cyprusdossier.com
http://cyprusdossier.com/interview-view-river-north-phanos-kyriacou-maccarone/
Interview: ‘view to river from north’, Phanos Kyriacou at Maccarone Phanos Kyriacou is presenting new work at Maccarone, New York, from January 11 to February 15 2014, titled “view to river from north”. “Over the past decade, Kyriacou has explored varying media interventions within space and poetic manipulations of sculptural form, in turn creating an unexpected dialogue with and about his environment. The crux of Kyriacou’s practice manifests in his hometown of Nicosia, Cyprus, in modes such as the Midget Factory, a project space he founded there, or through spontaneous installations throughout the urban and rural landscape, each functioning autonomously yet on the whole creating a pulsing record of an ongoing conversation with his surroundings. Kyriacou’s position is one considered from the fringes of craftsmanship, astute research and civic engagement. His arrangements incorporate things found as well as commissioned objects often infused with the interventions of local craftsmen. With an awareness of the intricacies of materials implanted in locations and structures, the attentiveness enduring in his output configures these re-arrangements of the spatial and the temporal.” More info here.
Phanos Kyriacou. ‘Rocky’s dreaming’. 2013. Video on loop.
Your work relies, to a certain degree, on the familiarity of the viewer with its context, Cyprus. Are you making ‘Cypriot art’ or ‘art about Cyprus’, or neither? How would you describe your work in relation to its context and how do you think it is perceived outside of it, in New York for example? Your approach seems to isolate the ‘local’ and may ironically, perhaps without it being your intention, have the knock-on effect of confronting the ‘universal’. Does your work critique and perhaps even predict its very own interpretation as ‘local’?
I don’t think that I rely on the familiarity of the viewer with Cyprus, on the contrary I would say that I am avoiding to reveal a place of origin, because I am always cautious not to become exotic, since it is something I wish to avoid. The materials and techniques I use do reference Cyprus to those that have an intimate relationship with it, however I see these sculptures as pure objects, not as sentimental references. I am making art in a local language powered by universal references. This language, this collection of information could not be limited to a specific place because of its embedded pattern of recognisability. Even though in its core the work might have codes that can be read only by people aware of that specific system of codes, that does not disturb its character, on the contrary it creates a space of interplay that results in the creation of multiple notions of perceiving ‘local’ and ‘universal’. You are known to work and spend a lot of time with local Cypriot craftsmen. Whereas their vocations are mostly tied with offering certain utilities and services, your work does the opposite, it discards all these. Especially when thinking of some of your public installations, you architecturally ‘disrupt’ a space and install fragments of such craftsmanship, presenting them in a completely different light from how most people would be used to encountering them. It’s almost as if your work becomes a public architectural tribute/intervention to the aesthetics of local Cypriot craftsmanship, sans utility. What is your personal relationship to these craftsmen and what do they think of your work? Craftsmen have a linear thinking approach when it comes to their craft. Craftsmanship is a transferable knowledge rooted in tradition with limited flexibility. Early on in our collaboration we had constant discussions concerning object refinement and their tectonic logic . For them the final outcome, ideally, had to make no reference to the making procedure and the making of a structure has to follow a logical formula. I tend to design logical structures with subtle irregularities and leave my objects untreated, marked with traces of the making process. I believe that this approach of disturbing the norm without effacing it, and my tenacity on creating objects that are true to their nature, is what they might appreciate in my work. I consider the workshops I am working with as an extension of my studio and the craftsmen as my friends; we found the way to communicate sufficiently to get the work done. Each project opens up a social space vital to the organic development of the work . How does your work respond to the tradition of ‘art as found object’? The boundaries between ‘found’ and ‘local’ offer an especially interesting and complex dynamic. When is the ‘local’ found and when is the ‘found’ local? When is ‘art’ a found object and when is a ‘found object’ art? In my practice the ‘found object’ is always found methodically and it has to adhere to my personal language and rules that always preexist the object. Every instance of ‘found object’ that enters my work contains all the necessary information and it becomes a part of the whole never as an autonomous entity but as a particle. No other attributions other than the ones I was looking for in it, its ‘found’ qualities, which are embedded in its existence and reality have any importance. A found object transmits the local only if a particular ‘local-ness’ is transmittable through its objects. In the case of Cyprus it is transmittable and this bears the danger of becoming superficially local. I go for ‘found objects’ that partly resist the ‘local’; hybrid entities, not belonging of one specific system. Sure they hint at or leave an impression of somewhere but never exude a definite locality. Those are the truly ‘found’ ones, objects that reshape our notion and understanding of a place by being indeterminate and unspectacular. Interview by Peter Eramian