Make yourselves comfortable: you can enjoy the new book in its entirety, page by page Inside the Homes of Artists: For Art’s Sake Of Tiqui Atencio Demirdjian. What fascinates us about their private world? Over the last four years, working on the volume documenting 22 residencies, the author has asked herself this question many times. «I wanted to understand what it meant to spend one’s life surrounded by and devoted to art, from the point of view of those who create it» she writes in the introduction.
The names involved are among the most important on the international scene: William Kentridge, Yan Pei-Ming, Francesco Vezzoli, Not Vital, Tracey Emin and Maurizio Cattelan which presented a fantasy house. Different in personality, interests, passions, and above all organization of spaces which, curiously, Demirdjian points out, “never seem to be enough for them”.
It is the third book by the collector, who in her two previous projects interviewed collectors about their artistic obsessions and explored dealers’ homes. In this case, every home, from New York to Buenos Aires to Rio, from Paris to London, from New Delhi to Johannesburg, has been immortalized by French photographer Jean-François Jaussaudwho worked entirely with natural light and was careful not to change the spaces and details of his journey around the world.
From the 384 pages of the book, published by Rizzoli New Yorkemerge the role that homes play in the lives of artists. «It gave me a better understanding of their art, their minds, some might even say their souls» says the author, citing for example her surprise at the elegant Tracey Emin’s terraced house in London: “She was so calm and traditional, nothing like what I expected, and she showed me what a versatile artist she is.”
Sanctuaries or museums
There are houses where the studies merge with the living spaces and others that seem completely separate from any creative practice. «The book features artists who cannot have their works displayed on the walls of their homes. One told me, ‘I have enough of that in the studio every day,'” Demirdjian explained. Others, like Bernar Venet and Not Vital, have transformed parts of their homes into galleries or foundationsblurring the boundaries between public and private. In the book’s preface, Hans Ulrich Obrist recalls his surprise at discovering a painting by Gustave Courbet in Gerhard Richter’s living room and how the artist credits it with daily inspiration.
On the contrary, Francesco Vezzoli he has met too many people imprisoned by their possessions to seriously pursue collecting. «I should dedicate all my energy to creating, not to preserving» he says. Maurizio Cattelan also shies away from anything too grandiose: when asked what his favorite juxtaposition of works of art is, he replies: «I’ve always found the refrigerator to be an interesting display».
Many of the artists in the book talk about their need for sanctuary. For example, David Rodríguez Caballero’s minimalist apartment in Madrid is a way out of the noise and dust of his downstairs studio: «I take refuge in a place of harmony and calm where I can breathe, where I can read. AND a very peaceful bubble and an extension of me».
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