L'Artiste et la Société
Congres mondial sur la condition de l'artiste
16 Juin 1997
My mother tongue is neither French nor English, and words are not the tools of my art. I therefore ask you to excuse me if my words are not precise, and if I do not succeed to express my ideas clearly.
An artist creates in absolute loneliness, and I would like to bring up some questions concerning the condition of the artist. I am bringing these questions up from a corner, my corner, the side of forms and colours which one can only look at, and sometimes touch. I am bringing them up from that side of culture which does not have the force to say, to talk, to cry out loudly or silently. They come from the corner of human creation, a subject which each and every one of the people present here today probably knows better than me.
As an artist I have doubts; doubts are the energy that stimulates my art. I wonder whether the condition of the artist derives from his economic situation, his social situation, his position in society, his cultural situation or his personal situation.
Maybe the condition of the artist is the result of questions such as: Who needs the artist and his art? Does he give? To whom does he give? What does he give? Does he take? From whom does he take? Is he serving society? Whom does he serve? Should he be serving? Is he free in a society of marketing and media?
All the words, all the sounds and all the melodies were taken by the wind. Time swept all mankind traces, except for the marvellous paintings which were painted in the darkness of the prehistoric caves 70,000 years ago, 35,000 years ago. What was the condition of the artist then? Why did he paint these paintings? Why did he create this incredible piece of art?
We have inherited these first traces of human creation and are still moved by their beauty 70,000 years later! So what does the end of the second millennium mean in comparison to this?
We live in our time and we carry our memories with us. It is in our time that they listened to Bach, to Mozart and to Beethoven; read Goethe and Schiller; enjoyed Dürer, Leonardo and MichaelAngelo. Then, they closed the doors and turned the gas on.
The bombardment of Guernica gave birth to one of the most important paintings of our century, a painting by Pablo Picasso. Have I the right to ask you whether that marvellous painting save one life? Other important painters continued to paint pastoral landscape, portraits and "nature
morte" from the Cote d'Azur while transports to the gas chambers were leaving from Drancy.
In the city of Nuremberg I created 'The Way of Human Rights', a street sculpture on which I engraved the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was written in 1948 and signed by all nations. How many wars were avoided since then? How many violations of Human Rights took place? How many old people, children, women and men were condemned to
hunger, suffering, discrimination and death ?
Will 'The Square of Tolerance', which I created here, in the garden of the UNESCO headquarters and which I dedicated to Yitzhak Rabin, influence people to stop violence? Will it create a true dialogue, understanding and respect between the two brother nations? Between the Israeli and the Palestinian sons of Abraham?
I cannot afford to be pessimistic.
My dream is Peace and Tolerance and I hope that those who have similar dreams will wake when a new dawn will rise and our dream will become reality. I know it will not come by itself. I know that we will have to fight for it.
If so, what is the condition of the artist as a human being? Can he, should he, at least try to stop the destruction of the world and humanity?
This is my own and personal situation as an artist today.