At a time musician, visual artist, writer, poet, composer opera, performer. Joseph Schiano di Lombo, born in Chambéry, is one of the most transversal creators on the current scene. In addition to training as a pianist and clarinetist, the thirty-year-old attended the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décor de Paris (ENSAD). Today, through his unclassifiable talent, he is one of the artists that we love to discover. A thousand miles from any marketing strategy, the presentation of his new album, “an hour of improvisation with birds and bumblebees in a Corsican mountain forest”, to listen to online (1), seems to say a lot about his art . As if the composer, now based in Pantin, was trying to transcribe, in his elegant and delicate creations, certain conversations of our time, those which resonate quietly, but are essential to our lives. Dialogues with a finch and a bumblebee in the forest, or even with the canine species (in “Musique de niche”, album released by Cracki Records, 2021) or with a visual artist (Anastasia Bay) for an opera (“ Maestra Lacrymae") presented at the beginning of the year in Brussels. “ Between farce and seriousness, references and intuitions, grotesque and minimalism, popular and academic culture ": his art is similar to a fugue, he explains, " this musical form where a network of independent voices creates harmony ". " Through these movements, (I) attempt to reconsider the dominant modes of thought and creation, established on a cumbersome opposition of opposites: the artist and his public, art and life, nature and culture, humans and animals... » While waiting to hear his next escapes, we asked him for his current inspirations.

(1)“ Trio for untuned Piano, winged singers and whoever wants to join »

A motto of Robert Filliou

“Recently a friend asked me if there was a motto that accompanied me every day. I responded to him with this phrase from the Franco-American artist Robert Filliou: “Art is what makes life more interesting than art.” As the title of a book by Allan Kaprow (“Art and life combined”) suggested to me before her, life prevails over any other form of creation. This does not mean that art is inferior, for me, but that for art to be truly alive, it must come from our lives, and send us back to it. It’s also a lesson for artists, I think: it’s a shame (even damaging) to forget the world for the sole benefit of one’s inner world.”

The music of Antonina Nowacka

“It’s a discovery I made recently, festival Échos (in the Gouravour gorges, Hautes Alpes), where music is projected by huge horns against the cliffs which reflect the sound back to the audience. The concert that particularly touched me was that of Antonina Nowacka. Accompanied by her harp, she sang vocals of absolute purity, and the natural relief of the mountain returned the echo of her song. While working on my exhibition “Music for Arp” (a multidisciplinary exhibition paying tribute to the Dadaist sculptor and poet Jean Arp hosted in 2019 by David Giroire, in Paris), I became interested in the history of this instrument, the myths that surround him, of his ability to “put wild beasts to sleep”. Antonina's concert clearly sent them to nap, in a present that came from the depths of the ages! ".

The cinema of Louise Mootz

Louise Mootz is a friend and a great director. Her film “Jungle”, which she made at the age of 23, is a pure gem. She films her friends in Paris, with magnificent humor, tenderness and energy. We met in Providenza, a residence nestled in the mountains of Cape Corsica where I recorded an album which has just been released. Louise is always imagining scenarios, listening to music while thinking of a particular scene (a scene still visible only to her). I know how much inspiration his mind is full of, and all that inspiration inspires me.

The commitment of Brook editions

Poet and translator Rosanna Puyol Boralevi has directed Brook Publishing since 2018. The house makes important texts linked to intersectional, feminist, anti-racist, decolonial and queer commitments available in French. Among them, “Cruising utopia, the after and elsewhere of the queer future” by José Esteban Muñoz, “Dead zones” by Shulamith Firestone, a collective work entitled “Texts to read aloud” and the very recent “ Losing a Mother: On the Atlantic Routes of Slavery” by Saidiya Hartman, translated by Maboula Soumahoro. In addition to always being discoveries, these books are beautifully laid out.

Brook.pm

The sculpture of Laurent le Deunff

I follow the work of many artists, but the one that comes to mind right now is that of the sculptor and designer Laurent Le Deunff. He engraves in teeth, in wood, and draws his cat in graphite. It's very figurative, very simple in a way, not at all pretentious and absolutely beautiful. We feel that it's daily work, done without the pretension of shaking up the face of the world, and that's enough to shake me up.

Exhibition “Whatever this may be”, at the Semiose gallery from June 22 to August 17.

Semiose.com

The thoughts of Donna J. Haraway

“Living with Disorder” was the first Donna J. Haraway book I ever read. It is difficult to summarize everything that this work brings, but what struck me the most when reading it is its encouragement to take our responsibilities in the face of the disastrous climate disruptions that are taking place, by refusing opposing but similar fantasies. of the impossible return to the lost paradise (which would erase everything in a flowering bush) and the apocalypse (which would resolve everything in a great devastating fire). No, we are here, we have things to do to take care of our world. To do this, the Californian thinker encourages us to renounce the terrible myth of the “self-made man”, to favor sympoietic acts, co-creation projects, to cultivate interspecies relationships and also (above all) to relearn how to die.