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Futuro Antico. Interview with Nicolas Bourriaud
Jun 28, 2022
Marco Bassan
Discover Nicolas Bourriaud's views on art, inspiration, and the future of curating. From classical painting to his latest project Radicants, Bourriaud discusses history, spirituality, and political roles in art.
What are your inspirational references in art?
My main references are not necessarily artists, they can come from literature, like Jorge Luis Borges, Witold Gombrowicz or Georges Bataille... Or historical figures, like Humboldt or Charles Darwin. In the long run, of course, I will always be inspired by Marcel Duchamp, Alighiero Boetti or Louise Bourgeois. But, in general, my references are quite dynamic, because they adapt to circumstances. I am always surrounded by a kind of field of inspiration, which matches a moment. And at the moment it is classical chinese painting, or the Metamorphoses of Ovidio.
Which project represents you the most? Can you tell us its genesis?
The project that most represents me is necessarily the last one. And at the moment I am 100 per cent involved in Radicants, the curatorial cooperative I recently founded. After my five years in the south of France, leaving behind a new institution for the city of Montpellier (MO.CO), I felt that experimentation in the institutional world was coming to an end. Now, the boundaries are very thin between the private and public spheres. So it was logical to move towards total independence, and to build a company that would allow me to produce my own and others' exhibitions, but also to take action in different fields: commercial exhibitions, museum exhibitions, consulting on content and strategies, publishing books... That's what Radicants is.
Do you think the Genius Loci is important in your work?
When I am called upon to curate a biennial, or any exhibition, understanding the city is my first concern. And I have a rather irrational method. I am very observant of signs, of certain elements that might not seem essential, but which will guide my work. For example: the first time I visited some places in Istanbul for the 2019 biennale, I was struck by the incredible number of birds gathering near the venue, walking along the banks. And it reminded me of Pasolini's film, Uccelli e uccellini (Birds and Little Birds), which became one of the images of the exhibition, or Francesco d'Assisi talking to the birds... These are flashes provided by the city, like those you might have during a psychoanalytic session. When I curated the Kaunas Biennial in Lithuania, I felt as if there was a presence of ghosts, a haunted atmosphere in the post office where the exhibition was planned. And I asked Carsten Höller to make the building "shake" every ten minutes....
How important is the past for imagining and building the future?
If you don't have a deep knowledge of history, no one can fully understand the present, much less predict the future. Perhaps that is why there are no longer any utopias: because there is less and less interest in history. Piero della Francesca or Mantegna invented a new way of painting by re-discovering the sculptures of the Roman empire. In general, to anticipate the next step, you need to understand all the preceding ones.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to follow your path?
My first advice would be to ask that person to follow their own path. I believe in singularity and only your personal path can provide this singular point that a curator needs to explore and develop. What builds a personal path? Some meetings, some tracks that you follow, but also all the others that you did not follow.
In an era that has been called post-truth, does the concept of the “sacred” still have relevance and strength?
I don't necessarily think of a religious sacred, but of a spirituality that seems to be increasingly important. I tried to explain how contemporary art is anthropologically linked to the sacred in my latest book: Inclusions. Aesthetics of the Capitalocene.
Could you give us three ideas that you think will help us to face the challenges of the coming years?
Who has the leading role in world politics today? Number one, the microscopic: glyphosate, carbon dioxide, tear gas, endocrine disruptors, viruses... And two, the immense: climate, atmosphere, fossils... The invisible is increasingly present in art, because it determines our lives, appearing very concrete. So the political role of the artist comes from a new perspective: a new generation of artists, instead of focusing on objects, things or products, is observing the molecular structure of social realities. It is also important that artists play the same role in our societies as shamans did in their societies: they are certainly not shamans, but they occupy the same systemic place. Anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro defines shamanic activity as "establishing correlations and/or translations between the respective worlds of each natural species" by creating flows between humans and non-humans. Both artists and shamans can be described, in his own words, as "cosmopolitan diplomats, commuters or conductors of perspectives". And one last thing: it will be crucial for the future to continue to judge art by comparing it with history. Pierre Huyghe's work has its place next to Vermeer, but you cannot see contemporary art as an amnesiac place full of NFT...