MȘ Interview [Mihai Șovăială x Matei Câlția]
Matei Câlția: Dear Mihai, it has been more than five years since I saw your name for the first time, at the Fabrik printing house, on the first and probably the only apprentice card in the last 30 years. Since then, sharing an interest in books, we’ve met many times. Sounds Like a Book is more than a simple artistic challenge, it is the beginning of an institution that is now reaching its fourth episode. I don’t want you to speak about the topic of the project, the book-sound relationship or how it all started, however, I’d like you to take a look back and tell me what made a young 22-year-old start this collaborative endeavor, what made you do something not just for yourself?
Mihai Șovăială: During the first two years of college I was encouraged to work on independent projects mainly to configure my artistic direction. This does not mean that all this time I wasn’t collaborating with other artists, just that the mindset was fixed on me developing some visual references in order to finish my projects. Sounds Like a Book started from a group of UNArte students that wanted to collaborate in creating publications and, at the same time, to set work assignments for themselves. The impulse for developing this collaborative platform, which from the start focused on the production of artistic publications, came from our collective desire to create an echo for this medium in the local scene. Such a task would not have been possible for singular voices.
MC: Yes, after all, you can’t be an isolated voice and the book itself needs a public. The book community in Romania is still very small and exclusively professional.In Leipzig, however, there is an artist book fair, and Germany already has a settled interest in this. After a long time spent in Leipzig, how do you perceive the relationship with the community here and there?
MȘ: I think that in Romania things are just starting. I could say that in the last 5 years I’ve noticed a greater interest for this medium in Bucharest. This is also thanks to The Most Beautiful Books from Romania (CMFC) competition that had stimulated the attention of younger generations. My general impression is that the cultural managers that could commercially support this environment still don’t see artist books as works in themselves. Consequently, there is a flawed perception between the meaning of an artist book versus that of a catalog or a monograph.
It should be taken into account that in Romania there are few projects that are designed and developed specifically in a book format and here, I believe, is the difference between the Romanian and the German context. Since you’ve mentioned the public, indeed, in Leipzig there are three annual books fairs, there is Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, Institut für Buchkunst, the MZIN bookstore and the Spector Books publishing house. All these generate interest and an audience, therefore, as a young artist you can appreciate these platforms that support production and connect you to the international book market.
MC: Photography and book design, but also attentiveness to the relationship with the space in which you exhibit, 4m3, probably the most performative project so far, as well as Dealul melcilor, The Neighbours Thought it was a Science Lab and Nothing was Touched, just Recorded, all had a certain spatiality. Art has become oriented towards space and ideas, rather than the object* and subject*, how do you see this?
MȘ: In the last two years I focused on how I make the works, and I am referring here to the relationship between the concept and materiality, but also on the way in which I arrange them in space. This allowed me to experiment with different printing techniques, like in the case of The Neighbours Thought it was a Science Lab, where I printed directly on styrofoam, or in the case of Nothing was Touched, just Recorded, where I laminated photos directly on museum glass. Production decisions are made in relation to the way in which I install the works, and the viewer’s experience with the project is a spatial one. For me it is important to develop new communication strategies for the photographic medium and to propose new methods for understanding and reading photography.
MC: The urban is present in your projects, especially in terms of our interventions, be they demolitions, constructions or simply passing through the landscape. Leipzig, but Brașov, too, has many such traces, both cities of Mitteleurope, both which have experienced communism. Why do you want your art only to record, and not scratch the city like a post Neo Rauch graffiti artist would do?
MȘ: My projects are based on researches that give the conceptual tone. In the case of the Holding Pattern publication and that of the ongoing Sculpted Spaces project I am interested in the transition area of the subject. Therefore, there isn’t a beginning or an end, but rather situations and objects that would not exist without that specific context. This timeless feature can be seen in the other works as well. The projects go on for long periods of time and I try to keep a distance from the subject and from relating to it. The main idea is to question reality itself. Through the way I transpose the results of my research, I seek to generate emotions and feelings that allow the viewer to define the experience, without providing an immediate message or a predefined critique. The topic is in itself a stand, only it doesn’t scratch, it tickles.
MC: A third year for FOI, many years for CMFC, and even more for Fabrik, galleries and cultural spaces involved in the production and circulation of artist books; from an institutional point of view, what else do you think is needed to connect things even better?
MȘ: Indeed, things are advancing and we now have a platform and the necessary means for the publications’ production and circulation. I don’t believe in an institutional solution. What is needed is the arrival of publishers that would begin supporting book production, for established artists and, even more, for those at the beginning of their careers, and to be connected to the international distribution chains.
– Matei Câlția in conversation with Mihai Șovăială
The above interview originally appeared in the FOI 3 magazine, in December 2020.