Interview: Miltos Manetas

Although Miltos Manetas was born in Greece and is based out of London, his work speaks to many. I first became aware of him when someone linked to his jacksonpollock.org site and decided that I just needed to know more... (image courtesy of manetas.com)

At what point in your life did you realize that you wanted to become a painter and what influenced you?
I used to be a conceptual artist before, I was working with video. I
made "Soft Driller", a movie where two thugs threat each other, " I"ll
fuck you up", says one, "No way", replies the other. It was
successful and coherent but in 1995 I was fed up with this kind of
Art so I changed perspective and became a Painter. It all started at the point where- to say it with Mary Shelley's words-" I had lost all my hopes for Utility and Glory" and I decide to abandon Art altogether. But before doing so I made a painting, I actually did 4 copies of it (the Sad Tree, 1995) and send it to 4 exhibitions. they were supposed to be the final shows for me, my farewell. But some Museum curators loved the work and asked me for more and that's how I
got in the business of Painting.

My basic influences-in terms of Painting- are mainly RRR (Rubens, Rembrandt Rafaello) and PPF (Picasso, Pollock, Fontana) while in terms of Art in general - which means "how to influence your own Future by some self-made Magic" is GGG, (William Gibson, William Gibson and William Gibson)

What inspires works such as the ones at Neen.org and Jesusswimming.org?
The beauty of the Internet, the possibility of re-inventing yourself there as well as re-making the rest of the World too if you so wish. "Jesus" is in itself a boring concept but Jesus on the Internet can be suddenly interesting again if instead of walking on the waters you have him swim- a miracle in reverse. Of course you could do that before on an exhibition but you would address yourself only to a small public while making it online you communicate it globally.

I love the idea of the Electronic Orphanage. What is the longest time one person has participated?
Well, the EO is still happening, we are planning of opening it in Bombay and from there launch it in Asia but I can't disclosure any details yet..

What is the most difficult/frustrating part of navigating the art world?
We are such lovers of Yesterday-in the ArtWorld- such groupies of everything that has a commercial success. We can namedrop for hours and in order of doing business with us you will need to participate to some degree in our faith and rituals. Ours is a Tribe and as such it
has its own Totems and it doesn't care much for anything else unless it relates strictly with these revered symbols. Just look at Artforum, the square holy grail of the ArtWorld. Look at its website Artforum.com. Artworld is a new Africa, with a few powerfull people who are feeding from each other and the many rest dying slowly in misery and ambandonance.

If you will decide to invent your own tribe-as we did with Neen- it can be risky because you become an outsider and they will eliminate you by simply ignoring you. Its not a concious decicion of course, single people in the Artworld are positive and creative but in decision making they behave behave like a herd.

The ArtWorld doesn't want to hear about anything that it is not known already, the unknown will upset its order and offend its principles. So if you want to introduce 'new" you need to apply some dust of "obsolete" over it to make it recognisable to the tribe.

What gives you comfort and joy?
Consuming, what else? I am joking : )
The existence of people who do Neen things, that's what gives me joy.

Posted in: artist, electronic orphanage, internet, miltos manetas, neen, painter