don’t want to play the game.

So what kind of art do you do?

I make video installation. That was the focus for my diploma, and that’s my research. The starting point is the working artist, the artist who uses his body to connect to art. First, I made a lot of research that was at time when I was not an artist but someone who was studying art history. 

What’s your definition of an artist?

I don’t have one. I guess a free man who wants to bring something to the people and who has a real interest in doing something creative that can change the world. We have different kinds of weapons. But if you want to be an artist, you have to decide if you use this weapon.

For example, when I was making videos, I wanted tools that are modern. So I didn’t make paintings, because I wanted to use the tools that my enemy, the mass media also use. Because if I want to say something about it I have to use the same medium.

I was not a computer freak. I didn’t watch TV when I was a kid. I had my first computer when I was 22. So I had to learn all the techniques, but I was used to images and learned to analyze it.

First, I understand how to analyze an image. And then, I go into it to make a video to say something about it. I use little camera movement. I have just a tripod and I’m alone, having no team. Like a painter, but I’m with my camera.

Do you have a website for your work?

I really don’t like this Internet stuff. But I have a Vimeo account, which is a platform like Youtube but a little bit more professional in a way, and protected also, respectful for what you do.

Why do you not like the Internet?

I like the Internet for making contact, that part is good. The Internet for me is about connecting. If you want to look for something, why not? But to show something, I really don’t find it interesting.

Or when I watch movies online, there is always another option. And this option is to connect more with reality. So I choose the other option. I read a book, I go to the cinema, I meet a girl instead of going to Youporn. Actually, it’s better. I try to do it the real way, because then you lose yourself in this infinity of possibility.

Ok, what people show on the Internet, they already show somewhere else. So I prefer to go where they show in reality. I don't need that. I have so many opportunities to make, to meet people and to exchange really, stuff in the eyes.

How is life for you in Berlin?

It’s really comfortable and big here. There are not so many people and it’s a huge place. I’m now living in Wedding which is a little bit of an upcoming area.

I’m always in the upcoming places. The first time I came here, and that was about 8-10 years ago, that time I was living in Prenzlauer Berg, and that was the end of the good time. Then it was the gentrification.

Gentrification is a process. Now it’s happening at Moabit. I’m part of it, I’m part of the gentrification. Artists are in the center of this process. They discover the new place, then they make a little bar or other nice little things, then they tell their friends to come. Then the investment starts. The money-makers, the builders comes after, and make money. Then they make the place expensive and slowly push people out.

Do you think there are too many artists in Berlin?

I don’t care. I really don’t care.

Really? Do you think it’s nicer to have this community around you?

It’s random. But all my friends are artists. Most of my friends are kind of connected with art and do art. This is my life. It’s normal. I meet people who share the same life ideas and stuff. My friends are artists. But I’m not into the art scene. I don’t go to the gallery. I don’t go to the museum often. I was doing it when I was studying, because it was my job to study. But now, it’s over.

So you are just doing your own thing? You don’t care what’s happening in the so-called art world?

I really don’t care. But I have my eyes open. I see things even when I don’t go. I’m an intelligent guy. I don’t have to go and show my face to understand what’s happening. Because I know, I studied that all my life, I know all the tricks. I do my work. I try to find and connect with other artists and communities which are doing similar things like me, which is not trendy, but making things interdisciplinary. I made a woodshop and say it’s actually art.

For you, is being an artist or making art actually a way of living, instead of getting professionalized in this gallery or museum art world direction?

It’s not bad if I have museums or galleries inviting me. I would say yes for sure.

Are you trying to go that direction? Are you making an effort?

I try to be myself and to stay myself. I don’t want to make stuff so they will accept me. I don’t want to think about what they want. Because if I just start to do that, then I will lose myself, I will lose my creativity. I will lose my art. Maybe I will have them, but, what the fuck, I don’t want them.

Artists are just tools for them. “Them” being museums, galleries, and curators. They make their names bigger than the artists. They say they organize the stuff. They make a dream team of artists, then they take control. And then we are just pieces of what they need to reach to the point they want to reach, which is a lot of recognition and money.

They don’t choose me for example, because they know I will criticize it. So they only choose the artists that are willing to play their game. Because these kinds of artists they don’t want to do art, they want to make money. And they think, why not to be an artist, because everyone can be an artist.  

I want to have the world, and to have my self-confidence, my pleasure. Anyway, maybe I don’t care. Maybe I will be known in 200 years. If what I’m doing is good for the world, then it’s good. If it’s not interesting, it’s not interesting.

I like to think about big things. So, the little gallery world, the little contemporary art, the little stuff… I stay out of that, but I know the direction, because I studied it. So I don’t answer my own question, I answer the question of time, in art history. And we are now at the point where there are these questions that need to be answered, so there are some artists that need to answer these questions, now.

What are those questions?

Interdisciplinary. Mixing stuff, mixing all different arts and people. To make people understand that it’s a little bit more complicated than just to make an art piece and be an artist.

It’s not like you make an art piece and then you are an artist. It’s because you have to answer these questions now. You know the questions, because we are all in the same time, in the same moment. So all the questions you have in your head, these are the same questions I have. We are all in the same situation.

The question comes with the time. Different time, different question. Leonardo Da Vinci, he answered the time, so artists had to make science, to become scientists. Now it's 2015, and there are other questions. Maybe interdisciplinary. And I will say, to make people a bit slower. Take this dance, don’t make it so quick.

Think about what you do. Look around, there is art everywhere. You don’t have to go to a museum. You don’t have to go to a gallery. Just open your fucking eyes, there is art everywhere. That’s it. That’s the question now, I guess.

For example, I know about this in China. Over the past 15 years, maybe 20 years, there were maybe 10 museums in China. And now after 20 years, there are maybe 2,000 of them. Every day they open a museum somewhere in China. And it’s good, I would not say it’s bad. I just think about art - and girls.  

Did you ever think about, if not being an artist, what other job you would do?

None. (Pause) Oh, I also want to be the archeologist. But I chose to be an artist.

Interviewed at Berlin, Prinzessinengarten. August 3, 2015