Every once in awhile a multidisciplinary artist comes along that makes the art world take notice. Patrick Mimran, who has commandeered the billboards that hang from the High Line on West 24th, 25th and 26th streets, is such an artist. Interview by Angela Di Bello - March 25, 2008.

Patrick, as a multi – faceted artist: photographer, painter, musician, sculptor, and installation artist; which medium best sustains your creative vision?

It depends on what I want to express. I always choose the medium that is best suited for what I want to express. Of course, there are certain mediums that I am more comfortable with, but it really depends on what I wish to express at a specific time. When I decide on what I want to achieve and illustrate, I know, right away, which medium I need to use. Today, if I want to express something realistic or something figurative, I would use photography, not painting. I prefer to use painting for more abstract or metaphysical ideas. It seems to me that painting fits better for that type of expression. If I want to express movement or tell a story, I use video. If I want to express something that you cannot express with any other media, I use music, and in particular electronic music. With synthesizers and their huge pallet of sounds, you can express very intimate feelings like fear, courage, hope, faith. I am a great fan of electronic music, and I follow very closely what's happening in the electro music scene. I really enjoy listening to the music of JessUblime. She's a young artist, and I think she is the most promising composer of her generation. She's a great talent. If I want to express something that is a little bit more direct and provocative, I use these billboards. I think that in art today, there is not enough provocation. For many artists, there is the goal to be well known and recognized in the art system, and many of them are compromising to reach success.

At the moment the media that I use most of the time is photography. My first exhibition in 1971 was photography. After that, I went to painting and music. Now, I am back to photography. I like painting too, but there is certain moment, with any form of expression, when you reach a point where you begin to repeat yourself. When the time comes where I cannot find a new technique within a certain medium that leads me to surprises and new discoveries, then I switch to something else for awhile, and will go back to the other medium when I have fresh ideas again. Are your installations (billboards) a means of communicating your philosophy, an art form in itself, a marketing ploy to bring attention to your fine art or all of the above?

I started with the billboards in February 2001. At that time, I was working here [in Chelsea], and the galleries were just starting to appear. I saw billboards on this High Line, and thought it would be nice to use them for something related to arts. The first billboard I did was in London in 2000. After this first one, I rented a billboard [in Chelsea] and started with just writing a phrase about art with black letters on a white background, but without my name on it. By using only simple black typo I wanted to give the impression to the viewer that I was addressing this message directly to him and not to everybody as you usually do with general advertising. Then one day, I saw an article in the New York Times about Chelsea with a picture of my billboard taking half of a page, but without any mention of who was the author of the aphorism. And so I thought, it is about time for me to put a signature on my billboards; just as a painter would put his signature on a canvas. The very first billboard read “Art is not where you think you are going to find it.” It is true that people always live at a certain time and are influenced by the trends of that time. So people tend to consider as art things that they believe are important at the time. And likewise, people like a piece of art at a certain time, for no specific reason but only because it fits to their time and culture. But, there are many factors that go into liking a piece of art and being one .There should be no rule no place no time for a genuine piece of art That is why I think that art is never where you think you are going to find it. Most of the very fashionable artists of today will disappear in the next century, just as those of the 19th century have disappeared completely today. Today, I don’t like that it seems that the people who make the art world rule the game, for sure. They impose their rule and their taste it is a new form of contemporary academism. What I regret is when people do not have any reaction in front of a piece of art. An artist should have a critical view about his life and his time and any systems in place. In the 60s, all the artists had a critical view, but today, it seems that they all follow the same path. Some artists believe they have to fit in," today's fashion". So this is one of the reasons that I started these billboards. The second reason is that when you enter a gallery, you see people looking at art, but there is no visible enthusiasm, good or bad, no personal engagement and no discussion. So I think my billboards are fun and maybe useful to trigger thoughts and conversations about art.

Dies Irae Oil & Mixed Media on Board 39''x 47''

The paintings of Katrin Alvarez beyond any doubt, express the art and workmanship of a great artist who masters various and strange materials, amalgating them into new expressions of colours, surfaces, textures and shapes. At first glance there is admiration, on a closer look her paintings suddenly startle, vex and challenge the viewer. They convey a feeling of awe and fear, touching uncertain but palpable spots deep inside. The trained mind might struggle to find a logical comprehension yet feels that the painting carries and induces a logic of its own.

Andre Breton maintains in his 1924 manifest that art is the expression of imagination revealed in dreams. If we put aside his role in politics and Dadaism, he could have referred to Katrin Alvarez´s art stating that “surrealism expresses a desire to deepen the foundations of the real, to bring about an even clearer and at the same ever more passionate consciousness of the world perceived by the sense”.

There is more in the art of Katrin Alvarez, in Ms. Alvarez’s Stream of Consciousness we find veristic traits that produce in detail a world analogous to the realm of dreams. Combine this veristic approach with Magic Realism, symbolistic elements and your own experience, dreams and fantasies; you are about to enter a new dimension in a surreality. This new superior reality is created as a dreamlike impression by arranging real and fantastic images in a nonsensical style. The attempt to understand these images with control will fail – the startling arrangement of beauty in contrast to sinister defies any rational defense and leaves a spontaneous impact on your awareness.

There was a time in the not-so-distant past when fine art was relegated almost entirely to galleries and museums. Viewing art was an intentional act. People would oftentimes make a day out of going to a well-established museum, languishing over famous paintings and having a delectable lunch at the museum’s café. Others would blaze their own trail, hopping from one gallery to the next to see the latest and best works that all the critics were buzzing about in the arts columns.

Museums and galleries are, after all, sacred institutions. They provide us with the opportunity to see time-honored masterpieces and soon-to-be classics. Usually quiet, sophisticated, and almost spiritual, they are the blank backdrop for groundbreaking works of art. They exist not just to cultivate our understanding of beauty, but also to promote culture. In raising our awareness of the arts, museums and galleries intrinsically speak to our sense of self and our place in society. We ultimately gain a better sense of who we are by being in the presence of works that challenge our worldview.

While these sacred spaces will remain forevermore important to building up our notion of aesthetics, there is a new breed of art spaces that has been attracting contemporary artists and art lovers alike. These spaces are expanding the art-goer’s experience of art to include not just high art and low art, but also the decorative arts and fashion. Reaching out across the divide between genres and uses of art, these art spaces point out that beauty is all around us and can come in unexpected forms.

The latest trend in art spaces is that they are multipurpose stores that place art on a level playing field to everything else in the space. While museums and galleries put the sole focus on art—they include gift shops and cafes simply to enhance guests’ experiences—multipurpose art-spaces blur the boundaries between art and retail sections, giving them each more equal billing than traditional art spaces.