Christian Bagnat

1. What made you choose art as a profession?
I took the risk of doing what I liked doing. There wasn’t any special reason, any sudden realisation.

2. How would you define your work?
I try to be critical.

3. What subjects are you interested in?
I like fiction. I’m also drawn by the idea of the body in relation to space and also the concept of language and how it is used to create knowledge.

4. What resources – formal or otherwise – do you use in your work?
Mainly drawing and recently animation and film.

5. What relationship does your work have with reality? What are your raw materials?
I don’t work with abstract ideas. My material is what I have closest to hand; at the end of the day I realised you can only ever talk about what you know. My house, my family, the books I read, the libraries I go to, Cuenca, what I hear on the street, etc.

When a new material like a place or a city appears, I try to go and live there for a while and get to know it and experience it. I can’t write about the desert if I’m living in Lavapiés.

6. What, according to you, is the point of art?
Art should change the meaning of life. It’s semantically important. Art gives things a sense.

7. How do you hope the public will receive your work? What audience are you aiming at?
I’m not hoping for anything. I don’t work for any audience in particular.

8. What qualifications have you got?
What do you value most from your time in education?
I studied fine art in Argentina and at UCLM in Spain. I’ve also had residencies in Spain, New York and Los Angeles. Education is continuous and eternal.

9. How would you define your current professional situation? And in the future?
Unstable – I try to get finance for each project. I don’t work with any galleries. I hope the model of an artist people are looking for isn’t one working for art fairs or biennials who simply produces art for sale.

10. Many artists say it’s difficult to make a living from their work; how do economic considerations affect you when it comes to work? Do you think this has a bearing on your work?
It has a huge bearing. Work can sometimes be badly hit by these issues. There isn’t enough investment in art and there’s no clear long-term policy. People ought to be brought up to have a more natural relationship with art. I don’t see the point in lots of open museums if the artists are working in worse and worse conditions. Not all but many young artists are working in 25 m2 studios and live in a shared flat until they’re 40. Some barely earn €6000 a year and others don’t even make that, which is verging on the poverty line.

11. What do you look for or expect from your relationship with promoters and curators? What advantages and difficulties have you found with these relationships?
There ought to be a natural, fluid relationship – it can’t be based on power. They should try to create new discourses, open things up and not always work with the same artists. For years I had the feeling of always seeing the same exhibition over and over again, the same artists in official and less official spaces. It was a joke.

12. What do you think sets the arts scene in Madrid apart from elsewhere? What would you say are its pluses and minuses?
There’s a provincial air about it that makes it different and appealing. If a rich arts scene means interaction and exchange between artists, musicians, scientists, filmmakers, writers, intellectuals, etc. then you won’t find this in Madrid. Now might be a good time to change this.