Matteo Campulla & Silvia Argiolas
Colette Copeland
April 2020
The first in a series of conversations with artist couples delving into how they are surviving the pandemic times.
Silvia Argiolas, My Home, My Love, My Death, 2020
Email conversation with artists Matteo Campulla and Silvia Argiolas
CC: How has covid19 and the quarantine impacted your artistic practice both conceptually and technically?
MC: When the Italian government imposed the “lockdown”, we were in New York for the week of the contemporary art fairs. At that time, New York had no limitations for people and the news from Italy was worse every day. Our flight for the return to Milan was canceled two days before departure. Fortunately, the airline helped us change our flight by making a stopover in Rome and then arriving in Milan. Upon our return, Milan was completely deserted. This “detachment” from a reality where the virus had not yet changed people’s lives (in my video “the covid-19 spring breakers” you can see the people who crowded The Armory Show, as if nothing was happening in the rest of the world ) to one that forced social distancing and isolation was very alienating. The media here in Italy committed an act of social terrorism, by putting all the blame on the people, rather than the poor sanitary preparation to face the virus. All this and all the video material that I shot in NYC influenced a lot of my work in this quarantine. Another work that I have done since our return to Milan speaks of Infodemia, the circulation of an excessive amount of information, sometimes not carefully scrutinized, which make it difficult to orientate yourself on a certain topics due to the difficulty of finding reliable sources. It’s called “Like a rat in a cage – an infodemic short” and was made for the next group show “Beyond the blablabla sky” at Galerie ROMPONE in Köln. I think this period has influenced me a lot and will continue to do so for a long time.
Silvia Argiolas, D.B., 2020
SA: This quarantine for me has not changed the way I work. Now I do more drawings than paintings, but this is a cyclical thing for me. I often get bored and I like to experiment. The only impediment I have now is the closing of the fine arts stores, ordering materials online is often a problem, you never know when they will arrive.
CC: With all the museums and galleries closed, what innovative ways have you found in order to stay connected to art and artists?
MC: Fortunately many galleries here in Italy have managed to transform the canceled exhibitions into virtual tours and this is not only in Italy. This allows us to see important exhibitions around the world and this is a great thing. Many works have been made free and viewable from home.
SA: Technology has been a great help in keeping in touch with the other artists we know. We are isolated, but connected. This is a great opportunity for the future and for reimagining art in different ways.
Matteo Campulla, video still, Like a rat in a cage – an infodemic short, courtesy Galerie Rompone
CC: What are your strategies for staying sane and not getting on your partner’s nerves during these times?
MC: We try to take care of ourselves. Making art is one of the best ways for us to feel good. This hasn’t changed. We live in an apartment which is also our studio, so we don’t need to leave our house, except to go to the supermarket. We watch many films. We finally read the books that we haven’t had time to read. And we make love. We live with different rhythms, but that allows us to do everything. Problems arise when we have to choose which film we have to watch…
Silvia Argiolas, La notte, 2020
SA: This is because you don’t have good taste, you prefer B movies made without money and without a good writing.
MC: …but this is a good thing!
SA: No, not at all! Except for this problem, which is only a kind of game between us, we love each other and this is the basis for a good coexistence even in these bad days.
Silvia Argiolas was born in Cagliari in 1977, lives and works in Milan. Her research was born from an introspective transformation of what happens within her own existence– facts, smells, encounters. Working with the medium of painting, through a direct intervention on canvas, she plays with strong symbolism and an expression of archaic flavor, accompanied by research from sociological themes and an interest in the theories of modern Lacanian psychology.
silviaargiolas.com →
instagram.com/silvyaargiolas →Matteo Campulla was born in Iglesias in 1982, lives and works in Milan. His research is developed and articulated through the man and his experience in investigating the human soul, through the chaos and the oracle to endless and obsessive research of a contaminant epiphany. The past few years he has examined glitch art, especially with the datamosh technique, researching the digital aesthetic error, through the degradation of the image and the obsessive use of the loop.
Colette Copeland is a multi-media visual artist and cultural critic/writer whose work examines issues surrounding gender, death and the complicated landscape of human relationships. Sourcing personal narratives and popular media, she utilizes video, photography, performance and sculptural installation to question societal roles and the pervasive influence of media, and technology on our communal enculturation. Over the past 26 years, her work has been exhibited in 25 solo exhibitions and 139 group exhibitions/festivals spanning 35 countries. She teaches art and digital media at University of Texas and Collin College in Dallas, Texas as well as writes for Glasstire, Eutopia, and Arteidolia online publications. She proudly admits to providing her children with years of “therapy” fodder.
©2024 ARTEIDOLIA