Talk the talk with… Maxime Plescia-Büchi

This winter, Collective has collaborated with the renowned LA based tattoo artist, creative director and founder of Sang Bleu Maxime Plescia-Büchi. We recently did a talk where he discussed, among other things, manifests and virtue signalling together with Bjørn Gunnar Staal. Subsequently, the two presented their art work Cathedral of Ego, a light installation in Ekebergparken in Oslo.

Now we’re picking Plescia-Büchi’s brain once again via five quick questions. Read his thoughts about what escapism looks like, what role art should play for the under priveleged and very privileged and what’s his hopes are for 2021.

What are you working on at the moment? (Internally, externally)

– The list could be unpleasantly long and somewhat boring, but the overarching theme is figuring out how to navigate the current times while setting up an upgraded base for the future. I do not see any interest surviving this moment in history, if it is not to ensure anything we do participates to the adjustments the world badly needs.

What does escapism look like for you?

– Leaving my phone at home and taking a walk with my kids.

What group or individual would you suggest that people got to know more about and why?

– People who don’t think like us. People we disagree with, or think we do. People who live in the countryside, in places that people “like us” conveniently put in a big box that stays in our garage, that we can’t get rid of but never actually care to go check what’s inside.

What role should or could art play for the vastly underprivileged? And, what role should or could it play for those on the opposite end of the spectrum?

– Its role is primordial. Today, in first world countries, as material survival is decreasingly an issue, groups, communities, classes that in the past had to focus on simple survival are facing the symbolic domination and violence they also had and still have to endure. Questioning and working towards establishing these identities for themselves, in relation to the dominant identities is the biggest challenge of the present and future. And in turn, the dominant groups, as they face the need to work towards more equal and respectful societies, have to their narratives and identities in relation to those shifts. Art and Culture is both a vehicle and a tool to mediate and collaborate on those dynamics. Any (new) art today not directly or indirectly dealing with these issues or other pressing matters such as environmental issues is absolutely pointless.

What are your hopes for 2021?

– To apply what I preach. :)

Watch the talk with him and Bjørn Gunnar Staal here.