09 Nov 2011

Filippo Minelli

A portrait of the artist, Filippo Minelli

We fell in love with Milanese artist Filippo Minelli’s Shapes series as soon as we saw it. The juxtaposition of artificial smoke in an organic setting is equally as mysterious as it is fascinating.

So we caught up with the man who has takes his urban ideas to rural settings. We wanted to see what inspired him to make ideas that are urban by name, and urban in nature.

HUGO Create: How did you get to this stage in your artistic career?

Filippo Minelli: I got into art at a young age as I was doing street art in my hometown in 1996. That was during art-school, then I graduated to the Brera Art Academy in Milan. At that time I was having wild experiences both in the city and at art school. These experiences educated me and effected how I would go on to work as an artist.

HC: Your work that caught our eye initially is Shapes. How did you come up with the idea for it?

FM: I've been working for years on the use of language and painting words on walls, then I realized I had never focused on silence. Language is only complete when words are mixed with silence. I was watching some videos of political demonstrations without audio, and my eye was caught by the fact that the most aesthetically relevant thing joining the people and the messages was the movement of smoke in the air. So I decided to experiment with using smoke in plain nature. I wanted to juxtapose the beauty of a medium traditionally devoted to create chaos with the romantic beauty of landscapes. They complete each other in a perfect way confirming that beauty is found in clashing visions.

HC: What do you think it is about this work that catches the public’s imagination?

FM: Well I don't really know, you should ask somebody else. I do what I do especially to live in the moment. Photography to me is the documentation of what I do while in a creative process.

HC: Many of your works involve juxtapositions in settings. Do you get a thrill from surprising people?

FM: I love juxtapositions. I like paradoxes and surreal situations. I love to create them for my artistic activity, as well as my daily routine. But I use handmade smoke bombs because I need a lot of smoke in a few seconds to fight with weathering, not because it's necessary to surprise a possible audience.

HC: Do you think it’s important to present people with surprising imagery to challenge the way they think?

FM: As an artist I believe that nothing is important, but everything is worth doing. I deeply believe that there's not just one truth and that there's not just one way. But I believe it’s important to understand that other people’s feelings and ideas are flexible, and you must embrace that.

HC: Are you working on any projects now that you’d like to talk about?

FM: I'm working on organizing a world-tour for my Flags project. I still can’t reveal much about it, but it's going to be great.