William Blanchard at the Neu Gallerie – My first interview

It’s not only great to live in the most vibrant and cosmopolitan city in the world, sometimes you feel there is more to uncover. Or this time to cover.

Yes you could have the best curry of the Western Countries, yes there are always chips when you are craving for some and of course it is allowed to shout drunk and dance semi-naked in the streets. But there is much more than rain and wind. There is art.

And here we are. Not another poor story about how a dramatic young aspiring writer enters the world of fellow bright creators. No this time it is real and it is what happens here and now. Or what happened when I met William Blanchard and his ‘mates’ from the Neu Gallerie in a sweet British pub on a Sunday.

They say you always remember your first. Your first lover, your first car, your first job..your first interview. On a foggy afternoon when we were all hangover and misty, it happened.

London has always been the city of the old embracing the new, the conformalism fucking the anti-s, the Queen kissing the punks. I might confess that art for me is more than the usual-somehow-boring pieces you’ve been taught at school (“That IS art”). It is a matter of personal taste and intimate echo. It is what moves you and makes you brutally realizing that SHIT what a waste of time to lay watching soap on the telly or sit all day in front of your computer sending junk emails to your colleagues. It is all that swells your love and nurtures your spirit.

All this nice f* words to introduce the great and many people I met who made me forget about the rain and urge me to embrace it all.

Late September London. For the sharpest eyes which couldn’t wait for the old established (yet sometimes surprising…more to come on this soon) Fashion Week, there was the Design Festival. Nice events spread within 10 days and among numerous galleries. There was to eat and to drink for all. But also for the most rebellious ones. The Anti Design was also there. So here we are again. Throwing questions in the air: what is art, what is anti art, what makes one the artist and the other ones the audience? Dear, that is all in the concept. You could be an artist as much as Mick Jagger could be a cook. It only takes time, passion and confidence.

However when you feel like shit at work, at home and in your love life somehow you JUST DON’T CARE ANYMORE. And that is how I came accross the folks from the Maurice Einhardt Neu Gallery. Picking up a leaflet on a dark counter, those words echo my heart at the exact right time and place. So rushed out of bed to see the exhibition and did a little PR work to arrange a meeting with the artist next day. Here is what I found – what I have been told – what I saw.

First of all picture a nice pub with wooden floor, old tables and chimney. Three men drinking bloody mary and rediscovering / uncovering the world so it will finally do the head spin on its most gorgeous head.

## William Blanchard aka Wildcat Will hidden under his hat and right steady in his boots

#* Martin the curator, tremendously tall in his raincoat

#^^ Jonny Reding all nicely dressed up as one character of some famous English romance

All started with a bloody mary and a longue discussion on what is an artist.

#* The exhibition has been installed in an advertising agency to echo the origins of the artist works. As it is all about pop art, it all makes sense. In the middle of Shoreditch, haut lieu of the artisitc establishment in London the aim is to raise a middle finger to this so-neat-and-pretty arty-muchy scene. We are much more than that and the artists represented in the gallery share a true spirit of what is art, how to create, they live for their art and are completely honest about it. (some names were mentioned but it might be worth to go deeper on the ‘fuck the establishement’ theme as at the end we are all about f*$ù* something, right?)

Rising his glass to his beard, he made the crucial point that “this is not about “outsider art”, it is about artists who did and do it their entire life”.

Oh well yes, this led me to my very first question of this very first interview. Being a novice, I wasn’t shaken but I made an effort to put all the conviction and confidence I had on this first point, convinced that as first impression counts so does the first question mark. “Hum well, what does make an artist?” And right after this split out of my mind I realised how dumb I might have sound. Well no choice left pretty girl, you have to keep on looking concerned and serious as it was the Chief of some rebellious party in front of you, surrounded by his/her entire army ready to shoot at a single misunderstood.

## Art has different forms. Commercial, conceptual, performance, now we sees the raise of more and more strat art. The thing is to be creative. (after numerous mumble and interuptions on other subjects as wide as Hirst is sad and creating his own pantheon…the drinking culture in Britain..how pissed was yesterday…). An artist is someone who thinks about art, thinking of art as a different medium. (So folks remember this next time you will draw a heart on your toast with Nutella..yes you are an artist too..no need to take cocaine).

## Personnaly I feel strongly connected to street art as it is everywhere. It is on your FACE. Right here. As a social message and not in a gallery. You should not feel excluded by art and

#* galleries are making other feeling disruptive and out of place.

On my quest to the sacred graal of what is art, what makes an artist an artist, am I an artist, how to nurture your inner artist…I had to ask him about his coming out.

## First time I knew I was an artist it was at school, I was 8 years old and I just finished a painting. After that I continued painting, creating. Some of my poems were published and I had a slight moment of fame, the excitement of being published. But every child is an artist (Remember your first drawings?). However when growing up our ears capture more the negative comments that our inner pleasure to create. We stop painting because we thing that we are not good. (Remember your great plans of recording your own 8 tracks?). The aim is to be as creative as possible. At first I didn’t know what to do with my pieces so I was creating and giving works to friends, painting and offering those paintings. Then I met a bunch of people and as we were hanging out at VICNAYLOR things grew and happened organically. We founded a group, The Sandals, and we were hosting our show in this bar and even in LA.

Yes honey but let’s tackle the conceptual part of it. How ironic is your art? How do you integrate irony in your process of creation?

## The Sandals were ironic, well..post ironic. A point of cross reference. Art (Yes you can’t stop the discussion on a point, it is a self nurturing theme and it is too good to close debate on this so let’s keep on talking) is about fertilization. I have done collages, music, paintings, films. An artist is someone who makes something beautiful out of nothing. He/She brings the magic. …Hum politics could also be integrated into creation. The great thing is that you do not need to be as direct as ‘Hell yeah, banks rob us’ but you can be more subtile, use humour and therefore stirred even more the audience. Humour is very important in my work. I am very serious about my art but I do not want people to have to think to deep. I want them to perceived with humour and irony the serious stuff I wanted to communicate tothem. Therefore there is no need to be warning, no deep thinking requested beforehand. Then people just have to enjoy and respond to the art.

Time to drop a famous question…the one about the influences. I read it in almost all interviews I read, from Britney Spears to Verlaine (well I might be slightly exagerated on the latter)

## Pop artists from the mod 1950s in the UK, the counter culture from the 1960s and the punk rocks. Oh and the recent show at the Gugenheim in Venice. Yes the surrealists.

I wouldn’t have say better but then..

#* Oh do you know about Eduardo Paolozzi? Joseph Cornell had a show with bowes, it was brilliant. Wallace Beurmen  from the West Coast is also to look after. Write it down, write it down (If you are not confident with your basic arty knowledge, one advice..write it down)

## My first solo show at the Neu Gallerie aimed at exciting every senses. It was made to shock people and make them react. Too often people just walk into a gallery, have a look around and talk with their folks. I didn’t want that. I wanted that they get inspired by it all. There were lamps and very loud rock’n’roll music so people will be shock ed and will react.

## This is how I create. I set up my own constraints otherwise I will never stop because art never stops. It lives on its own and there is no way to know when it is finished. For this exhibition we choose pieces I made when I was broke. Down because of bank overcharged I thought “what else could happen?”. I felt frustated and used this frustration to create, to do something. I found those letters on a flea market and started playing with them. That was my way out. I wanted to talk about the society how life could be a fair // as unfair…how we all loose touch and sense of each others. I wanted to express how it felt as an individal. This frustration, this anger, this defeat, it was very strong feelings (Oh dear tell me about it, without frustration I will never have done this interview and without hope I will never have written it all out).

So it was a low point of you life? You DIDN’T CARE ANYMORE, right?

## A quote of the dark side of rock’n’roll criticising the music business, yeah. It was to express this trend in our society that people don’t care about each other anymore. I want to bring people together.

#* It is as D.Hirst obession about death (me, puzzled). We are in a huge spiritual theory and we are looking now to change ourself. In a cold world with cold artists creating cold art pieces, we want more human, more emotions. Simply because emotions connect. The future of art is about ‘self’, about emotions and how the artist put himself/herself into it.

## Not to intellectualise it all to much but to do it with emotions and moods. That is why urban artists are so popular. They raise their middle fingers, people do so too. Urban art is everywhere, in your face and you can connect to it. You can then put art everyxhere. It is just like photoshop or music. Everybody can do it so it is undo the perfection to go back to something more organic and real.

We nodded, I nodded, he nodded and I finally had the feeling to find people who really share my view on art but also do not give a shù^$ and were simply enjoying it. And we all agree it is all about raising our middle finger to defend what we like and what we are. Art is personnal in a way that everybody can create but also feel, resonnate to art. It is about emotions, positive as negatives. It is about a reaction.

Few bloody marys and a little rain after, we came up to a magnificient quote summing it all up “SEX AND DEATH. EVERYTHING IN THE BETWEEN ARE DANCES STEPS” as a fist f^$ to the so bourgeoisie ‘keep calm carry on’.

So go out, create, feel, share and raise all your fingers to what we want you to do and sense. You are one and art is here to echo your own.

If you are in London, have a look at the Maurice Einhardt Neu Gallerie and let me know what you experienced there. Websiste HERE