an interview book from Dobrica Kamperelic,Beograd,Yugoslavia,1996
- Clemente Padin, you´re active at Latin American alterart scene over 30 years… But, in seventies you have some problems and spent some time in the prison. What´s really happened?
So it was. In 1965 began the edition of the magazine Los Huevos del Plata, until 1969. After OVUM 10 and OVUM from 1969 to 1977. These reviews was borned by the necessity of magazines to spread the results of our experiencies and to forbid the communicative barriers. All those artistic activities agreeding with the inherent postulates of every vanguard current, it does not matter the artistic field chosen : poems, theoretic texts, music, performances, propositions and projects, etc. In all their concurrences and derivations had have place in my reviews : creation that modifies or upset the ancient and stereotype way of expression in any sense.
My first visual poems was from 1967. I officially began in Mail Art in 1969, when OVUM 10 edited my visual poems in postcards but yet interchanged art and publications with Edgardo Antonio Vigo, Guillermo Deisler, and Damaso Ogaz from 1967. In 1970 I did my first performance in the hall of the Uruguayan University : The Poetry Should Be Done for Everyone. In 1971 I participated in my first mail art exposition realized by the Image Bank Postcard Show, in Vancouver, Canada. In 1974, during the Uruguayan military dictatorship I organized the first documented Latin-American Mail Art Exposition, at U Gallery, in Montevideo, called Creative Postcard Festival. In 1977, I was jailed by the dictatorship for "hurt the morale and reputation of the army" during two years and three months. I was condemned for four years but the international solidarity liberated me before. The real cause of my detention was my artistic activities against the brutality of the dictatorship and also for to organise the Counter-Biennial in front the Latin-American Section of the X Biennial of Paris,France, curated by the Director of the Fine arts Museum of uruguay…
- Most part of art – people in network know you as visual poet…But you´re active in different art – media: video – art, installations, performances, mail art, isn´t it?
You are right. I had used and will use many form of expression (video, performances, lectures, interactive art, fax, inobjetal forms, etc. ) because in my work the important is the form of expression and not the form of content. The content is historic, it is "there" in the social life, in the "air". Love is love yesterday and today : only the form in which determined content is expressed changes. By this way, I am allways experiencing materials, supports and new communication ways. Now I am trying internet…
- Your peacefully art – engagement is well – known in the world. Which are your last actions of this kinds?
Yes, the armies must be removed. Remember : killing is the first that men learn in army. You see : United Nations Armies are used to resolve politic problems of USA. The armies are responsible of the damage to environment and waste of natural resources. Also, they eat the 20% or 30% of public rents of each country, yearly…
My last actions was in La Plata, Argentine. The 19th December, 1995 in the collective project by Group Escombros ("Rubbishes") called With the same Necklace . I try to denounce the State organizations, like Work, Education or Public Security (v.g. fabric, school or army) creates by system for to control of peoples. After, in the V Biennial International Visual/Experimental Poetry, in Mexico City, from 10th to 20th January,1996, organised by Cesar Espinosa and his group Poexia/Visual. There, I Performed an homage to Guillermo Deisler, my old Chilean friend dead in October´95 fall in Halle, Germany. Willy, was throwed from his mothercountry, Chile, by Pinochet, the dictator, chief of the Chilean Army, still in the government…
- Can you explain some characteristical art tendencies in Latin American contemporary – art, also groups and individuals?
Now, in Latin American, the underdevelopment and neo-liberalism are obliging to more than a half of our population to steal their daily food from the rats. There are not only words. You see : the complete hegemony of USA, the globalization of the savage capitalist economy, the growing abyss between the rich and the poor nations are greater each day. In the frame of this social- economic situation, the latinamerican artists continue creating and fighting for their ideas. The recent V Biennial in Mexico is a clean and decisive example : the dynamization of the latinamerican art scene is incredible. In Buenos Aires, Santiago, La Plata, San Pablo, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico, Montevideo, etc., more and more artists are defending democracy and rights of their peoples, trying to resolve the social antagonisms and reaffirm the principles of toleration and mutual respect as a basic element of the human relations in a clime of peace and justice.
Montevideo,fall January,1996