"Dental Tribune" (2018)
Ivoclar Vivadent once again attempts to "stir" the waters of the dental community, not through some groundbreaking innovation, as we have been accustomed to, but by making a foray into the realm of Art this time. In an original photographic project, under the artistic direction of the renowned photographer and photography teacher Platon Rivellis, Ivoclar Vivadent invites dentists and dental technicians to delve into the art of photography, to "exhibit" their photographic talent, and also to "expose" themselves, by posing in front of the photographers' lenses of the "Circle". The "DT" traveled to the noble Syros, to the house where Mr. Rivellis lives and organizes his photography seminars, and spoke with him about the art of photography, as well as teaching it.
Doric and imposing, like the ruins he so enjoys photographing, born of the cloth of great teachers who instill visions and unburdened by the weight of his artistic proof, Platon Rivellis refuses the "labels", which could not illuminate the colorful facets of his multifaceted personality anyway. Critical in his thought and with the charm of an artistic vividness constantly seeking avenues for transmutation into intellectual nourishment, he can unabashedly declare himself "elite" in the sense of a universal, Renaissance man who structures his life through a personal journey of lifelong education, tailored to his own measures.
Driven by his personal "Ananke" to make art, he discovered photography, which was destined to lead him to an even greater love, that of teaching about photography. He adores contradictions that generate tension and mystery, because without mystery, art is inconceivable for him, and he declares himself, like Francis Bacon, "deeply optimistic about nothing." Remaining undoubtedly one of the greatest experts and most recognized theorists of photographic art in Greece, Platon Rivellis shares with us some "clicks" from the magical world of photography.
I would like to start our discussion by asking you to put a caption under your photo. What would you write next to the name Platon Rivellis?
You put me in a difficult position, because I precisely have no caption for myself. That is, I do not classify myself and insist not to. If I had to place a phrase as a trademark, I would put the phrase "a matter of identity." I believe that we create our identity with our life, which emerges in its complete form at the end of our lives. An identity is not built with a diploma or a profession. And that's why I understood very early in my life that people should not be categorized based on their profession. I consider "labels" restrictive. Through my engagement with photography, I began to discover better who I am. Having lost - and I don't want to have it - the shell of a profession or the shell of a family, I created a new shell through my relationship with art and my students.
How many years does your "bond" with photography last? Is it a transformative, passionate love or a deep, sincere affection?
It is not love, and I do not believe in love at first sight anyway. I believe in those that are built. Photography started for me, at least that was my first impression, as an easy solution to engage with art. I slowly saw how much it interests me, but also how poor it is as a medium. Photography does not have capabilities; it is so minimal in its capabilities that you really have to be very capable to utilize them. And I mean always, being able to transcend what you are photographing.
Art occupies me very much because it is related to mystery, which I prefer to remain unsolved. Exactly this mystery that exists in the world generates a need for complicity and support. So, you need followers, believers. Only art and religion do this. Thus, my relationship with photography led me subsequently to a second relationship much more important than photographing, which is teaching. As a teacher, I don't want to shape or deform but to "proselytize." I want to transmit this mystery that exists in art, in photography, to others. And somehow, the "Photographic Circle" was born. It was the result of my need to be surrounded by people with whom I could share common perceptions and desires.
So, I would say that for me, photography culminated in teaching. Now, with teaching, I freed my personal photography. Because now, it is not about identity. I continue to photograph because I enjoy photographing, but also because it helps me keep my curiosity for the lesson alive. You know, no lesson can be the same when you yourself maintain a lively photographic process. And at the same time, all personal experiences, whatever happens in the course of your life, whatever new you perceive from the world of art, a movie, a book, all are integrated into the core of your teaching. So, teaching as a center helps my photography but also the rest of my life to have meaning.
For Kazantzakis, the ideal teacher "is the one who becomes a bridge for his student to cross over. And once he facilitates the passage, he happily lets himself be demolished, encouraging his student to build his own bridges." What is your relationship with your students? Have you ever considered the possibility that one of your students might "challenge" or even reject your teachings?
At the beginning, it was somewhat excessive, but I quickly realized that personal bridges need to be cut. The most important thing for me is not to be loved by my students, but to be respected. And in the student-teacher relationship, there is always the very difficult stage of criticism. I believe that without criticism, the world does not progress, and unfortunately, it is something that has atrophied in our days. It is difficult for all of us to accept rejection, but some suffer terribly. If you "hook" on the other's acceptance, you are terribly a slave to the other. At the same time, the teacher must be freed from the need to be loved. This is the easy part; when you tell the other what they want to hear, you win them over, they become your follower. But criticism is something difficult and painful. Most people seek criticism, essentially seeking praise to satisfy their ego. If a student brings me ten photographs, two might be interesting, but I will focus on the eight that are not good. Because the quality of your work and the possibility of your evolution stem from the dynamics of the rejected photographs.
I'll give you an example. A female student submitted 200 photographs for my judgment. I rejected them all, but declared myself enthusiastic and told my other students that this girl would surprise us. Even in her "failed" photographs, you could see her "eye," her nerve, but she had not yet gained control of the medium.
If the student endures the criticism, then I believe that a relationship is built that I consider necessary in art. That is, I believe that even if you are the greatest artist, there should always be two or three people in your life whose opinion you listen to and respect. They are the people who act as "windows, not as mirrors."
As for the rejection by my students, I can tell you that my students are divided into four categories: first, those who initially follow me and soon decide that my teaching does not interest them and leave; second, those who, even though they feel that I do not "fit" them as a teacher, stay to take some things from me and then leave. And there are those who stay close to me and are divided into two categories: those who agree with me, appreciate what I do, and maintain their contact with me, and finally, those who choose me as a counselor, as a critic. I get along very well with all these categories, there are very few cases of "bad," so to speak, relationships with my students, which do not concern me as an issue.
To summarize, to close the topic of teacher-student relationship, I believe that the ideal relationship is the one that allows the student to be liberated, while maintaining their respect and the need for communication with their teacher.
Most people detect the value of photography in capturing the moment, in their anxiety to "impose" on time. For you, however, the essential element of photography is not the capture, but the transformation. Ultimately, is photography the narrative of the photographer on the "story" of the photographic subject?
Yes, and essentially the photographer does not convey the story as a narration but incorporates "something" into the photograph, which moves me. To put it differently. The photograph that has great value for you is the one in which you capture not something foreign, but something very personal to you. When what you show in the photograph also becomes valuable to me, you have succeeded. Otherwise, if you show me your photographs, my bond with the photograph is you. If you interest me, your photographs interest me. So if I transcend the relationship with the photographer and stay with the photograph and it interests me, then there is something in the photograph. The awareness that you did something significant for yourself, along with a knowledge of the art of photography and the frame, made you transform a child, a tree, a flower into something that interests me too, who is not connected to it. But for me to be able to perceive it as emotion, I need to know the language of photography. Just as I need to know the language of painting, music, or cinema. Otherwise, I do not understand. The person who does not understand a photograph is not stupid. They do not know the language.
Staying a bit on the subject, I will take you to the famous doctrine regarding the "death of the author," adopting a reading of it that promotes the liberation of the work from the creator, so that the former becomes "revolutionary,"cultivates polysemy, and provokes the viewer into a game of co-authorship.
I consider it self-evident, the opposite is folly. The creation must be independent of every connection it has, even its connection to time. The success of a work of art is judged by its ability to survive beyond its era and whether one can enjoy it from a different angle than the one from which it was originally made. In a joint interview with a peer photographer, the journalist asked him what he does if someone enjoys one of his photos but interprets it in a different way. He answered, "I would consider that I failed." On the contrary, I replied that this is the stance of a professional photographer who does advertising. For example, if you take a photo advertising pure virgin olive oil and the audience reads it as black, like engine oil, you have failed. I, on the other hand, said, if the viewer enjoys it, however they enjoy it—I don’t even want them to explain how—that’s enough for me. It doesn’t mean there’s one interpretation, as in the tax authority’s circulars, which is also the correct one. There is no interpretation. That’s why I refuse the concept of interpretation in art and use the term approach instead; the issue is how each of us will approach it.
“Memory, the main noun of sorrows, singular in number, only singular and indeclinable,” writes Kiki Dimoula. If memory is as painful as Ms. Dimoula describes, why do people insist on photographing, Mr. Rivelli?
I believe that some people, among whom I and Dimoula, who loves photography, are tormented by memory in a pleasurable way. We build a life, which may not be the one we actually lived, but the one our memory has crafted. So, our memory is very important, and I cannot be afraid of anything else in the world but the moment I start to lose it. When you get disconnected from your memory, it must be very scary. On the other hand, our memory is the only thing that makes us feel our "self." That you are different from me, that we had a different life course.
In divorces, when you separate, you feel that the other person takes a piece of your memories, a piece of yourself. And I once discussed this with a psychiatrist who told me a very nice phrase, that memories are invested emotions. You have to manage to put a piece of your memory into something unknown you photograph, because photography is memory, because our memory works photographically. When you walk and say I will photograph this house, it must tell you something, something you "fish" for, you sense it, you don’t know it. And if you manage to put something inside the photograph, me who you won’t give a memorandum, I will understand and say there is something here. This is very difficult and not everyone understands it.
The problem with photography is that everyone has third-party models. Anyone who picks up the camera has seen photographs and unwittingly reproduces photographs they have seen. Imagine going to a village in the Amazon and giving a camera to an innocent elderly woman, there is no chance she will take an indifferent photo. Because she will raise the camera where she feels something... The photograph she will take may not be artistic, but it will have something. I believe that today people who are involved in photography have so much input that they really lose the sense of nourishment. They need to starve visually...
André Breton said that "art does not want servants, but lovers who if necessary will rape it." Do you believe in absolute artistic freedom?
Certainly, it does not want servants, it wants lovers. But not to rape it. The one who rapes commits a moral and at the same time an aesthetic sin. A lover never rapes. I agree that you need to be a lover, a lover who loves so much that they want to transform, but not to rape. You know, rape is easy in art. And we live in an era where the illusion of originality has stolen the primacy from substance. You know who makes art? The "compelled people," to use the words of Epaminondas Gonatas. This "compelled person" needs the expression of art, because that’s how they have fun. Art is primarily joy. "Rape" was a need that emerged in Breton’s time for a deification of the avant-garde. But this, as an expression of an era, has passed. But Breton had the alibi to say it.
Is the audience in our country that follows artistic events typically or substantively educated? What has your contact with the world shown?
To come to me means they have the "thirst." I have spoken to many and diverse audiences, without changing the way of my presentations, and this is something I believe has succeeded. When you say what you believe and say it in a way that keeps the audience's interest, then you have made a basic step in teaching. You must not let the audience get bored.
I mostly speak to a Greek audience. Greek audience means miserable schools. School should provide motivation. Instead, it gives directives. Moreover, I believe that in Greece we never had an established middle class. Art and education progressed throughout Europe from the middle class. Middle class, I mean in the good sense, a modest proper class, which has overcome the anxiety of the farmer, to climb socially. So, there was no education at home, nor at school. This is the Greece where I teach about art. I am always accused of being elitist. And of course, I am elitist. Everyone must become elitist for themselves, that’s the basic. Not for society. For me, elitist means feeling that for some reason you are above a level. You build this yourself and you build it by tailoring your education to fit you. So, what I encourage people to do is to make their education, their personal affair.
Let’s look at the issue of education and cultivation from the perspective of the art creator. How do your stimuli and artistic references affect your work?
I pass my stimuli to my students. As a teacher, I transfer to my students what I know. Now if someone seeks something else, they can take it. In the end, everyone will take what they can. What I believe is that if you are genuine, no matter how strong a personality I am as a teacher, no matter how much I teach someone, they will remain themselves. Because if you are not you, it’s impossible to take an interesting photo. You will do something that we have seen reproduced thousands of times around us. Everyone’s life is different, the structure of their education is different. What you take from me, you will "marry" with something of your own.
One of your phrases that accompanied me even after the conclusion of the farewell event of the "Cycle" presentations at the Benaki Museum was that you do not photograph people "because you have not yet found the way to overcome their charm." I would like you to elaborate a bit more on this position.
I know how to photograph nature, but with people, because I am very involved, I have not yet found the thread. Maybe I'm afraid of it. I thought maybe the most honest approach is to photograph memorabilia, that is, to start photographing people, men and women, who have a family role in my life, and to create a personal album of my environment, trying to see what I see in each of these people. At one point, for a short period, I was involved in portraiture. I chose girls whose faces interested me, but with whom there was no relationship between us. I managed to take decent photos, but without surprising myself.
If I asked you to photograph a smile, what would you look for in it? What could inspire you?
I don't know. It’s something that interests me a lot, whether if I ask to do a portrait I will try to experiment with both extreme forms of expression, namely faces that are either very smiley or very serious. The smile, to begin with, is less magical, because it gives you something given, while the more stern face has a neutral stance, so it allows both the photographer and the viewer to enter more freely into the subject.
But what intrigues me a lot in the dental smile is the teeth. The teeth scare me a lot, they have something threatening. That is, there is also something threatening in the smile. In art, there must be contradiction. Without contradiction, there is no tension. And if there is no tension, there is no mystery. But without mystery, there is no art.
One who creates artistically does not create with a given goal and a given result. "He searches." And this is a very nice game, a very pleasant process. I’ll tell you something I told one of my students, who asked how to take successful photos. There is no algorithm for success in photography. Photography starts from need and mood. If you succeed, you succeeded.
What will dentists and dental technicians who participate in this original photography project gain?
First, it will satisfy their narcissism. It's nice to pose, once you get past the awkward stage of the initial "chill," as we say. This project will gift the participants with photos offering an interesting perspective on the everyday life of their work. Photos from the dental office, of the dentist in a moment of fatigue possibly, even with humor, we will experiment in these photos. The dentists and dental technicians will not be burdened with the artistic success of this project; that concerns us. They will participate in a pleasant game, with a photographer who will accompany them in their daily work routine. This "game" might also function as indirect advertising for their work, through a medium which socially upgrades. When you engage with art, whether by taking photos, posing, or being published in an album, you elevate yourself.
In the second part, concerning the selection of photos with the theme of the smile, those participating in the project, oral health professionals, and photographers, will send us their photos after they first attend a seminar of mine and I explain to them exactly what I expect from them.
Concluding the discussion, I would like to ask you if you have a favorite life quote and how it has artistically influenced you?
There is one, but it's not mine. It's what Francis Bacon said, “I am profoundly optimistic about nothing & everything”. I find it a staggering phrase and have felt it several times. However, I understood what it means to be optimistic when I contrasted optimism with hope. I do not hope, I expect nothing. “Just existing,” as Bacon would say. Perhaps that's why I like mystery and the unknown. I don't want anything to be solved.