16 Words of Advice for Artists, Thinkers, and any Makers of Images
Bringing Jannis Kounellis’s own voice as a writer and thinker to the forefront, the collection of artists texts The Traveler in the Labyrinth: Collected Thoughts & Writings of Jannis Kounellis gathers a selection of the artist’s texts, many published for the first time, in the accompany catalogue to the exhibition Jannis Kounellis in Six Acts. These writings were sourced from a vast archive of materials from the Estate of Jannis Kounellis, including letters, interviews, essays, and recorded conversations, compiled by Michelle Coudray, president of Archivio Kounellis.
While the themes in these texts range from the mechanics of painting to shadow, form, poetry, and beauty, the materials were been brought together into four sections loosely inspired by ancient theater, a subject very dear to Kounellis and which was a constant reference in his work.
The second section “For Artists” poses useful words of advice for artists, thinkers, and any makers of images, offering a multitude of insights on the art-making process as well as bold ways to approach a life well lived. Excerpted hear and paired with photographs from the artist's life, this collection of sixteen words of advice for artists, thinkers, and any makers of images reveals insights into the artist while posing new ideas to inspire.
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Jannis Kounellis during the installation of Kounellis: Die front, das Denken der Sturm, Halle Kalk, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, 1997. Image Courtesy The Estate of Jannis Kounellis. -
Jannis Kounellis with curator Rudi Fuchs, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 1981. Image Courtesy The Estate of Jannis Kounellis. -
Jannis Kounellis and Michelle Coudray working in the studio at Via Pompeo Magno 6, Rome, 1992. Image Courtesy The Estate of Jannis Kounellis. -
Jannis Kounellis with curator Germano Celant (left) and Michelle Coudray (center) at the American Academy in Rome, 1993. Image Courtesy The Estate of Jannis Kounellis. -
Mario Ceroli, Renato Mambor, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Mario Diacono, and Jannis Kounellis, Venice, 1972. Image Courtesy The Estate of Jannis Kounellis.
I.
Art comes from a lack, like all poems, and is visionary for this too.
II.
The pleasure of playing and the pleasure of meeting people, these two things are what justifies the birth of a painter.
III.
The artist is an intellectual who is born and dies within an imaginary and an image, he has no novels to write, he has nothing but the gift of this original illumination.
IV.
The true romantic is the one who dies inside the image.
V.
You have to be constantly faithful to your own boundary hypothesis.
VI.
The artist tries to find the means to preserve the Emotion, his action is aimed at preserving and rediscovering some of the means that allow it and they are not always the same.
VII.
In my opinion, painting is born from the shadow and it is the administration of this shadow for millennia that has led us to conceive of the modern.
VIII.
Art is found wherever there is a surface where one can tell by involving the greatness of man.
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(left to right): Anselm Kiefer, unidentified person, Joseph Beuys, Jacqueline Burckhardt, Jean-Christophe Ammann, Bice Curiger, Enzo Cucchi, and Jannis Kounellis working on the book Ein Gespräch = Una discussione: Joseph Beuys, Jannis Kounellis, Anselm Kiefer, Enzo Cucchi (1988), Basel, Switzerland, 1985 Image Courtesy The Estate of Jannis Kounellis. -
Kounellis during the summer in Hydra, Greece, circa 1995. Image Courtesy The Estate of Jannis Kounellis. -
Gallerist and art collector Alexandre Iolas (left) and Kounellis (right) in Athens, 1977. Image Courtesy The Estate of Jannis Kounellis. -
Jannis Kounellis during the installation of Kounellis: Die front, das Denken der Sturm, Halle Kalk, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, 1997. Image Courtesy The Estate of Jannis Kounellis. -
Kounellis during the installation of the exhibition Jannis Kounellis, Synagoge Stommeln, Pulheim, Germany, 1991. Image Courtesy The Estate of Jannis Kounellis.
IX.
It’s like smoke, it’s obvious that smoke is paint, it’s obvious that it disappears, a paint of smoke doesn’t exist and in that is the sign, to go against this powerful vibration evokes feelings that are impossible to tell without this kind of means and distribution. It is not ephemeral, it is a firm gesture.
X.
Let’s say that style is a kind of formal recognition, the truth is that every day, every moment you have to f ind the reason to create a work and the emotionality to do it. Thus, without style, an obstacle. It looks like a protective membrane but once you get over it, only you and the space remain.
XI.
Once you are out of the tonal cage, finishing a work is almost a crime, difficult if anything, weeks after weeks to rediscover the value of long times and reject the productivist idea of the painting as an object to be finished and delivered.
XII.
It’s not a matter of form, this one or any other, but to always create a prospect for life. To try open something beyond the obsessive barriers of convention. For we [artists], with the work we do, are trying to open a non-conventional path for language, because language is stereo- typed and becomes stereotyped with continual use, so this is our task: to find the means for exposing more possibilities of communication. That is what I believe.
XIII.
What characterized my generation is not having any dogmatic nightmare, not starting from a manifesto, and accepting even contradictions. Having a creed means having the need for a defense; we didn’t need any defense.
XIV.
We are, obviously, part of that Western family that dispenses privileges and well-being but, lest we forget, we are also the black sheep of that family.
XV.
Arte Povera was a term born in the theatre, that’s one reason I recognized myself in it. The phrase is connected with Jerzy’s [Grotowski] idea of a Teatro Povero.
XI.
For me, travel means “going elsewhere.” I am attracted to “elsewhere” like any artist, for cultural reasons and for the adventure that is always within art. But it is not correct to say that research is a journey into the unknown. One is always attracted to something known, perhaps something small. You want to see a Van Gogh painting and end up in Paris.
Each journey has an initiatory character, it is an idea of active, loving, expansive knowledge.▪︎
Read the full The Traveler in the Labyrinth: Collected Thoughts & Writings of Jannis Kounellis in the exhibition catalogue available at the Walker Shop.
See Jannis Kounellis in Six Acts on view at the Walker Art Center Oct 14, 2022–Feb 26, 2023.
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