I Am
an Artist
JAGO
A musician, composer, video maker, Jacopo Cardillo aka Jago is, perhaps, a sculptor more than anything else. Actually, it is the act of creating that interests him because, as he explains, “if you have the urge to express something, you do it in the way that feels most appropriate”. Certainly the attention that he has received is mainly due to his sculptural work; he has demonstrated extraordinary technique and a unique sensitivity in his handling of marble, a material that becomes malleable, even soft, in his hands. For Jago, art is as essential an act as breathing, a natural emanation of being, to the extent that he has definitely banished the idea that “an artist makes” in favor of the more encompassing notion that “an artist is”.
I Am
an Artist
I couldn’t do anything other than be what I am. I believe that I can say I am an artist, not that I make art. I’m not being presumptuous, It’s just that I believe we all need to understand what we are.
○ How would you define your sculpture?
Beautiful. That sounds like a joke but it’s not. What I do must be pleasing to me; I must be happy with it because it gives meaning to my life. It’s a way to face reality. Art is a language, a way to be in this world, a necessity like oxygen. For me, doing this is like breathing.
○ One of your most famous works is called Spoliazione (“Stripping”). Watching your production method, one could say that “stripping,” in the sense of undressing, scratching the surface, is a byword for your art.
The artistic act is not really creative in the absolute sense of the term, yet it always reveals something. When I take a stone, for example, it is already a work of art created by the river; it already has its own identity. The work of art is already there.
The artistic act is not really creative in the absolute sense of the term, yet it always reveals something.
○ Is there a political message in your works? Or better, is your art political art?
No, I am not interested in sending a message with my art. The work already conveys a message in itself, the work is its own message so it doesn’t need to be recounted. I find it useless to tell a story about something that already says it all. It is a contrivance of our era.
○ What drew you to sculpture and working with marble?
My family. My father is an architect and I grew up watching him draw, so I have always been familiar with the work of artists. Ever since I was a little boy, they would take me off to the forest. This developed in me a strong connection to nature, so at one point it became perfectly natural to unite my need for expression with nature.
○ How important is the manual practice of sculpture in your art?
Very important. Working with the material, using technical instruments, is obviously the only way to bring out the art inside of things. Working as a craftsman is actually the necessary step to reveal an artistic intention.
○ In a video you say that being a contemporary artist means using contemporary forms of communication, yet in practice you have chosen sculpture which seems to be a quite classic form of art.
Everything being made now is contemporary. Talking about contemporary art is complicated because what do we do with the Mona Lisa? We can’t consider taking a material used in the past and relegating it to a specific time period. The use of technology is maybe what is contemporary; the virtual world we now constantly inhabit. In this sense, marble gives me the possibility to keep my feet on the ground.
○ You are also a video maker, a musician, and a composer; a multidisciplinary artist. How do you live in this multiplicity?
Very well.
○ What is the relationship between Jago the sculptor and Jago the man?
Speaking only for myself, I couldn’t do anything other than be what I am. I believe that I can say I am an artist, not that I make art. I’m not being presumptuous, It’s just that I believe we all need to understand what we are. I think I have an umbilical cord connecting me to art that can not be cut.
○ What are you working on now? Future projects?
I’ll be participating one way or another in several art fairs in the near future. One in China, but the most important project, the one I’m working hardest on, is definitely my personal exhibit, in January 2018 at the Carlo Bilotti Museum in Villa Borghese. ●
