Econique had the pleasure of interviewing the artist Donato Piccolo to talk about art, technology, and the future of collecting.
The art of Donato Piccolo has been exhibited all over the world, from Italy to France, to China where one of his latest exhibitions has just concluded.
Donato Piccolo’s work explores the relationship between art, science, and technology. How did you begin to develop this unique approach?
Perhaps this approach was born from when I was little… it emerged from an intense curiosity towards natural phenomena and the processes that govern the world. I have always been fascinated by the possibility of understanding how reality works through disciplines that are seemingly distant from each other, such as art and physics.
I started to question how these two fields could communicate, finding in art the language to represent the invisible, that is, what science tries to explain with formulas and theories.
It was a journey of experimentation, fueled by interest in movement, energy, and human emotions, which I translated into interactive installations and works capable of stimulating a reflection on the role of technology in our perception of the world, on the role of art that, not only tells, but also becomes a means to question and interpret the complexity of life.
- What are your main sources of inspiration when creating a work?
Let’s say it all starts from a stupid idea, which as such would not make sense to exist, but the more stupid it is, the less sense it makes to exist, but in this ability to exist, despite there being no need for it, one can see the strength of art, something apparently useless but at the same time more indispensable to man. D
The artist Alighiero Boetti used to say: “nature is stupid, obtuse, but it is certainly she who inspires man to surpass her”.
With its unpredictable phenomena, with the movement of the elements and the ability to evoke deep emotions, nature plays a fundamental role. I am interested in understanding how the human being perceives with nature, if what surrounds them.
Finally, art itself, in its history and its infinite possibilities, continuously stimulates me to find new paths. It is from the intersection of these fields that my works are born, in a constant dialogue between emotion and rationality, between chaos and order.
- The coefficient of an artist is often a subject of debate. How do you perceive your coefficient and how does it influence your relationship with collectors and the market?
Since we created the value coefficient of a work, we have transformed the artwork into a “product,” denying its transcendental unconscious value. From that moment, the work, imagined as a divine creation filtered through the hands of a man, has become material, real, and potentially comprehensible, and an artist’s coefficient serves to create social, not artistic, value.
Art does not add anything more but serves the art “system” to decipher commercial values that often do not correspond to the real value of the work. In short, Art cannot be reduced to a simple economic equation.
Rather, we should ask ourselves what creates value in a work, then we should engage with the different languages and understand the influences they create in the contemporary, so we would have a real idea of the work and less of the object. My relationship with collectors is mainly based on a sharing of visions, ideas, and passions that enrich the collector with something more.
An anecdote about Picasso comes to mind, who, when a collector purchasing one of his works told him it was very expensive, replied that it was very cheap because in that work there was his entire life of study and experimentation and asked the collector how much he would pay for a person’s lifetime of experience?
- How would you define your creative process? Do you start from a conceptual idea or from a practical experiment?
I usually start more from a “presentiment,” a feeling, a vague, undefined idea of what might emerge. Almost always from this original idea, it leads to something else, because it is precisely in the process of forming the work that this “presentiment” becomes something else. I am carried away by the work that suggests the way forward. The idea becomes less important than its development methodology, it must be applied to a technique, and it is precisely in the experimentation and discovery of a new technique that something interesting is found.
I believe that the true artist is the one who discovers their own language, their own way of presenting themselves to the world, not using existing means and techniques but inventing new ones that satisfy their process of evolution in the creation of the work. Unfortunately, with the advent of digital, this is somewhat lost because apps and software that already exist are provided, and that is why I often suggest to my students to open the software, modify the values, use their hands, get dirty to understand the color, get hurt to understand the material, look with the mind and not with the eyes.
- How does your work fit into the contemporary art landscape? Do you think you represent a new direction for the future of art?
My work fits into the contemporary art scene as a bridge between different disciplines, creating a dialogue between art, science, and technology to explore the relationship between humans and the world around them. In an era dominated by technological innovations and rapid transformations, I believe it is essential to question the role of art not only as an aesthetic expression but also as a tool for critical reflection and emotional connection. Art has been a tool since the past to calculate the direction of society more than itself.
I do not know if I represent a new direction for the future of art, but I certainly try to push beyond the boundaries of what is possible, experimenting with materials, technologies, and concepts. My goal is not so much to foreshadow a future, but to invite people to question the present, the changes, and the dynamics that influence our reality. If my approach can contribute to a broader and interdisciplinary vision, then I think I have made my contribution to the contemporary art landscape and its evolution.
”Representing a new direction for the future of art” perhaps would be presumptuous of me to say and at the same time bold. Many artists like me experiment with languages and seek in the contemporary explanations for the behaviors of nature and men.
It is not easy! We think we are smarter than other species because we can speak, build, and have self-awareness, but in reality, we have destroyed the balance between us and nature. Without that harmony, it unfortunately becomes difficult to question and experiment with the new future of art, but not impossible.
- What role does the art market play in supporting artists who work with complex and innovative technologies?
The art market could play a decisive role in supporting artists who work with technologies but unfortunately is too interested in quotations, in the ”art market”. The support that art needs should not be limited to the purchase of finished works, but it would be desirable to create a system that also favors the creative process through patronage, sponsorships, and collaborations.
The art market should also have the task of educating collecting and the public without ghettoizing languages within museums. Abroad, in the Arab countries up to the Asian continent, there is an attempt to interact with artists who use technological means, while in Italy the art market is still not ready to support these new technologies, both because museums are not well funded by municipalities and the state, and because critics and curators who have a minimum of power are not prepared on the subject, coming from a more classical background and often focusing primarily on their previous studies.
The synergy between creativity and economic support can most often be found in some individuals or companies, but even in this case, the initial language loses its objective and, in creating compromise, falls into the banal, into the “function show.” Take, for example, all those artists who work a lot with individuals and companies more than with museums; in the end, supporting them becomes just pure visual entertainment to promote one’s company or oneself. Foundations are perhaps those structures that try to push a little further and sometimes contribute significantly to the existing cultural landscape; at least they are, I believe, the only ones to set objectives.
- What do you think about the relationship between art and sustainability? Do your works address or reflect this theme?
I do not believe that art can contribute in the slightest to the environmental relationship; in fact, not only is it distant, but it is also detrimental to the ecosystem. First of all, because creating a technological work of art, whether it is a robot or a digital art piece, is highly polluting, not only due to the materials used, such as polyurethane resins, steel, spray cans, etc., but also because of the servers used, the data centers, whose maintenance has an environmental cost equal to that of transportation and electricity. There is often hypocrisy among artists who talk about the environment, because the environment and its defense become the reason for their success.
The ecosystem is distant from art and has always been so; art speaks of man and, for better or worse, emulates him, follows his mistakes to understand them but not to correct the environmental effects, rather the mental ones.
I am not interested in the environment and I will not be the one to defend it from the technological process we have started and that is impossible to stop. We will certainly not be the ones to destroy the planet, but the planet itself will destroy itself without any human action. In this, there is a nihilism. The words of the poet Guido Ceronetti come to mind, for whom “living is an art that resembles more a bull fight than a bear dance…”
- What has been the artwork that has given you the greatest satisfaction or that is considered the masterpiece of Donato Piccolo?
It is not simple to answer this question, it is like asking a mother which of her children she prefers …
Thinking about it, however, Video Machine Mobile aka Crab comes to mind. It is a 70s television equipped with Artificial Intelligence that walks with robotic legs and manages to communicate with the user through fragments of films or moving images. This sculpture has the ability to integrate into an environment, and many times the public has different reactions, like that of a person who tried to confess in the presence of the work, or that of an elderly gentleman who spat on the work, perhaps seeking an act of rebellion against pre-existing technology. In both cases, the sculpture fulfilled its task and triggered its function of revealing the humanity of those around it.
I am particularly attached to it not so much for the work itself but for the story it carries with it. It was initially exhibited at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, at the museum of Yerevan in Armenia, at the FMAV, modern visual arts foundation, and in many important festivals but above all it was chosen to be the protagonist, or co-protagonist, depending on the points of view, of a short film by the director Giacomo Piperno and the film will participate in several international festivals.
The idea that a sculpture becomes the protagonist of a film makes me happy for the very idea that it is humanizing itself or rather that man himself tries to humanize it as it is felt as part of daily life.
- What are the future projects in the world of art for Donato Piccolo? Do you have new directions or experiments in mind to explore?
Now I am back from a solo exhibition at the National Museum of China, Zhejiang Art Museum in Hangzhou, organized by the director Yang Jinfei and the curator Shu Wen Jing. I have been in China for more than a month and, although this exhibition has drained a lot of my energy, it has also rewarded me by giving me many new ideas that I will explore over time. I would like to focus more on the idea of a dreamlike world hidden from the eyes and sensitively present, on what we can imagine but not see. I speak of the “Noumeno” effect, of what we can think but not see. This is an idea that has tormented me for years and now I would like to give it a real tangible sense, in practice I would like to make the intangible tangible.
The next goal will be an anthology at the FMAV, Fondazione Modena Arti Visive in May curated by the Director Lorenzo Respi. I already know that this exhibition will completely take over my mind, and I will try to involve the audience in my world made of thoughts and phenomena, artificial intelligences, and machines in motion, but there will also be opportunities to reflect on the importance of man compared to the overarching technologies that, in the end, I have always considered a mere means and not an end of my research.
As expert in digital marketing, Amelia began working in the fintech sector in 2014 after writing her thesis on Bitcoin technology. Previously author for several international crypto-related magazines and CMO at Eidoo. She is now the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Cryptonomist and Econique.
She is also a marketing teacher at Digital Coach in Milan and she published a book about NFTs for the Italian publishing house Mondadori, while she is also helping artists and company to entering in the sector. As advisor, Amelia is also involved in metaverse-related project such as The Nemesis and OVER.
