Artist, photographer, writer, dj, promoter, shaman? London-based Mathew Stone has survived much of the media hyperbole surrounding his activity as spearhead of the !WOWOW! collective to rise as a respected 21st century thinker. I caught up with Mathew ahead of his latest salon, an event curated by the artist as part of the Great British Art Debate.
What brought about this collaboration?
The curator Cedar Lewison is working on a series of events and publications called “The Great British Art Debate”. He had heard that I ran salons and asked if I could do something similar for the project.
Interconnected echoes as a series seems to comprise of interviews, exhibitions and now a debate, could you explain a bit more about why you’ve chosen to use this title so often and what we can expect in the future?
I often re-use titles when I see a work as having the potential for translation and further exploration in another format. To me “Interconnected Echoes” is a poetic statement on how I see collaborative thinking occur.
You work on many projects. Would you still define yourself as a painter?
No. It seems silly to call myself a painter. I studied painting and feel informed by the history of it, but I don’t paint.
I thought about this specifically because you are now a curator for this project – which aims to provoke debate much like an installation artist would bring objects and images together to create an artwork.
I try and employ the same type of approach to all the different things that I do. I enjoy collaborating. My discussion-based events can in one sense be viewed as distinct artworks that I have instigated, but I feel it’s much more interesting to see them as evolving, multi-authored beings that are constantly redefined.
Herbert Read made a clear distinction between Art & Culture. What do you see as pure art today? Or would you argue against Read. Say, argue that the culture surrounding art is just as important.
I believe that a definition of art should encompass all of human endeavor, but I also believe that art should act as an aspirational model for human behavior. I understand the contradiction in that statement, but I think that it’s a necessary one.
As a DJ do you ever consider the exhibition should have a soundtrack or do you think its necessary to keep art and music separate?
Mostly when I DJ, it’s to earn money to keep making work. It’s interesting what you learn. Somebody once pointed out to me that in America in the early nineties there was this particular type of dance music, Baltimore club and they use this one break. But in the UK the same drum beat was being used except in rave records and I kind of like the idea that there is something that stays the same across the world but that there is also a part which is influenced by the context. The country that it emerges from. It’s obviously creative. But I don’t expect it to function in the same way as other parts of my output. It’s different if I am working on a soundtrack for a film of course.
Is there anything identifiable as British in London now?
The problem is multiculturalism as something that is specific to London and not actually a British thing. If I see an artistic scene in London, it’s going across lot’s of different levels, I see people working outside of art in a way that is informed by art or is shaped by art whether its music or different types of events. I think there’s a new type of messiness to the scene which is why it’s not so identifiable.
I’m particularly interested in gender and sexuality. Do you think Performance art is a certain late 20th century obsession with the body?
I would imagine that an obsession with the body is something that has always existed. I think that it’s interesting to try to understand performance-based art by relating it to ritual. Often this relationship is explicit, for example, I see Joseph Beuys and Marina Abramovic making overt references to spiritual practices from history, as well as to the present. I think that ritual within a contemporary (art) context facilitates a credible and relevant re-empowerment of ancient mythological thinking in the present.
Does Performance art serve to solve issues of gender and sexual confusion in a ways that institutions outside of the art world cannot?
I think that the triumph over suffering can occur in any context. The problem with institutions is their rigidity. When we serve a concrete social structure, we limit our opportunities to serve our communities. It inhibits the potential for self-sacrifice, which altruism relies on.
Do you think the web can break down such boundaries?
In a mass sense it’s weirdly democratic. I wondered if there is a case for arguing that actually by seeing mediated images on Google, it’s a more realistic understanding of the impact of art work than it might be if you see it in a gallery space which is a reverential environment.
Do you ever think we will reach a stage when gender will no longer be an issue. Personality as the sole factor people are judged on?
I think that the potential for this type of open-mindedness already exists. There will always be conflict, but there will also always be space to find creative solutions to it.
People have called you a pioneering force in the art world. What is the future for art, what form do you think it will take?
Robert Fillou once said “The great lesson of modern art is freedom. Now we have to incorporate ‘art as freedom’ into the fabric of everyone’s life.” I feel that this is a continual process.
http://www.matthewstone.co.uk/
http://greatbritishartdebate.tate.org.uk/
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Maksymilian Fus-Mickiewicz is freelance journalist. He has contributed articles to Don’t Panic, FACT, USELESS and AnOther Man as well as managing his own arts and culture website Haus Digital. Maks is interested in photography, graphic design and instillation as well as the relationship between cultural, gender and sexual identity in relation to art and architecture. He will be regularly contributing articles to the Off Modern blog.
