1.What is the CICA?
It is a Centre of Production and research of contemporary art.
2. Does the Centre have a theme?
Yes, the Immaterialism.
The whole matter, during its creation, possesses a double nature: both particle and wave, depending on how you decide to measure them. The double nature of matter is more the result of the interaction with matter itself, than a sort of intrinsic property of a reality provided with an objective and independent existence.
“Within physical reality, virtual states are part of the kingdom of potentials, as they include the future empirical possibilities of the universe.”
There is a virtual invisible dimension, which directly influences the “ visible” material dimension in a way which is impossible to quantify completely . Till today the art criticism has studied, observed and subdued the visible part, the matter particle. Now we have to move to the virtual dimension (the wave).
The novelty of quantum physics does not reside in the consciousness of this influence then, but in the impossibility of controlling it: it is not possible to determine the quantity of disturbances due to the observer. The principle of indeterminism, which was discovered in 1927 by Heisenberg, states the theoretical impossibility of a precisely determining position and a momentum (speed) of a particle: the observation of one of the two elements will perforce influence the other one’s value.
This circumstance requires a deep revision, if not the abandon, of determinism and causality.
A new electrifying and exciting research that will have revolutionary effects on the contemporary art and in economics, philosophy, science and in our life.
C ICA will be the factory of the Immaterialism.
Our mission isn’t and doesn't want to be commercial, but promotion of artists who develop the artistic research in this field.
What is the Immaterialism?
It is intended to propose a new commitment of artists and more generally of contemporary society, to overcome the material values (supremacy of the economy, of the determinism, of the casuality, of the globalization) with the immaterial one’s ( supremacy of sustainability, of uncertainty, of complementarity, of glocalization )
In sum man returns to the aim not the means.
3. What was the inspiration for your CICA?
Contemporary art is a drug so it can depress and excite. It's an intelligent Prozac which attends to control ourself, to stimulate useful reaction to the “Big Brother
The Immaterialism will be the “Trojan horse”, to smash the system procreates and handles contemporary art.
Today the new competitors are immaterialism and materialism, as 50 years ago were communism
4. What makes your Center special?
The choice to select only artists who are researching. They are testing new languages beyond market
5. What is the connection, if any, with “ La Biennale di Venezia “?
There aren't connections. It is not true.We have one connection. It is a logistic connection.
Our center is very close to the Biennale Location, in the middle of Arsenale and Giardini.
6. What are you trying to accomplish with the Center?
I want to propose to the market a more bright kind of administration of contemporary art, breaking the old cultural and commercial hierarchies.
In the mean time to develop a new search about mechanics quantum, science and contemporary art.
7. Tell me about yourself , your background. Are you an artist, an art connoisseur, a businessman, or all of these? What in your background makes you, in your background, the right man to do this?
I began to collect art works in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Where I lived for 10 years, 1989-1999 as International Marketing Adviser.
I changed dollars in rubles to buy art, and so began this great passion.
Later I decided to take away from the international finance
My real schools were the Hermitahe, the State Russian Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery and the ateliers of many Russian artists.
In 2000 I was the Owner of some Contemporary Art Galleries
In 2003 I began to study the NY art market and in 2005 , I opened my own NY1 art Gallery, at 515 West 25th Street, in New York.
Today, I'm managing the NY Biennale Art 2009.
I love to work with artists and researchers of many academic disciplines who search new expressive forms and contents, especially related to the immaterial values.
I believe in current revolutionary moment, effect of the crash between old values of the material development (business & blood) and new values of the immaterial development (sustainability and ethics).
The art has been accomplice and backer of the old system.
Today I engage my full participation to this new phase of human history, immateriality and quality will prevail on materiality and quantity.
8. What are the genres in your Shows? Will it encompass installations, performance art, the avant-garde et al.?
We like to promote a philosophy: the important thing is the process, not the object. This is the message. If we want a quality art which avoids the speculative bubbles we must select the artists who are working on the process, on the conception, on the concept.
“The designation of the conceptual art opens to artistic actions that cannot be judged and understood on the basis of concrete and manifests creations. But they establish themselves, as it happens for the other medias, on procedures and processes. In other words, the change that this term introduces doesn’t regard only the shape and the subject of art, but its own structure”.
Rolf Wederer at the presentation of the exhibition of conceptual art entitled “Konzeption/Conception” in 1969.
Reward quality means to collect artists who produce little and are not reproducible. Also these artists will avail themselves of collaborators able to chip in visual art. The artist will be more and more a collective and multidisciplinary entity.
9. Who are some of the featured artists?
There are a lot of great artists that we don't know yet. We are looking for them. This is our mission.
10. How did you select the artists for the Center ? You have previously said that you want to include younger artists and more recent works in the Show. Why is this important to you?
We will select the artist from the street and from Internet. I want to include younger artists and more recent works in the Show because we must go toward the future and not stop or come back, so we must consider the new ideas, the most fresh and innovative one’s.
11. What will the venues be in CICA? What locations?
We will work in our space exhibition, but we will promote also many guerrilla art events, in Venice and in the world.
12. What is your view of the contemporary art scene?
A lot of products, a lot of decorations, not much art.
The market has rewarded, and still rewards, the reproducibility, the technique, the object.
The party is over.
Contemporary art market must change or it will die.
13. Do you consider Venice still the art capital of the world? What other art scenes do you think are important now?
No yet, NY today is the capital of contemporary art but if it doesn't change, it will lose the supremacy.
New actors are entered into the scene and want to be protagonists.
On the other hand, in the global village doesn't matter where you are, but who you are and what you are doing.
Two dates will remain in the art history:
September 16th, 2008: Damien Hirst sells for $ 200 million at Sotheby’s, directly to the market
Goodbey Gagosian and White Cube.
April 25th, 2009: Victor Pinchuk open his personal Museum with 200 works of Damien Hirst.
Now the collector, breaking the historical hierarchies, want to be recognized as the new princes, the artist has been set back, the main actor of the market is the collector.
The galleries and the dealer will disappear. The collectors demand a direct relationship with the artists.
The museums will have to become centre of artistic production of very high level, fairs have to focus on the artists.
From the object to the process, from the reproducibility to the uniqueness, from Prozac to “Brunello di Montalcino” , from metropolis to wire city, all that is a revolution which will change all the system of the art and more.
Venice simbolyzes a art over the market. La Biennale di Venezia has been for a long time the spiritual guide of the market.
The past don’t come back but we can go over the future.
14. Do you have a special dream?
