Pilar Quinteros and Patricio Blanche.
Fragments of conversation of J.G. Entonado with Pilar Quinteros and Patricio Blanche:
Well, as I have said many times… art, if necessary, must be taken off its pedestal and put on the ground. And if it is necessary to step on it and spit on it, then it is done. It is important that it reaches the “normal” people, the people “from below”. Can anyone be an artist and should art be at the level of the people of the street, of “the plebs”? Art should not be considered to be on a throne. And conventional instruments represent, from my point of view, elitist art with which I do not agree.
It is possible that I am wrong, I don’t know… I believe that nobody is wrong, simply each one of us has a way of understanding things and the different opinions form a truth. It is like a mirror that breaks and all the pieces are a piece of truth, at the end you put them together and that results in the total truth, or the reality of a certain concept. My opinion is a little piece of that mirror.
Therefore, I see it this way, art should not be idolized, you have to put it at your level, look it in the face and say: “look, I’m like you”. And the same thing happens to me with conventional instruments; I don’t idolize or pamper them. And all this that I have expressed has reminded me of your trumpets… For example, you can play with a dented trumpet, and that does not have an “ideal” state; you can create music without having to have an excellent instrument. Those are my needs, of course; clearly other people will have different priorities than mine.
Art, the different types of art, in my opinion, are mixed with other branches of knowledge: science, philosophy. There is a kind of “synesthesia” between all disciplines. The same destinations and conclusions can be reached by different ways. Those trumpets that you make, with different materials, with different densities, colors and textures; they can represent, or at least, they suggest to me that, the confluence that exists between different tendencies, different disciplines… and not only within art. Also within philosophy or any expression of human knowledge. So your trumpets do not have to represent only the different styles of music or different impressions that musicians of different styles may have. Those trumpets suggest to me ideas, which could be considered strange, as they can represent mathematical equations written on a blackboard, for example. They can represent different branches of knowledge that give you the same impression. I have a broad way of understanding all this. You can express it through music, lyrics or performance; and find the inspiration for it with any kind of books of different subjects… or with cinema.
Besides, limitations force you to try harder. And if your creativity doesn’t come out of one side, it comes out of the other; and you try to find different formats of expression. All this is what your trumpets tell me.
The impression that the colors give me are the different moods. They are different impressions that you have when you consider the art or the music you are going to make. One color or another gives you a certain mood and then you create music that comes out more aggressive or less aggressive; or more or less fluid. A trumpet is for me like an extension of the voice, which from my point of view is the main and most personal instrument we have. I don’t play the trumpet only in an orthodox way, I also use it as a channel to project my own voice. It is like another appendix of my body. It can serve as a hat or as an amplifier. I incorporate it into my body and my own being. Just as a hand moves, you can consider a trumpet the same.
Music also represents other human expressions, both artistic and from other disciplines. And those trumpets of yours suggest to me that they are related to a specific way of understanding life. After all, that must be the ultimate expression of art, right?
* Pilar Quintero and Patricio Blanche are chilean artists authors of the short documentary “El fliscorno y el zapato de gamuza“)