INTERVIEW WITH ENRIQUE BAEZA “IN THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE, THERE IS SO MUCH NOISE THAT IT IS DIFFICULT TO APPRECIATE THE BEAUTIFUL”

Between trip and trip, we were able to interview Enrique Baeza in Barcelona, ​​where he lives, and he spends his time explaining Word Portrait, which is the project he has created and which forces him to pack his bags constantly and go to show the world how he makes a portrait with words; how he listens to get to the essence and create a short defining message of a place, a situation, a person… Being an artist is a very hard sport, he says, but he also confesses that his hobby is working. For six years he has been revolutionizing the complicated world of art with his synthetic messages made with neons that have already attracted collectors from all over the world. Seeing him in action is fascinating

“MY CONCEPT IS TO EMPHASIZE THE HUMAN THROUGH THE LANGUAGE”

Enrique Baeza is the conceptual artist behind phrases like “A ROSE IS NOT A ROSE ANYMORE”, “REALITY IS SPAM”, “SKIN & SCREEN” …

Horse.- Who is Enrique Baeza?

Enrique Baeza.- Someone who investigates the collective through language. My concept is to emphasize the human through language.

H.- What inspired you to create the Word Portrait project ?

E.B.- A sum of my obsession for the other and for language. Since I was little I have always been very interested in active listening to the other and there is a moment when the active listening to the other obsesses me.

H.- And how would you define yourself in the Word Portrait environment? What would be the message that would define you in two or three words ?

E.B.- I only have one word: I listen. Listening is very powerful, it is an act.

H.- Very concise, yes… What is the process to get to the message? Are we talking about hours, days, months, or it depends? Can this message be evolutionary?

E.B.- It depends. I usually have a conversation with the portrayed that lasts a few hours but can also last longer. It’s like a photograph of an instant, of a moment. I am interested in the person and I put focus. It is very similar to the work of a journalist; it goes to the identity, to understand who that person is. I try to understand what I have before me and not only what he or she says, but what I see, the verbal context is altered and the focus is placed in an unusual, unexpected or ineffable place.

H.- When we talk about a situation, is the process the same?

E.B. – When we have a subject, the subject is active, explains things, when we have a situation, I use the subjects that are in that place. An example of a situation would be Havana, the message THE OPEN IDOL is a process of gathering information through the media and talking with people there and how they are experiencing this moment of Cuba’s opening to the world.

The formulation is the open idol because Cuba represents communism and what was for some the revolution, this idol opens up. It is a very polysemic message, that is, each person can interpret it differently. I placed this message in the Revolution Square, which is forbidden. If they see you putting this sign you go straight to jail.

I also posted a message in Singapore. People do not know that Singapore is almost a dictatorship…

H.- Where are your limits?

E.B.- I’ll explain it with an example. In Venezuela I formulated “Undercover Phoenix” and I did not want to put it on because I was on the border between political activism and art… and this is not my job.

H.- What do you mean by “the true language is hidden under spam”? It’s a challenge, right?

E.B.- In the world we live in there is so much noise that it is difficult to see the beautiful, the love, the goodness, the pure… to the point that there are people who deny it.

“EVERYTHING I DO IS BECAUSE
THE LANGUAGE HUMANIZES US OR
DEHUMANIZES US”

The artist makes a veiled invitation to contemplate all this that is hidden under spam. I don’t try to be theoretical. Once in New York, a curator told me that an artist creates an internal logic that has to work in his/her world. All I do is because language humanizes us or dehumanizes us. That’s why I say that ideas, language, love, are hidden under spam.

H.- Why did you choose the neons to reflect the messages in your work?

EB- I have always been obsessed with them and they have a public facet. They are on the street announcing things. I was interested in turning these neons into the representation of a person. Take them out of the public space and move it to the private one .
They are also very cinematographic and the first artistic discipline that impressed me was the cinema.

“I EMPHASIZE THE HUMAN THROUGH THE USE OF THE LANGUAGE AND SPECIFICALLY THE LANGUAGE THAT IS IN THE PUBLIC SPACE”

H.- How many portraits have you created so far?

E.B.- In the sense of having reached to the phrase, around 180 or 190. Right now I’m in Miami projecting an LED screen with the question “Are you human”? You with the mobile have to send a message. If the message is very silly, it tells you that you are not human. You have to say something funny, something tender, something intelligent… so it recognizes you. This defines my work a lot.

H.- Looking for positivity or negativity or are you simply looking for an objectively artistic reflection?

E.B.- I’m looking for the part of the person where the gift is.

H.- From NY to more than 50 cities around the 5 continents. Why NY? Which cities do you see are most open to receive your work, that can put your creativity on the street more easily?

EB- I turned 40 and went to NY. I wanted to write like Jenny Holzer. She is the conceptual artist, the number one in writing messages in the public space. I started to try it and evolve to the Word Portrait. For the public space, besides NY, I would add, among others, Miami, Mexico City, Berlin. Berlin is a city that has not abandoned its modernity, they have been modern since the 30s and continue to be.

H.- Which of these cities understand you or your work the most? Where do you feel most loved? And in which do you find more material for your creativity?

E.B.- I feel very welcome in all these cities. For me collectors are very important and they have received me very well in any part of the world and also in Barcelona.
Catalan collectors have supported me a lot. For example, Lluís Corominas bought me the first work after a few minutes of being exposed at the SWAB.

“ENJOY GUILT” was exhibited and he liked it. My gallerist told him that I made personalized portraits and preferred to buy on his own portrait. 95% of the works I do are personalized.

And as for the material for my creativity, it’s NY, definitely. The contemporary neurotic being is the New Yorker.

H.- Could you choose a portrait of the ones you have made of a person, a situation and a place?

E.B.- Person, Carmen Casadella. Her message is “THE LUSIC MIRROR” and it goes very much with me.

Situation “REALITY IS SPAM” that is my motto and that has emerged from having lived in NY, this fact of contemporary madness, a dominant language that is devouring us.

A place: Dakar “SHADOW AND REFLECTION” that explains very well what we live nowadays, who I am and who is my shadow, how we relate to what we like and what we don’t like from the other.

H.- You did a Word Portrait to Angela Missoni in Milan and to Jorge Pérez from the Pérez Museum in Miami, is there any particular person that you would like to make a portrait of? Someone you admire…

EB- To Isabella Rossellini, David Linch, Sergi Pàmies, Fernando Arrabal…

H.- The next stop?

EB- I took a break to think because in 6 years I had not stopped. Being an artist is a very hard sport!  I will go to the Café de las Voces, in Barcelona. The artist Dora García has called people who hear voices to be mixed with people who do not hear them, sponsored by a foundation that works with people with mental illnesses. There will be performances, artistic events around the situation. I will make a word portrait to a person.

THE 7 HITS OF ENRIQUE BAEZA

H.- What Horse inspires you? Can you describe us with 3 adjectives?

E.B.- Active culture

H.- A book that has marked you particularly?

E.B.- Mist by Miguel de Unamuno

H.- And a movie?

E.B.- Solaris by Andrei Tarkovskiy

H.- What is your favorite color?

E.B.- Blue, as the book by Rosa Regás, who I would also like to portray by the way

H.- What is your hobby?What do you like to do in your free time?

E.B.- Work

H.- A trip that you still have to do?

E.B.- Africa

H.- Speaking of traveling, what is the trip that has impressed you the most?

E.B.- Japan

H.- You buy art?

E.B.- Not as much as I would like