Hello everyone!
And welcome to this round of Welcome to the Insta-hood where I interviewed fascinating people and their Instagram accounts! This week I interviewed Aramis his instagram account is @anti_Cgi !
- Tell me a little about yourself.
“I grew up between the late 70s and 80s. My American vixen/biker-chick/hippie mom and my South American playboy dad got divorced when I was three.
I spent a lot of my youth between Central/South Florida while summering in Caracas, VE, watching movies alone on late night HBO or renting them. Video stores in Caracas often had really seedy selections of horror, foreign and arthouse films. As a little gringo-looking kid I had free reign to rent whatever I wanted, regardless of subject or rating. Being uninhibited I treated myself to whatever had interesting box art.
I vividly remembering stumbling upon films like A Clockwork Orange (1971), Tattoo (1981) or Emmanuelle (1974) and thinking being an adult meant the freedom to indulge in any curiosity that sparked your interest, especially the taboo or illicit.
I studied painting at the Cooper Union in the 90s. At the time there was a lot of conceptual sculpture, relational aesthetics, hipsterism and well… just a general hatred of painting. I spent all four years learning under the artist, Hans Haacke (a closet classical painting fan). In conversation we spoke about the political codification of art. I began to approach content from this hierarchical perspective, thinking that socio-political underpinnings were inherent in works of “art” or “cinema” which separated them from merely casual forms of entertainment.”
2. What gave you the idea to start your Instagram account?
“In my 30s I was bored with everything, especially my own rigidity. I decided that I wanted to revisit cinema and learn as much as I could, especially about the 60s, 70s and anything I had missed from the 80s. I’ve always had indexical memory so I started creating stills from films and collecting others I found on-line to form a digital codex of sorts. Around 2012 a friend introduced me to Instagram as a place you find images of anything you wanted. I thought, “ANYTHING I wanted? How excellent”. What I found though was a lot of selfies, exhibitionists (not criticizing, I adore libertines), people sharing their whimsical cellphone art and homogeneity. I wanted to see flashy practical special effects with guts, lasers, gobs of otherworldly flesh or anything dangerous so naturally I thought I might as well post stills of what I had already collected. ”
3. What interests do you have outside of what is featured in your instagram account?
“In 2013 I co-founded an artist gallery/group called, Guccivuitton, with Loriel Beltran and Domingo Castillo, specializing in showcasing forgotten and contemporary culture unique too or influenced by South Florida. After doing a museum show at the ICA Miami in 2015, they advertised us in Interview Magazine and on billboards so we started getting cease and desists from Gucci and LVMH. We later changed the name to Versaceversaceversace but then Versace gave us a cease and desist as well. After that we met with some hot shot trademark lawyer and I told him that I wanted to change the name to Bed, Bath & Lebron. He toured us around his full floor glass penthouse office and said that he was able to afford “all of this” because his clients didn’t take his advice. We got the message. So we became, Noguchi Breton, because you could still maybe just keep calling it Guccivuitton… you know… if you personally chose to.
In 2016 two of my original collaborators left and I continued the project with designer/architect, Jonathan Gonzalez, and his wife, Fernanda Torcida. We changed the mission a little and rebranded as Tile Blush which is a pantone color we were over using.
I’m also a loving husband, a proud dog father, I have a green thumb, a weakness for design lamps and I collect art, though I decided to get out of debt this year. ”
4. What are some of your favorite movies you have posted and why?
“I’m selfish so I don’t always post films I love. For instance, I adore Pier Paolo Pasolini and Andrei Tarkovsky but seldomly post their films. Generally I’m a pluralist and I can admire parts as much as I can admire the whole. I can say I’ve noticed that the images that I’m usually the most excited about get the least amount of “likes”.”
5. Do you have any exciting events or news that you would to share?
“I’ve decided I need to loose some weight because I like rich foods.”
If you like to follow Aramis this is his Instagram account:
Thank you Aramis for this amazing interview!!!
Until next time!
ladycultblog 