Interview with Daniele Fortuna

In occasion of the Pop Classicism exhibition, Deodato Arte gallery has realized an exclusive interview for the official catalogue, which explores the creative process of the artist Daniele Fortuna.

After your studies in design and an experience abroad, you got closer and closer to the world of art until you became a sculptor and artist in your own right. How and when did this passion come about and what led you to pursue a career as an artist?

I worked in a light design studio near Dublin. They had commissions by Italian designers and I was working in interior design. Then I came back to Italy and started working in an architecture studio, but that lasted just for a short time. I am someone who needs harmony, but there I found a hostile environment, everything was too heavy for me. So I decided to give up architecture and not to follow that path anymore, because I didn't like the approach.

Since university I had been used to being very creative: while studying at the IED (European Institute of Design) we’ve all been creating projects that, if finalised, would have cost millions and millions of euros to build, so they really allowed me to unleash my creativity. But in reality things were not that easy: there was little creativity and a lot of calculation, measurements and things that I didn't like.

I had a big crisis because I didn't know what to do with my life. I grew up in an environment that always loved art, always lived art and lived with artists around. Back in the 80s, my father knew important gallery owners in Milan, such as Brindisi, Migneco and Cascella. Even as a child I was attracted to the world of art and had always attended exhibitions, fairs and galleries. Then, life obviously dragged me back into the world of art. A friend of mine, an artist himself, saw in me a strongly creative person and suggested I try to do something on my own. I loved it as I started, as I could create everything I had in mind with my paintings.

Were you already working with wood?

Yes, I was already working with wood. I was drawing, cutting and then assembling, but they inevitably associated me with Ugo Nespolo, even though his art has always been more fragmented. I came up against a market where people really appreciated what I was doing, but they couldn’t recognise a language of mine. That saddened me because I didn't want to be associated with anyone, I just wanted to be recognised. From a very young age, teachers called me by name, I’ve never been a number.

As I wanted to leave a mark I decided to start again, this time with something I knew how to do. So I continued my research into wood, a material that I knew and could easily cut and shape in my paintings. I saw that overlapping wood created volume and I started to make the first shapes, small ones. It was something new for me, but I noticed that from that moment (2011) galleries started to be interested in me without associating my name with another artist, and this pushed me to continue in that direction. Hence I got to neoclassical and classical style. This was because I was up against a public that loved the art of Caravaggio and Canova, and I realised that it was pointless trying to impose my idea: I wanted to do something common to our culture, something we don't even value that much. I wanted to make it more contemporary in order to make it more accessible and popular today. I wanted to shorten the distance to 'sacred' and in a certain sense intangible, unreachable art.

I noticed that the classical subject is now a common feature, both in artists and in design and fashion. This is a path that I had been following for some time, having started working on classical subjects in 2011-12, already feeling the need to bring that type of sculpture back to our times.

It was not a break with tradition, you tried to protect it.

Exactly, because if I look for a break I will always create a distance. What I am looking for is not a distance, but to pursue a path, to continue something that is part of us. I have always loved history, as well as mythology. My favourite genre is fantasy and I am attracted to anything that makes me evade. In general, I always try to evade because reality doesn’t satisfy me: you can always escape into other worlds and that doesn't mean disassociating, but just recharging your batteries, because life is heavy and stressful enough.

Is it a very personal process?

Yes, I always want to express something with my works. I don't make a work for its own sake: there’s always a meaning in what I do.

Above all, I like to move around creating many languages. The Colormination series is one language, Heads will roll is one language, what I am doing now is another kind of language. Even with different messages, they are all part of a common path. I would not be able to do something repetitive, I must always renew myself, destroy in order to rebuild and create new structures, keeping the technique that belongs to me.

The Colormination series is made up of sculptures that present chasms in which a universe of colour opens up. What is the significance of this series?

Colormination ("color" + "contamination") defines what happens inside the sculptures and it brings different concepts. If we were to split a white marble sculpture, we would find all the colours inside that the sculpted marble no longer has. But colormination also represents the different facets that we have as people. All those colours represent our multiple aspects, they are part of us and create the big picture, the beauty of our lives.

The Thologiny series seems almost like an alphabet of your art, what does this word mean?

"Thologiny" comes from "mythology". They are little totems usually linked to words, and each one has something to say. Thologinies alert you to something important in life and associating them with words or other elements makes the sculpture come alive, as if it wants to tell us something. 

What have been your sources of inspiration among contemporary artists of your or previous generations?

There have been many. I think, and I hope it comes as no surprise, that we artists are always contaminated by other artists. There is no such thing as the original, artists copy or are influenced by other artists, there is always an inspiration and the originality lies in making that language your own. It is important to be contaminated by everything that surrounds us, going from the past to our present.

For example, I really love Ugo Rondinone and his overlapping boulders. In some of my works (e.g. Heads will roll series) these boulders become heads and create compositions.

But also Pop Art, Andy Warhol above all, has influenced me a lot.

Now I am working on a project strongly inspired by Alighiero Boetti. I like the way he plays with letters and words. I remember always trying to understand what his works said, I found him fascinating. In my project I try to bring Boetti into the three-dimensionality.

Then yes, for me it is very important to see what other artists, especially contemporary ones, are doing. I may take inspiration for my classical language, one that I don't want to lose because I really feel it is mine.

One of the most obvious things about your art is the opposition between classical and Pop aesthetics, but it seems that these (apparent) opposites can coexist and do so very well.

We usually think that if something is done in a certain way it cannot change, but actually you always have to look for a meeting point. Classical statues were not actually white, but coloured. They were also made to represent a god or an athlete and they had their own history. Then the passage of time changed them, until they arrived to us partly destroyed, without some parts, and this is another side of history. I find it fascinating that the same sculpture has parallel stories, one dictated by the represented character and the other by what the statue itself experienced. I also wonder what my sculpture will look like in 100 or 200 years, how time will change it.

Another contrast concerns the technical realisation of your works. They resemble digital productions, but in reality your technique is purely artisanal.

We dispose of technology as something that allows us to create something very quickly, but for me it is important to take time to create, so that I can put a certain state of mind in it. People usually think my sculptures look as if they are 3D printed, but then they see them in person and realise that instead there is a complex, artisanal work behind. I prefer people to be amazed after having seen them in reality than before.

It's an interesting ambiguity.

It reflects who I am as a person. I am someone who is superficially judged, then people get to know me and my world and they are able to change their judgement. In my opinion it's much better this way than pretending to appear as you really are. When I talk to someone and I start to find out what kind of person they are, I re-evaluate them, I go deep. Thinking you already know a person is arrogant and prevents you from being contaminated by the person in front of you.

That's why I say that behind my sculptures there is a world that comes from the mutual contamination between me and the people I meet. 

In terms of the creative process, how do you create your works?

During the day I am really loaded with so many things that the only time I can concentrate is when I am in bed. In the dark, with the light off, my head starts to travel. I begin to put together the pieces of what interested me during the day. At night I have time to reflect and find inspiration for what I want to do. I think inspiration should come naturally, without effort. When I have something in my head I can already imagine it and realise it. I’ve never had a vision that, once created, turned out to be different from what I had thought. It is always a very coherent process, from thought to creation.

But then realisation is a more technical process.

I have a background in architecture, thus I have always worked starting from a plan or orthogonal projections. From there you get to the third dimension. When I create shapes, I work on them by adding the elements that are easier to make. I start from the form even to excavate the work, and then I remove one piece at a time until the excavation is made. Then I add the cementite and finally the colour.

I don't think much about colours, I’m usually impulsive about them, but when I have the sculpture finished I can make up my mind on the colour I want to give it. There are big differences between my first sculptures and the most recent ones, they have changed together with my taste. At the moment I am using more delicate colours because I find them more adequate to how I feel, but maybe one day I will go back to bright colours. It's all part of how I feel mentally and in terms of taste. Above all, I hope that in a few years I will be doing things that are different from what I am doing now because I like to grow. It doesn't make sense to say 'I was born this way' because you can always change. For me it is the same with art: if I improve, what I do improves.

Does your personal life influence your art?

Absolutely it does. I’m not saying you have to suffer, but actually all suffering brings change. I have seen people who have had misfortunes in life and are now worse than they were before, but that’s what I consider a defeat. The winning solution is to be active in order to improve. If you have a goal, if you go all the way, sooner or later life will pay you back. Of course you always have to be honest, fair and respect others. Many people haven’t respected me, but that doesn't mean I don’t have to respect others.