LLEI D'ART 14

La gente confundemoral y ética. Lamoral es el juicio sobre los comportamientosmientrasque laéticaes laconstruccióndeuno mismo. De igual modo confunde entredemocracia y libertad. La libertadesalgo individual.Unoes libreporqueescapazdeelegir, de indagar, de profundizar en sí mismo. La libertad es interior y semanifiesta fundamentalmente en actos de coraje exterior. La democracia no es un conjunto de hombres libres sino el tipo de organizaciónmás libreque ha sido capaz de encontrar el animal humano. Una democracia no implica una época próspera de hombres libres. ¿Demasiada informaciónprovocadesconcierto? Antes citaba a Heráclito, quien decía: «No la mucha erudición provoca la comprensión», que es, 2.500 años después, lo que nos sucede a nosotros. Hay una información masiva poco cualitativa. La gente está continuamente informada, pero no de los elementos neurálgicosmás importantes que pueden decidir instruments: themicroscope and the telescope. Onone hand, I look towards the inside, andwhen this search reaches the borders of whatmight be obscene from a narcissisticpoint of view, I stop and turn the lens. I try topass from the inside to the outside, from the individual world to the universal world, to the objectiveworld. Andwhen the telescope lens runs the risk of getting lost in conceptual abstractions, I turn the lens again. I don’t use anymethods that are in the literary rhetoric books, but rather themetaphors of both instruments. I alternate the tripbetween internal atoms and stars, trying not toget lost in either the obscene or in the abstract. Tell us about passions...canone livewithout them? Amanwithout passion is either a cadaver or awiseman, because in all theways towisdom across cultures the figure of thewiseman is amanwithout passions, or rather with one singlepassion: truth.Whenone speaks about thepath to knowledge thewiseman is suggested as apersonwho has gone through all thepassions to reach thepurest formof all of them: non-passion. This canbe explainedby the fact that passionsmake us partial to something, theymake us sidewith a specificpart of ourselves, and lead us tobring a specific aspect into focus. I have foundmany cadavers and nowisemen.We are surroundedby the livingdead. I try, at least, to livewithdesire.Without desire you can’t even think, because to think is to contrast what one sees and liveswith what couldbe, or what onewould like it tobe. Out of this tension, thinking is born.Without desires, without utopian perspective andwithout false hopes it is impossible to think. This iswhat is happening nowadays: poverty of thought is accompaniedby a great existential apathy. Arepassions aproduct of learning? I think passions are aproduct of a lot of elements: genetics (destiny, as the ancients considered it), random luck, aswell as elements linked to experience, such as learning. As such, passions are a consequence of all of these elements. Five minutes after separatingSiamese twinswith an identical brain structure, theywill have already generateddiffering experiences and as such their soulswill already bedifferent. What we call the soul, conscience, passion, the spirit…they are all the result ofmany factors coming together. In art there are some genetic inclinations thatmay be active; innate talent, as such. There is an element of learning, of luck, of taste andpredisposition. The samepainting evokes completely different things dependingonour own predisposition. I would say that passions, including the aesthetic experience, aremobile anddynamic spiritual and sensory experiences, singular and unique, that are never repeated at twodifferentmoments or in twodifferent individuals. Devotion tobeauty, the search for illumination…do youhave togive up a lot toget there? Yes, of course.My book, DamnedPerfection is subtitled Sacrifice andCelebrationof Beauty. Sacrifice is inevitable and solitude is acute, but it is thepath towards celebration. Between sacrifice and celebration there havebeen artists for whom the incompatibility between art and life has been enormous, unbridgeable: Gaudí himself,Michelangelo, Bee- thoven, Nietzsche…they all createdbut did not live. Others, however, have tried tomake their lifepart of their artwork and have tried toget the two to feedoff eachother. An example isGoethe, whoseworkwas an affirmationof his own life. It is difficult, but also recommendable. This iswhy Imentioned the balancebetween action and contemplation amoment ago. Everything today is questioned…wedictate sentences and judge…dowe needmore referencemodels? There areplenty of references. I havequite a radical opinion on this topic. Democracy –which I think is the least badof Rafael Argullol. Foto/ Photo CarlesBalsells. ©Llei d’Art 9