Collecting Art The Smart Way – Cultural Exchange

Learning a language can take years, as they’re full of rules: Everything from grammar to spelling. Yet, it still remains one of the key ways to truly engage with the cultures of others. While it feels impossible to learn many languages at the same time, art can provide a way to engage with many cultures at once. Art is an international language that one can decode – without being from the same origins as those of the artist. In a time where people are stuck to their digital screens and where their social media mainly highlights similar minded people, it is key to support art and artists who take you outside of your comfort zone.

Art still remains one of the simplest ways to connect with the culture and story of someone you don’t know, all while bringing you a whole new set of ways to think of the world around you. And, surely, that’s one of main things to live for.

My own experience of this artistic connection beyond words would be my relationship with artist Francesco de Prezzo. Francesco and I still haven’t succeeded to exchange more than a few sentences, yet we have worked together for over a year. Francesco lives in Italy and only speaks Italian.

Art is not just for the head, it is also lived through the stomach, with your gut instincts. The day I encountered the work of Francesco, I knew that I had to work with him. Art implies this irrational obsession towards the artists you love, and while you may not be able to express it in words, it feels entirely obvious to you internally. Francesco’s work makes me escape the every day: I can watch his videos or performances for hours when in need of a peaceful state of mind.

The very fact that he erases all the paint on the canvases that he first painfully applies for hours is very melancholic just to think about. With the language Francesco created, I feel contemplative and more in touch with the space around me. More human and less rational. That’s the beauty of art, if existing languages do not suit you, artists can create a new one for you, so you can escape with them.

So yes, I could try to explain this relationship with a thousand words, but the language Francesco created visually inspires me daily and requires no explanation in doing so. At times emotions evade logic and only creative languages can address them. Words are sometimes limiting in a way that visuals are infinite.

I loved this experience so much that I just took on a new artist, Ignacio Munoz Vicuna, from Chile. The story continues…