Interview with Vasile Stefanoiu
Your artistic credo suggests a deep belief in the communicative power of art. Can you share an instance where you felt your work deeply connected with an audience, effectively conveying its intended message?
My sculptures do not hide anything, the message is all the easier to receive as the viewer intuits the greatness of Greek mythology and the digital pulse of the new era, having the revelation of the lasting dialogue between classic and modern, static and dynamic, and corporeal and abstract from my sculptures.
I had the satisfaction that the visiting public is captivated by the message of my sculptures posted on social networks or on the occasion of the physical exhibition of some of my sculptures at the Florence Biennale (2021 and 2023) or the Sanremo Biennale in 2023, where the Italian public is familiar with mythology ancient Greece, which was taught in schools.
Social media has become the window to the world and I use it as a barometer that measures people's interest in what they do.
I explain each work of art starting from the contemporary truth that in the age of the Internet people have lost their golden vein of culture: contemplation.
This is how I try to break that enigmatic bubble that most artists use, showing inexplicable works of art to let visitors interpret them for themselves.
Art matters because it is meant to move people intellectually and emotionally.
For me, art is a way of being and it is a total pleasure to create unique, impactful art that moves and understands people, without putting the will of success at the forefront, just to reveal my love for art, one that has marked me since childhood.
As Marcel Duchamp testified in a 1971 interview, that fame is unimportant: "it's the posthumous viewer that counts."
The aesthetics of everyday life can be understood as a suspension of the everyday, it being a special distraction from the pressure of life's needs.
The world has never had a greater need for the restorative power of art. I feel that now, living in a troubled world, it is more necessary than ever to create beauty that will be transformative.
The goal is to find a new contemporary language that does not deny tradition, but emerges from it to make a leap forward into the new century.
Given your self-taught journey through contemporary visual art, how do you think this autodidactic approach has influenced your creative process compared to a more traditional art education?
All my studies and knowledge have been the object of my personal passion.
I strongly believe that the spring of creativity is generated by the strong passion for the respective field of art.
And I also think that being self-taught in art is an advantage, to be pure, sincere and innovative in creativity, not being indoctrinated and guided in certain directions that the school instills.
Basically, art is not a defined system like the exact sciences. Curiosity and especially vanity play a defining role in artistic creativity.
The thirst for information in the artistic field is satisfied by the multitude of sources of information about the history of art, the philosophy of art, museums, art galleries and, last but not least, information via the Internet through online courses.
Creative art needs individuals with independent thinking and the freedom and ability to think imaginatively: how to think, not what to think. Here's the break!
What is art? All attempts to answer this question have failed. One thing is clear: the concept of art is indeterminable.
The great German philosopher Heidegger (1889-1976) had anticipated it: “It is believed that the essence of art can be acquired through a comparative search of existing works of art. But how can we be sure that what we take as a starting point for research is really the work of art, since we do not know in advance what art is."
You often incorporate elements of Greek mythology in your sculptures. What draws you to these ancient narratives, and how do you navigate the challenge of recontextualizing them for a modern audience?
All legends from the mythology of ancient Greece have, in the end, valuable wisdom for humanity, which remain perfectly valid even today.
That is why in some of my sculptures I take the narrative context of legends from the ancient Greek civilization and place them in different contexts, suggesting movement in metamorphosis, to create completely new meanings and evoke completely different emotions, a way of seeing again in modern times.
My goal is to rekindle interest in the imaginative richness of ancient Greek art, which from Auguste Rodin onwards was abandoned in sculpture.
The ancient Greeks produced eternal values in the field of art, with deep roots, as a benchmark for all subsequent ages. From a technical point of view, they only reproduced coins and ceramic molds (terracotta), all other works of art were unique and impossible to reproduce.
Their completely exceptional position in the history of art is also due to this circumstance.
The culture of the ancient Greeks, along with some influences from the ancient Near East, formed the basis of art, philosophy, society, and education in the Mediterranean and Near East until Rome. In Western civilization, the study of the Greek and Roman classics has traditionally been considered to be the foundation of the humanities and has traditionally been the cornerstone of a typical elite European education. Therefore, European art draws its essence from the civilization of Ancient Greece.
The texture and materiality of your sculptures play a significant role in your art. How do you decide which material—stone, marble, wood, or stainless steel—is right for a particular piece?
I do not use new materials such as plastic or other light materials, easy to use in mixed media or installations, in order not to degenerate my art into kitsch.
The situation where the material does not correspond to the purpose and, through a treacherous construction, is given as something, is perhaps one of the most frequent cases of the composition of the kitsch object.
Schopenhauer prescribes the rule for understanding and obtaining aesthetic pleasure in the contemplation of a work by indicating that: "it is absolutely necessary to know intuitively, directly, the matter...our joy would suddenly diminish greatly after the discovery that the material construction is pumice stone. .. ".
Similarly, the Romanian esthetician Tudor Vianu drew attention to the relevance of the material in the construction of the work of art: "a plaster that imitates a wood sculpture... loses all aesthetics. , introduces a principle of dissolution and death into the work. "
Marble, stone and wood are the most beautiful materials, nature itself and it speaks to me.
Sometimes carving directly on cross-sections of walnut wood, on the head of the grain, I explore the texture, contrast and shape of the wood, revealing the dynamic beauty of growth.
I mostly make sustainable circular art using recycled and repurposed resources to create art.
In my sculptures, marble is revived, reinvented through art, after destruction. I collect waste marble from the builders of funerary monuments and carve them with traditional tools: chisels, drills, abrasives, etc., used by hand.
It's the same with wood, I choose the best wood from firewood and carve it.
In most cases, I choose the material and its shape depending on the project of the future sculpture, defined in advance after long searches.
Other times, even the raw form of marble or wood inspires my future sculpture.
Movement and metamorphosis are recurring themes in your work. Could you explain the conceptual and technical process behind creating the illusion of movement within the static medium of sculpture?
My sculptures are dynamic, the theme of movement and metamorphosis appears repeatedly in my works.
The conceptual and technical process behind creating the illusion of movement in the static environment of my sculptures, is based on the fact that I do not slavishly reproduce forms found in reality, but interpret them, investing them with the ability to express an emotional and educational message .
The modeling of the human body in motion, in full agreement with the dynamics of clothing or other surrounding elements to reveal the process of metamorphosis, is the very essence of the art of my sculptures.
With the help of the specific expression elements of direct carving, where the attitudes and movements of the human body emphasize the sensation of movement, an impression of animation, displacement, change or action is given, acquiring the value of a language through which the message contained in the work is communicated.
All my subjects convey the same message: harmony for humanity through the fusion of opposing principles.
In the last works I focus my message on the new language of the human body in relation to the dynamism propagated and induced by digital technology that shaped its behavior.
In the contemporary era, the way we see and perceive art and things around us has changed almost exclusively through the phone or other internet-connected devices.
The Internet, through its egalitarian status, allows many millions of people to see sculptures and paintings without the mediation of a single cultural hierarchy.
The distance of thousands of kilometers melts away and the window to another world opens wide.
On the other hand, this new virtual way of looking has opened people's keen appetite for the sensational, we live from sensation to sensation.
Our power of penetrability flattens, our sentimental value extinguishes in the pursuit of the sensational.
Thus contemplation, which is the golden vein of culture, seems to be lost.
Evolution or involution? This is the question !
You have mentioned the importance of moving from form to content in your sculptures. Can you elaborate on how you balance aesthetic appeal with conceptual depth in your creations?
Let's not forget that, first of all, art is something that is felt, and if we don't feel, then we will never be able to understand what art is. The form in which the beautiful object is given to us is that of perception.
All my studies and knowledge have been the object of my personal passion.
My motivation to create art is to bring more beauty to the world and to be able to enjoy the creative process, which sometimes surprises even me.
When I pause, I admire my own creation and realize that life is great, or at least, not so gray anymore.
I am always on a journey to explore what is possible by trusting my instincts, for the pleasure of creating an artistic identity, made not of words but of shapes to represent me.
When I am able to portray the joy and attraction of life, it can enrich my art. This is the challenge.
Visiting museums and art galleries has been an integral part of your artistic development. Can you share a particular exhibition or artwork that profoundly impacted you and influenced your work?
I grew up in the sound of hammers and chisels that could be heard throughout my native village (Ciuta in Romania), where all the people carved the stone in the area to earn their living. I learned to carve stone, taking advantage of the routine of my childhood, where, next to my father, I carved large stone crosses, on which I carved angels.
That's how I learned the craft of direct carving.
I made the leap from the craft of direct stone carving to artistic representation from a meeting, as a child, with the Romanian sculptor George Apostu, whom I saw sculpting some strange shapes that did not resemble those products of the village stonemasons.
Since then I have been searching for the answer for the rest of my life.
I trained in art courses, read a lot, visited museums and art galleries in Europe and New York.
My favorite sculptors are Michelangelo, Bernini and Constantin Brâncusi, my compatriot, who gave such a blow, changing the perspective of modern sculpture, that for a century no one could even sit on their knees.
I confess that movement and metamorphosis are recurring themes in my work, being fascinated by the absolute master of the Baroque, Bernini, whose sculptures I admired in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, a museum I visited several times without getting enough .
My favorite work by Bernini is the statuary group Apollo and Daphne, a hallucinatory sensation of movement after a scene from the book "Metamorphoses" by the ancient Roman writer Ovid, a book that cannot be missing from my bedside table, because of my attachment to the great poet who he lived the last years of his life in Tomis in Romania, being exiled by the leadership from Rome, in the year 8 AD.
The sensation of the real versus the unreal is a fascinating aspect of your sculptures. How do you approach this dichotomy in your creative process, and what do you hope viewers take away from this exploration?
The approach to the sensation of real versus unreal in my sculptures is based on the premise that visual arts are not made to conform to reason. And accepting this paradox helps a lot in appreciating the art of our era.
The object is added to the world, not confused with it, like a cantilevered beam.
Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) said that "art does not aim at the representation of a beautiful thing, but the beautiful representation of a thing".
Sculpture is an art of volumes in space that tries to touch the sensitive chord of human persons through the spatial exposure of various real, three-dimensional objects.
The perception of three-dimensional objects can take place both visually and tactilely. Apparently, sculpture addresses the sight, but in reality this art form addresses, above all, the touch.
Unfortunately, we cannot always touch a sculpture, as would be natural, but we can easily compensate for the social conventions of looking at sculptures from a distance by sight, which has the remarkable property of conveying to the brain the three-dimensionality of objects, since sight human is stereoscopic.
Your work bridges the gap between the authentic and the artificial. In an era where digital art is becoming increasingly prevalent, how do you see traditional sculpting techniques maintaining their relevance and significance?
I make the connections between the authentic and the artificial through the balance between the figurative and the abstract, i.e. between feeling, intuition and thought, essentialization, through a simplified and synthetic sculptural language at the same time, resulting in a creation open to interpretation, which lives. and renews itself in the communication it creates with the viewer, with the surrounding space and light.
Sculpture is a tandem between empty and full in which light plays, just as painting is perceived from shadows and lights.
Personally, I believe in the eternity of architecture because people need houses, but also sculpture and art in general.
Digital art operates more easily in the field of image production, whether video or printed, respectively, the field of painting with traditional techniques could be affected.
The painting being a creation of the medieval era, while sculpture is one of the oldest forms of art, appearing as a complement to architecture.
Of course, architectural or sculptural constructions are also tried to be produced by digital techniques with smart printers, but the manufacturing process is not easy.
I think that digital art loses its uniqueness, becomes a serial product, uninteresting for art consumers, and unique, authentic art, produced out of people's pleasure to be creative through art, will gain more appreciation.
Despite many cassandras who predicted the death of art at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, due to automatic techniques (photography and cinematography), contemporary art is a pole of attraction. No more, no less. There has always been in man an aspiration towards something that was beyond him, something that he does not understand very well, towards which, nevertheless, he made his way. This is art.
Looking to the future, how do you envision the evolution of your art? Are there new materials, techniques, or themes you are eager to explore?
The sculpture must have a message, that's where the inspiration comes from, otherwise it's easy to make a sculpture when you have nothing to say. This is my credo.
Unfortunately, in contemporary sculpture the use of light materials, easy to find, which do not require manual skills, ready-made things, so that some sculptors think they are a new Marcel Duchamp, prevails. And those who use classic natural materials, namely marble or stone, work with them only flexibly, resulting in shapes that are as simplistic as they are strange, without conveying a message.
Thus, contemporary sculpture changed its approach and deviated towards the decorative, losing its message.
In reality, many works of art die because of poverty of content and marginality of perspective.
Thus, the sculpture risks becoming an Aphrodite whose temple collapses if there is no one to bring her offerings. Without contemplators, there remains only a sensible fact, fleeting and easily forgotten.
That's why I like to create a personal style that can be unique to my art and personality, trying to bring back the lost craft in carving, using traditional tools (chisel, drill, abrasives, etc.) in direct marble, stone carving. or wood.
The end of the avant-garde does not come from an exhaustion of the new, of originality, from a diminution of the creative impulse, but from a change of attitude and the search is part of the process of establishing a new period, in which all styles can be found.
Thus, the transcultural superstyle of the 21st century can be seen in the art world.
Moreover, it is clear that one of the great contemporary changes is the democratization of art.
Democratizing art means increasing access. Furthermore, artists began to insert themselves into pop culture and mass media formats to disseminate information and access a wider audience.
All this gives me courage and inspiration.
