Stefano Arienti, 2007, Boston
PCS photo

Stefano Arienti: The Asian Shore
A Conversation between the artist and curator

Artist Stefano Arienti and Curator of Contemporary Art Pieranna Cavalchini.

Pieranna Cavalchini (PC): How did you get interested in Asian art?

Stefano Arienti (AC): I began a more in-depth and systematic study of Asian art as an alternative to the first grand tour of contemporary art in 1997: Venice, Basel, Kassel, Muster, etc. that year, and also my first trip to India.

PC: What kind(s) of Asian art are you particularly drawn to?

SA: Visiting India, the architecture-sculpture and textile art, including a greater interest in carpets, but studying the ancient Orient, the pictorial traditions of China and Japan.

PC: As an AIR you spent over a month at the Gardner? How did your perceptions of the Museum change over time?

SA: Living inside the museum, one can travel in time, for example to the time of Isabella, delving into American history from a century ago, with interesting parallels to today, two periods of bellicose stability, expansion, and upset. The evolution of the institution of the museum follows changes in the world and in ideas, but it does not tell us in advance what will come.

PC: Aside from the Chinese Room is there a work of art or an aspect of the museum that you are particularly drawn to?

SA: A collection tied to a specific person in her time, with an installation that has remained untouched by museography, where each person can construct whatever path he or she desires, always coming back to look at the same things, side by side, but with a different interest. One can discover thousands of things and spontaneous new associations of ideas emerge.

PC: What do you mean by the title The Asian Shore?

SA: It is a literary quote from a story by Thomas Disch, it is a shore of arrivals and departures, inhabited by the undertow of time, where one can really take a rest.

PC: You are using a very unique drawing technique in this exhibition. Wood burning and carbon transfer on paper. What make you choose this particular technique for this particular installation?

SA: A technique discovered by chance, years ago, but refined more recently, it allows me to directly transform the forms and tones of photographs into drawing, with a very controlled and selective use of what was already contained in the image. It is a slow and by no means immediate way to probe complex images. I have used it most frequently on rare archival images, as for example those from Leonardo’s ceiling in the Sala delle Asse in Milan, which are no longer recognizable.

PC: You have been working with rugs for several years. Why? What is it about rugs that appeals to you?

SA: Objects extremely rich in history, which we walk over unconsciously; while decorative, they give us so many images, motifs, and designs, a world to be investigated, which becomes painting as soon as they are touched, and in some way they are also ideal bases for sculptures, as soon as one pauses on them.

PC: What made you decide to include the Chrysanthemum and Bamboo sliding doors in your installation at the Gardner?

SA: The desire to know and appreciate a masterpiece hidden in the recesses of the museum, the signs of the bamboo curtain are connected to the scheme of my drawings, so that my Asian shore of carpets also has a cane thicket.

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