Samuel François aka Same

During this month of July we had the chance to meet, during his short stay in Madrid, Samuel François aka Same, one third of the art colective Inkunstruction (www.inkunstruction.com). It´s been a while since we follow the work of these french artists and we consider ourselves true fans of their instalations. We couldn’t scape the chance of doing this little interview to try to take a peek at the person behind this color nebulosas full of icons, slogans and trees with trainers!

First things first… one question we always ask everybody: When, where and how did you start to create work for the streets?

I started to do Graffiti in 1991 in Dieulouard, my village in the east of France… I don’t live downtown but on the countryside. I don’t know if I can say that I made things especially for the street. If you look at my work, a big part of my interventions are in the rural areas… I began to work on the streets there during my studies because I lived in a city but we can do Graffiti everywhere… it is not a question solely of being in a city.

It’s hard to imagine a Graffiti writer on the countryside and also back then you painted during the whole 90’s in a more classical Graffiti style. How did you keep in touch with the scene? Traveling to cities?

In fact at college I met two boys “Kader” and “Ali”. They had LAGear shoes and lines in their hair, on the wind-breaker of Kader there was a Graffiti. I believe it was my first contact with it. They painted already and they went to Paris. After some time we played basketball and after that they proposed me to go with them… we had “ParisTonkar” or the first “Xplicit GraffX” to keep in touch, and we went regularly to Paris or Germany. I believe that I didn’t have my own style then and I simply passed from style to style. It was cool. My first piece was “Stop the Violence” like KRS One´s song. Can you imagine that on the wall of the stadium of my village? It’s so funny when I think of it.

Is traveling important for you?

Always. Since the beginning. When I painted, we went to Germany (Cologne, Trier, Saarbruck…) or we went to jams in France (Brest, Dijon, Lyon, Strasbourg…) It was the best way of seeing other things. Even going away just 30 km from home was cool… Today I travel for the exhibitions and I haven’t got much time left to discover the cities than I visit. It’s always too fast: you arrive, you do your work, you drink the evening of the opening and you take the train back the following day. It is frustrating. It’s not like holidays.

You have been to and art school and you work for a gallery. How did you to go from working on the streets to working inside? Was it something premeditated or happened naturally?

It’s the Graffiti which gave me the desire to go to an art school (to evolve/move, to see other things…) I have a diploma as an interior designer and one as an architect’s assistant and after I did five years on a fine arts school but I didn’t benefit enough from it. After going there I wanted to talk about something else besides working on the street just for the sake of it. For me it’s not quite right to place a sticker or a logo just for saying “I am here!”. For me each type of place can be claimed for with a different intervention. I like to adapt my work to the place. I don’t know if this comes that naturally in a gallery where people are prepared to see something. In the street most of the people pass without looking.

Is your background as a Graffiti writer an influence on your approach to the art world or now is just something you keep on the side?

I like Graffiti, I like to paint, to have a good time with friends. I am not an addict writer. If it’s an influence on my work? That’s for sure because it’s a part of my environment and of my background. I like to refer to it in my work, in an ironic way or to push forward the things that are not as obvious, but I’m not a prisoner of my background. I want to speak about many other subjects. Hip Hop is my friend, but there are things much more important that I wish to approach with my work.

Since 2000 you work with the collective Inkunstruction. How did this project started? Who is involved in it?

Inkunstruction was born from my meeting with St Brece and Pico. We had the same passions and the same subjects for our work. We made “Inkunstruction” to work together in commissioned graphic design works, our own editions, t-shirts, decoration work but also on exhibitions. It’s always a pleasure meeting each other to work on a project. We do not live in the same cities and we haven’t got the same things in mind, so is very interesting to mix our universes.

What did you learn from this experience?

Much… almost everything! To work with other people, to accomplish a common goal and not only to assemble three individual artistic outputs to make a single exhibition. Guillaume helped me with better understanding the data-processing tools and working with four hands on record covers or posters. Also you can be more critical with yourself through the opinions of the rest of the people in the collective.

Is it still going on? What are your next projects with Inkunstruction?

At the moment there isn’t a great project in sight. Just working on graphics, a small series of t-shirts… We will update our site really soon. It’s about time! We want to work on a new exhibition but it is difficult to find time because all three of us are very busy with children, family, work…

Apart from your personal artistic work, you survive doing a lot of graphic design jobs. Is it really different the way you approach a design commission than when you do something for yourself? Do you see everything you do as part of your personal work?

I don’t know really. I haven’t got a trainning as a graphic designer. St Brece is more at ease on that field. I like it anyhow. Interesting projects are rare and often take too much time for nothing but I like the kind of projects where you can express yourself as freely as in your personal work. Nevertheless I make a difference between my personal work and graphics and my work for commissions it’s not the same.

You work doing installations, drawings, sculptures… usually combining all 3 elements in the same space. Do you always do “site specific” projects? Is this your favorite way to work? Has this something to do with the importance of the site when you do Graffiti outside?

When I work on an exhibition I always try to hold account of the place but I believe that this is the norm for everyone, right? I don’t like to present the same thing or in the same way regardless of the place. When I work outside, I adapt to the surface or I look for which I think it’s the best there. For Graffiti I’m not that original: walls, trucks, trains… Anywhere is a good place.

I think that in your work there is some sense of melancholy. What can you say to this?

Yes it is true. I do not know if it is melancholy or loneliness… it’s true. What I hide behind these colored installations is personal. I don’t know if I want to speak about it I spend a lot of time alone or with my girlfriend. The melancholy is present in the work of many artists. It’s something that accompanies us. Perhaps it’s the fact of intervening in empty or abandoned places. My area is full of old factories or bunkers and I like to walk alone around there which it’s different when you are an artist…

It seems like color is important for you… why? In which way do you use it?

Like I said, I live in an industrial area. Buildings are grey and dirty. I like the color, I like decoration, I like the patterns. I don’t like being bored. When I compose a picture it’s like a building set toy for children, you know? And I question the place of the decorative in art. I do this by using color.

Also, there is a strong presence of nature in some of the pieces I saw from you, but more nature related or maybe in contrast to modern city life. Is this true?

I live in the countryside so I work with and on the countryside. The place of nature in the city interests me, its representation, its evocation… I play with that but it’s also a way of speaking about oneself, when I make B-Boys (character made of tree, of animals and of tennis shoes) it is a kind of a self portait.

So you represent yourself like a b-boy tree! a country boy lost in an urban culture? You feel like this when you put a little country house between high buildings in your city models?

I’m not a country boy lost in an urban culture. No, I’m not lost. I believe I am composed of many other things, not only of street culture. When I put a small blue/white/red house in the middle of colored buildings I am more speaking about France, an old country that did not integrate its population and didn’t advance for some time now. When I look at France I’m sad, anxious and I dream about solutions other than the World Cup. We are not here only to make decorations, I think we must speak or testify about this kind of things.

Which are your main influences as an artist?

My influences are varied. Basically everything that is around me, all that I see, listen to… I wouldn’t like to make a list. I think that everyone is influenced by many different things. I like to set myself loose and look around as well as Internet or my city. Artists I like: Influenza, Bruno Peinado, Gomes, M/M, Xavier Veilhan, Laura Owens, Michael Lin, Frederico Herrero, Justin Fines, Ari Marcopoulos, Olafur Eliasson…. Recently I discovered PMFKA. I like many artists, contemporary or not, many designers… You see! I listed some people and right after I did I felt bad because it’s like reducing everything that I like…This is people I like but they are not a main influence.

Any interesting people working in your area that you want to tell us about?

Interesting people… There is a lot! Musicians, artists… There is Giant Metal which is a music band from my area. My brother is a member. More than just playing music, they organize full festivals or club nights with national and international artists: Deadalus, The Club of Losers, Machine Drum, Feadz… There is also the people from Kung Fu which is a group of friends which makes editions, drawings, expos… I like their spirit. There is my girlfriend: she work with food and paint. She makes installations with food on the walls or out of dresses. She paints “divinement” well, oil-painting, hyper-realist. I like it. There is a lot more people. My father is a crazy handyman, my two dogs Lia and Athos… Also Justin Morin is a very good friend and a very sensitive artist.

What are you working on right now?

Currently I just finished two or three graphics jobs but my first occupation is my personal work and research because I had a loan from Berlin. For the first time I have money to develop my work and I am very happy. The fact of being able to work in Berlin is a dream. It’s very dynamic and driving for different projects. I began to work with photographs. I am interested in the space during the time between destruction and rebuilding, constructions made by homeless people, illegals gardens, etc… After that I must carry out a series of interventions in urban spaces and finally I must make an exhibition in France and one in Germany. I am working in two editions. I am very excited. I am also preparing a series of new drawings for a collective exhibition in a gallery in Paris. And I have to finish my personal web-site: www.samuelfrancois.com

Anything you want to add?

Have you already taken English lessons? I’m too bad at it!

Zirus the virus.

2 comments July 1st, 2006 12:07am Administrador