“Joquiti poquiti moquiti mer, everything fits in here.” To the rhythm of this magical refrain, Merlin the Charmer playfully and obediently let his belongings fly through the tree house in the forest of Brocéliande (Brittany), where he lived at the time of King Arthur. And this is how you can imagine the 51-year-old Argentine artist and filmmaker Arturo Prins: putting his more than 700 works in place before opening the door to his studio on Madrid's Gran Vía.
Depending on the room, the walls and ceilings are covered with cards or various wrapping papers. Dozens of stacked works appear throughout the space: large, small, esoteric, naive, erotic, pop, realistic, conceptual, right side up, inside out. A visual explosion that stimulates the senses. A carefully woven colorful spider web with countless threads to pull.
Fragment from “The Three Graces Aglaya, Euphrosyne and Thalia”. Oil, glitter and enamel on canvas. 250 x 180 centimeters.Juan Millás
The kitchen of his home studio decorated with wrapping paper. Juan Millas
The essence of his painting, a cinematic homage to the French film director Jean-Luc Godard (1930–2022) and a hitchhiking trip from Madrid to Shambala (Mongolia) are three of the main strands of this network, which began in 1991, at which point Prins settled in Madrid , gave up his dream of becoming an airline pilot and took the exams to study fine arts at the Complutense University. “I got it the second time, like Goya,” he says, smiling.
For the versatile Buenos Aires resident, who received the Honorary Prize from Queen Sofia at the 11th International Biennale of Sports in Fine Arts in 1995, art is play and discovery. This explains the variety of registers in his work, in which he behaves like a child who is always tempted to discover new things and delve into other topics and styles. “You can find commonalities in my work, but I am very unorthodox. I like the variety and fertility that diversity brings. I’m very playful and that’s why I’m ostracized by gallery owners,” says Prins.
An exhibition of his paintings, even if individual, has a collective effect given the visual plurality it deals with. A risky bet for galleries in a society that, according to the author, has become superficial and has lost the ability to make connections and metaphors: from the small to the cosmic, from the everyday to the transcendental. Quality that is expressed in his work as a painter.
The works “I like speed and nudity” and “And the depth is superficial”. Mixed on canvas. 200 x 200 centimeters.Juan Millás
Works in the artist's home studio. Juan Millas
To understand this artistic tidal wave, based on very intimate experiences and in which each piece represents a surprise, it is necessary to delve into every detail. His creations are full of Eastern symbolism, connections to esoteric Buddhism and Indian philosophy, sensual rituals of the Kama Sutra and leaps towards Western eroticism, all mixed with mythology, metaphysical abstractions, naive paintings and conceptual pop pieces. In advertising terms, this diversity is their additional distinguishing feature. And especially in advertising, he worked as an art director in agencies such as Saatchi & Saatchi and Contrapunto.
Throughout history, artists of different stripes have stood out who were by no means pigeonholed, but were characterized by their engagement with a wide range of disciplines and were therefore not considered banal, but the other way around: from Leonardo da Vinci (1452). -1519) to Francis Picabia (1879-1953) – with whom Prins feels very identified – which today runs via the Czech Jiří Dokoupil (69 years old). “The same thing happens to me with painting, cinema and even photography, which I do a lot,” he comments.
The web that draws the universe of this artist from the lineage of painter-directors such as David Lynch or Jean Cocteau is partly interwoven with a passion for cinema, where he began his career in 2001. Some of his more than 20 films have won awards at national and international festivals or received important mentions, as was the case with Autopsia de un amor (2014), candidate for best documentary at the Goya in 2016.
The screenwriter, producer and film director begins the year with the premiere of his two latest productions at the Pequeno Cine Estudio in Madrid. Being Human, what he considers to be his most transcendental work, is on view from February 2nd. The medium-length film “I Have Nothing to Say,” which is already in theaters, is a homage to Jean-Luc Godard. In it he talks about the meeting he had with the director of At the End of the Short Vacation on September 13, 2020 at his house in Rolle (Switzerland). Prins shows up at the filmmaker's apartment, takes him out of his hiding place without him wanting to, and tries to talk to him without falling into clichés. The images in this documentary are the last in which the famous French director appears alive on the big screen. Curiously, he died on the same day and in the same house, but two years later, by assisted suicide. A magical synchronicity for the author.
Poster for the film “I have nothing to say” that he designed.
The tribute to Godard, born from his desire to meet him in person, is a letter of love and gratitude to someone for whom he feels admiration and whose influence is present in his filmography. “In the film I sometimes imitate his working technique, even though I'm cuter. Given the complexity of Godard's cinema, for which one has to be very intellectually prepared, my film is very simple. I also make an Eastern metaphysical game. The spirit of the old man who died is reborn in a child in Buenos Aires,” he explains. Little Godard, always with a chocolate cigar between his fingers and sunglasses reminiscent of the father of the Nouvelle Vague, gives voice to the French film director with fragments of his reflections that invite the viewer to reflect, to admit themselves with the metaphor “that”. connect wants to tell us and understand the power of the image. “There will be no new Godard, but his teachings remain,” says Prins.
Master and student are united in a cinema that invites reflection and moves away from simple entertainment with one of those Godardian pills that are mentioned in the film and that move the author: “Everything is interesting. It’s possible to make a film with nothing, because with nothing you can show everything.”
However, both are separated by a gap between one's freedom to exit the distribution chains and the other's need to penetrate them and make their work visible. “Unfortunately, being independent and not having the support of a production company takes its toll on me,” says the Argentine director.
Arturo Prins with Jean-Luc Godard at his home in Rolle (Switzerland) on September 13, 2020, in an image provided by the author of the film.
The experimental work “Being Human” is an essay in which Prins, a student of Eastern philosophy, invites us to assume that we will evolve towards other higher realms, that we will be stars, almost without to be aware of it. . Using a voyeuristic camera, he films the activities of people on a beach on the French Riviera and reflects the idea that a biped is much more than a creature that eats, defecates, loves, ages and dies. For 62 minutes, Arturo Prins combines the images with a text from esoteric Buddhism, which comes from the treatise on cosmic fire, which was dictated to Alice Bailey by a Tibetan master.
“Perhaps this will be a film for humanity in 200 years because of the concepts it covers,” says the author. “This is a type of cinema that interests me too, a transcendental cinema that tries to find the beauty of humanity, the deep things that touch us,” he adds.
With this thought ever present, Prins continued to work on his work and in 2022 started a project that took him hitchhiking from Madrid to Shambala (Mongolia). The idea of finding Shangri-La, a fictional place hidden between the Himalayas and the Gobi Desert, arose in 2000 when he retreated to Italy for six months to study Buddhist texts.
“My intention was to test whether man is generous enough to take me this far, to this magical place where higher beings exist only through the power of the heart. The journey to Shambala was a journey of human flowers. A journey of generosity and kindness from all the people who took me: a total of 120 riders who helped me cross 12 countries, travel 12,628 kilometers and reach the heart of the Gobi. It was a miracle.”
Only two incidents, almost anecdotal, shook his purpose. The first happened in Girona, where he even considered turning back when he found no one to advance further. A moment of great frustration at having to leave so close to home. The second is in Tashanta, the border between Russia and Mongolia, which is forbidden to cross on foot. There he was subjected to an extensive interrogation, during which he felt the fear that the vulnerability of traveling alone with the essentials in his backpack caused.
The work “Lilith or the Third Republic”, oil on canvas measuring 190 × 142 centimeters.Juan Millás
Arturo Prins makes some sketches. Juan Millas
Series “My Journey to Shambala”.Juan Millás
During the 101 days of travel – 82 to reach Shambhala, plus the days of meditation in the Gobi Desert – he faced loneliness, painting the landscapes along the way and writing a logbook with the details of the experience he will take with him. go to the cinema when you feel the need and what has happened matures.
From thread to thread, from color to color, between reality and the afterlife, Prins lives immersed in art, constantly creating during his retreats around the world, while supporting contemporary art on his YouTube channel Art 4u.
Having achieved the magic of meditation in Shambala and the silence in the final scene of “I Have Nothing to Say” as the snow falls on the water, this artist's visual web will continue to grow between reflections on the reality of man and on the esoteric world. , looking for her inner self and a great viewer. Arturo Prins wanted to become a pilot. Fly free now.
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