Interview with Corrado Salzanoby Damien Airault

05.07.2022 / https://archives.ecoledumagasin.com/en/archive/session-21/with-corrado-salzano.html

Damien Airault: How did you hear about the École du Magasin? What brought you there?

Corrado Salzano: from Italy and I worked between Turin and Milan, in a few institutions and galleries. Then I moved to Amsterdam and probably got to know a few people at De Appel, so I probably started looking for curatorial schools. There was De Appel, which I couldn’t afford, and the Magasin was free, so the problem was only how to stay in Grenoble, not how to pay for the program.

DA: You were quite old when you entered the Magasin.

CS: Yes, I was 29.

DA: What made you decide to go there? What were your expectations?

CS: Previously, I had worked mainly as a curator assistant or a gallery assistant. I saw that Le Magasin offered the possibility to do a project on your own. You had a framework in which you could build your own project and learn by doing.

DA: Did you graduate in art history?

CS: I graduated not in traditional art history, but in this Italian faculty founded by Umberto Eco. ¹ It was a sort of semiology course. The core was semiotics and it was applied to theatre, music, cinema and art. So it was interdisciplinary and you would “pick” your spot. I picked contemporary art. It was not classic art history.

DA: Do you remember your interview in Grenoble?

CS: There was the director of Le Magasin [Yves Aupetitallot], Lore [Gablier], and Tolga [Taluy]. They asked me to prepare an exhibition proposal along with a CV. My proposal was inspired by an exhibition I saw at De Appel, I’m Not Here. An Exhibition Without Francis Alÿs, which took place in April-June 2010.

DA: What was the schedule with your tutor, Fareed Armaly?

CS: He came early on to kick off the year, and then, he came back maybe once a month. In the beginning, there was a kind of “incubation period” so he came for a whole week, and then we were in touch by email. Afterward, he came back once a month. I think he came for the opening of the project as well.

DA: Were there other permanent collaborators or tutors?

CS: No, there was Lore and Fareed.

DA: It was changing almost every year… Was it possible to invite some people of your choice to come to Grenoble?

CS: We had a budget but we used it mainly for traveling, for example, to Switzerland. For sure, we were in touch with students from the art academy in Lyon.

DA: I know you went to Kassel as well.

CS: Yes, as well as to Manifesta in Genk, but it was at the end of the year.

DA: I supposed that to build your project, The Whole World Is Watching, you also met people. But did you also meet people who would give you skills or courses on history, economy, contemporary art, etc.?

CS: No, there was nothing like that.

DA: Wasn’t there anyone to give you things to read or texts to write, exercises or mini-seminars?

CS: Fareed had a little bit of this role. He gave us some inputs, made presentations and, right from the start, we would share and read a text, talk about it, and write something to send back to Fareed. The whole thing was about discussion, and his role was to give us some input.

DA: And this thing about Walter Benjamin comes from you or from Fareed? Because it was also a big reference ten years before.

CS: No. Walter Benjamin was just the first quote we took about technology. I don’t think it came from Fareed.

DA: Did you have contacts with people in the art centre? Did you have to work with the staff, or maybe they had to present their jobs? Did you have friendly relations with them?

CS: Yes, we were in touch with the team.

DA: I am trying to understand what was the “sociality” (in French we say “socialité”) of the students: How did they survive in Grenoble, make friends? Who did they spend their evenings with Have you made any friends, for example with art school students? How did you build a network in Grenoble, if you did at all?

CS: I can only speak about my personal experience. in the evenings, I worked at La Bobine. It’s a club, an associative cultural centre. I was a barman. I got to know a bit about that community and that’s how I was able to support myself financially. As soon as I arrived in Grenoble, I started couchsurfing. I immediately met Arbresha, a Kosovar-French girl, and we became good friends actually. Then I got a house in the centre of the city with flatmates. We were also spending time together with the other colleagues, and met former students of Le Magasin as well. I remember Tolga was around, for instance.

DA: It’s quite interesting because you’re the first student I’ve interviewed who’s had a real job outside Le Magasin while studying. And I know that the city became very expensive at that moment. Ten years earlier, it wasn’t so expensive. Perhaps most of the students had their flats paid for by their parents or had a small grant, or, at some point, weren’t living in Grenoble, which happened a lot.
One of the École’s ambitions was to set up a professional network. Have you managed to do that a bit? How were you introduced to this? Did someone say to you “You must meet this important person”? How do you feel about this? Because it’s a very strange thing for me.

CS: For sure, we met people from the local scene. There was this art space at La Bastille as well as a small art centre run by artists, so we met local art venues. We went to Lyon where we met one of the curators of Documenta, Chuz Martinez. We went to Paris and visited the FIAC and La Maison Rouge, which was the art space founded by Albertine’s father.

DA: Let’s speak a bit about your project. Do you remember how the idea of working on Vidéogazette came up?

CS: There were two points of interest. The first was La Villeneuve. It was 2012 and a few years earlier there had been this story about a guy from La Villeneuve who I think had tried to rob a casino and got away, and the police shot him. And in Villeneuve, there was a big riot, people started burning cars. This happened even before the riots in the Paris suburbs. At La Villeneuve, there were many people with a migration background and the Minister of the Interior, Sarkozy, came to Grenoble and gave this speech saying in essence: “I don’t care if you are third or fourth generation immigrants if you don’t deserve French citizenship, we’ll take it away from you.” The press then reacted by describing the Villeneuve as a sort of “crazy ghetto”. Somehow, I was interested in the way the Villeneuve project started as a kind of pragmatic municipal socialism: a place for communal living. It was described this way. What was interesting was to do some justice to this place, to its origin, to the original idea, against this type of media representation. So there was a great fascination with the story of La Villeneuve. It’s also because there are so many places in Europe that were born out of this idea of communal living, with this modernist rationalist architecture, which became problematic over time. That was the first point of interest.
The second point concerned Vidéogazette itself. It was a rather striking history, one of the first experiments in local television, in the early 1970s, when there was only state television. It was also one of the first experiments with portable cameras and so on. It was very interesting in itself because it was a group of technicians or activists who basically organised workshops, for instance with kids at school, and their idea was: “We’ll teach you how to use the camera, you’ll make your own programs, then we’ll broadcast it in a shared space during the evening and we’ll discuss important issues for the neighbourhood.” At some point, there was a local cable so it became possible to also broadcast in the department. This was quite striking historically. And in 2012, there were all these movements like Occupy Wall Street, the Indignados in Spain, there was even this big question mark of the Arab Spring. So it was a question of how the new generations were using new technologies, cameras, smartphones, and social media, to organise politically. The local experiment of Vidéogazette resounded with these contemporary events. We wanted to draw this line, this parallel. And of course, we were an international group living in Grenoble and we were interested in how this local history could connect with other international events.
Anyway, these were the two main points of interest: the history of La Villeneuve and the history of Vidéogazette itself.

DA: Did you meet everybody? Did you manage to see the videotapes and to show them? If I’m right, you presented an exhibition in the auditorium. Was there a publication or a book about Vidéogazette? You were kind of the first to study this channel!

CS: An exhibition was organised previously at Le Magasin but it had a different focus. ² It was about Grenoble and the artists who lived there in the past. For example, this exhibition showed Godard in Grenoble during the 1970s. It was also showing a video from Vidéogazette, because one of the school kids who took part in the Vidéogazette’s workshops was Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. She grew up in La Villeneuve and she was in one of these videos. The exhibition showed it, saying that this has happened, so Vidéogazette was one among many elements. We saw that and decided to focus our project on this history.

DA: Was this exhibition part of the programme of the art centre?

CS: Yes, it may well have been curated by the director, Yves Aupetitallot. Anyway, we basically had the videotapes and we found the local archives in Grenoble: a lot of flyers, leaflets. Vidéogazette lasted a few years, but then the funding was cut so the people who were working there left Grenoble. We managed to get in touch with one of them who was living in Nantes. He was the graphic designer of Vidéogazette. His name was Patrick Di Meglio. This was probably Lore’s masterpiece: she managed to get in touch with him. So we got this amazing archive of posters.

DA: Yes, I’ve seen three interviews with people from Vidéogazette: Denis Requillart, Jean Leclerc and Patrick Di Meglio. It was a small exhibition. I saw that the budget was around 5000 euros.

CS: We did an exhibition and a website.

DA: Did your opening take place during the opening of the Magasin’s main exhibition?

CS: Yes, I think it was an exhibition by Isabelle Cornaro.

DA: What do you think of your exhibition ten years on?

CS: I reread today the things we wrote on the website and I think it was a good project, even if not everything was developed or perfect.

DA: This exhibition also reflects the style of the École, with lots of documents and information. At De Appel, we would say that this is an exhibition of the “pedagogical turn” and it is very symptomatic of this period.

CS: For me, it’s important to provide proper information in the exhibition, so as not to assume that the public knows the context. It’s always important to put something down on paper and give background information, otherwise the exhibition is only aimed at a specialist audience and not a general one. Of course, if there’s too much text, it kills you. I don’t think we needed too much writing with that exhibition. There was a leaflet and we put the written part on the website, so if you wanted to find out more, that was possible, but we didn’t put it all in the exhibition.

DA: I didn’t see that.

CS: Basically, we had a table with a screen on which the website was displayed, and the texts were simply presented online.

DA: How did you build the show? Did you determine tasks, competencies, did you try to separate out all the things that you had to do? How did you organise?

CS: Sarah [Sandler] was an architect by profession, so at a certain point, she took over the scenography and the build-up. Shoghig [Halajian] was very good with planning and communication, while I was a little bit more into the writing part.

DA: How was your relationship with Lore [Gablier]? Was she after you, did she give you deadlines or leave you free? You were also quite old students, all “grown-up adults”, and perhaps you didn’t need anyone to set up your agenda…

CS: She knew all the people in the organisation. She also knew the context because she comes from the region, and of course, she was the one who spoke French, even though I started speaking French at a certain point. For example, she was super important to get in touch with the people from the Vidéogazette and to support us.

DA: This interview is almost finished. Do you have anything to add? How did the École help you in your career?

CS: For me, it was quite an amazing experience, like a project in itself. For the rest, I do not work in the art world right now. I work as a coordinator of events for a fashion brand in Berlin. I organise workshops, seminars, and training. Right after L’École du Magasin, I worked in art for a few years. I did research for the University of Warwick. I was living in Amsterdam, then I went to the UK, then I went to Belgrade where I curated a show, and then Berlin. At a certain point, I stepped out of art. I will never speak badly about the art world but there is a big problem: too many people want to work in art while there are too few jobs, so there’s a lot of exploitation, underpaid, not-paid jobs. For me, the Magasin was an important experience in life.

DA: I see what you mean.

1. ndt. Corrado Salzano refers to Dams (Department of Art, Music and Entertainment) which was founded at the University of Bologna in 1971. Umberto Eco was one of the first to join the department and was appointed to the chair of Semiotics. ↩
2. Corrado Salzano refers to the exhibition, Cinéma(s), which was organised in 2006. ↩

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VIDEOGAZETTE (1973-1976)

Vidéogazette (1973-1976) was a group of activists, technicians and citizens who organised a public access television program in Villeneuve, a neighbourhood located south of Grenoble’s city centre. Through weekly workshops, Vidéogazette members taught the Villeneuve inhabitants how to use audio-visual technology and produce their own television. Informed by a critical vision of industrial cinema and mainstream news media, the group sought to decentralise the flow of information and activate the role of the spectator to one of producer. One of the slogans reproduced on the Vidéogazette flyers was “wherever there is a consumer, there is a producer and a possible creator!”
     By taking charge of the means of information production, the inhabitants were made aware of their social context and able to play an active role in the local democracy. “Community action through video and communal experience” and a “real labour of representation with the people who are going to watch their broadcast in the evening” were common descriptions of the project.
     Vidéogazette was the first local television in France and part of a greater social initiative at the time. Under the mayoralty of Hubert Dubedout (1965-83), Grenoble was transformed into a laboratory of pragmatic municipal socialism, with the Villeneuve housing complex taking centre stage. Conceived as a model of co-habitation and communal life, Villeneuve (literally “the new city”) sheltered many militants born out of May ’68, as well as people of different backgrounds including Arab, Spanish and Portuguese immigrants and Latin American refugees. Villeneuve’s community lifestyle meant that inhabitants were willing to leave their front doors open, take care of their neighbours’ children, eat together, and meet every evening in a shared space to discuss social issues.
     Through state and city funding, Vidéogazette offered different services at Villeneuve’s Audiovisual Centre, including the production of videos, films and posters; rentals of audiovisual equipment for the locals; and studio courses for primary school students and adults to familiarise them with the equipment. Initially located in a school, Vidéogazette’s focus was on children’s education and the promotion of cultural activities. Active participation within the local social context was one of the collective’s top priorities.
     Learn-by-doing educational workshops allowed both children and adults to produce their own news and entertainment programs, and later broadcast these shows to the community. Screenings were often organised in common spaces such as public yards and the local theatre Espace 600. After the installation of the cabled network in 1973, Vidéogazette started to broadcast the television programs in the neighbourhood apartments.
     The TV programs created and reinforced a sense of shared identity, promoted transparency within news media and accountability for one’s political and social surrounding conditions. Conceived as a platform for political debate, Agora was the main broadcast program in which inhabitants gathered in a theatre-setting and discussed their opinions on social matters such as unemployment, increases in housing rent, and local factory strikes.
     Here different immigrant communities were also encouraged to share their local tradition by organising music performances, films, and debates on relevant issues. Some examples include “El Jerida”, a news program in Arabic, and various forums with Chilean refugees discussing the 1973 military coup. In many instances, these events were the first time the local public was exposed to thematics such as the Palestinian conflict and the dictatorships in the Latin American countries.
     In 1974, the collective founded the Vidéogazette association, inviting all the residents to take part in the decision-making process. Many were invited to contribute content and participate in the production of the programs. Vidéogazette members affixed graphic posters around the neighbourhood and distributed weekly programs in mailboxes in order to advertise their television and keep Villeneuve inhabitants updated. Over the years, the role of the activists increased and the subjects of the programs became more explicitly political. The idea of video as a militant tool is clearly present in a series of posters that depict a group of cameramen lined up like soldiers embracing their cameras as weapons.
     Among the topics presented during these years, it is worth mentioning contraceptive methods and abortion. Vidéogazette activists organised different debates around these issues, involving doctors from the local family planning association and feminist groups. These activities had a strong political connotation at the time, as abortion was soon legalised in France in 1976.
     Vidéogazette initially garnered a lot of enthusiasm from the locals, but after a few years only a small number of inhabitants remained actively involved. The commitment implied in collective life was too demanding and tiring for many individuals. Many also claimed that the television programs were hard to follow, and rather preferred the films broadcast on the national television channels. Only a few cultural and political groups proposed the subjects to be broadcast, leading to programs that were soon described as long talks resembling “a radio program with images.” “It’s not of interest” and “it’s just intellectuals’ chattering” were also common responses by the locals. Filmmaker Jean Luc Godard offered another point of criticism, targeting the amateur approach of Vidéogazette:
“It’s not production and it’s a false idea of collective activity. They don’t have the means, and if they did, they wouldn’t know what to do with them… Not everyone can become a butcher; not everyone can use a camera […]  you need a minimum of training; you have to learn. The slogan ‘freedom of expression’ is, to my mind, a fascist slogan. If necessary, I would prefer to say ‘expression of freedom.’ But freedom is not easily expressed.”
     Vidéogazette ended in 1976 when the central government did not renew its financial support. In response, the collective organised a conference in Paris and distributed an ironic obituary communicating “the death of the Vidéogazette at the age of 4, due to a well-known disease called the State”.
     After the end of Vidéogazette, the core members of the association worked for the municipality taking charge of education and cultural activities, realising exhibitions and debates around diverse topics such as housing, environment and employment issues. In 1981, the right-wing won the local election and funding for the activities of the former Vidéogazette group was cut. As a result, many of the members moved out of Grenoble.
     The Vidéogazette experience belongs to the context of post-68 experimentations with video and television that reacted to the State’s control over information. This was part of a broader initiative to decentralise cultural production and redistribute governmental power to regional administrations.
     Until 1974 television and radio broadcasting was under the monopoly of the ORTF (Office of Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française), a state-run association that constituted five radio and two television channels in France. In 1968, strikes at the ORTF offices surfaced outrage against the government’s control and censorship of political information. According to Yves Guéna, the Minister of Information at the time, “General de Gaulle could not tolerate a situation in which television was not at the service of his policies”.
     The ORTF broke up in 1974 when Giscard d’Estaing took the presidential seat. d’Estaing implemented a radical reorganisation of broadcasting networks in France, dividing the ORTF’s unitary structure into seven separate companies with their own agendas and programmation. This mandate provided a significant break from the previous presidential administrations and a symbolic gesture to show d’Estaing’s liberal stance on media. Despite pressures to introduce commercial alternatives to the media sector, d’Estaing maintained the State monolopy over television. Only a minority of the French public received programs outside of the three French state-run channels—Villeneuve residents were part of this select group. Commercial channels were later introduced to France in 1981 when d’Estaing’s presidential term ended. —
     Recently in 2010, the neighbourhood of Villeneuve drew in public attention when city riots broke out in response to the death of Karim Boudouda, a suspected armed robber caught in a police chase, and outrage against the representation of the city in news reports on the case. These events led President Sarkozy to pronounce the ‘Grenoble Speech’ in Villeneuve, in which he focused on issues around immigration and prejudice in the city.
     The Villeneuve apartments will soon set the stage for a 2012 fictional television series, called Ville9. The producers plan to incorporate excerpts from the Vidéogazette programs in the shows.
     The Villeneuve neighbourhood is also scheduled for major 2013-14 renovations. The plan includes the demolition of an entire tower of apartment units, formerly home to the Vidéogazette studios.
     Olivier Clerc. “Ghetto ou paradise? Les balbutiements de la Vidéogazette.” Le Dauphine Libere, 1 September 1975.
     Both positive and critical feedback from residents was often included on the Vidéogazette posters in a section entitled “Feedback.” They also broadcast television interviews in which residents offered their opinion on the shows. Jean-Luc Godard moved to Grenoble in the mid 1970’s, planning to remodel a video studio and experiment with alternative methods of production and distribution (primarily by passing out videotapes to networks of friends and associates). Here he worked with Jean-Pierre Beauviala, the inventor of the first lightweight 16mm camera and the hand-held video camera, “La Paluche”, and started to incorporate television into his practice. Grenoble set the stage for various works, including the film Numero Deux (1975) and the television series Six fois Deux (1976) and France-tour-détour-deux-enfants (1977-78).
     Yves Guéna, Le Temps des certitudes, Paris, Flammarion, 1982, p. 280. Speaking to local leaders of Grenoble, President Sarkozy claimed that crime was driven by permissiveness and uncontrolled immigration, and that French nationality should be stripped from any person of foreign origin who voluntarily tries to take the life of a policeman, gendarme, or other figure of public authority.