VICTOR READS

In a normal week, what and how do you read? I don’t have such a reading habit. I like to read but I don’t have the time. Public transport is good but I don’t use it so much in Rotterdam. I would like to read on the toilet but I’m not this kind of person. I read mostly articles, reviews, news, sometimes art related, not usually narrative or literary. I try to read as much as possible, but if I don’t find time maybe it’s because there are other things that are more important.

Is reading central to your practice? Not really. I take a lot of inspiration from things that I read but sometimes I feel I have enough texts to feed my practice for a long time. I receive inputs from a lot of other fields too. For example music, sports, material practice, workshop practice.

How do you find the seminars? They provide most of what I read at the moment. I have my own texts but little time to read them as I’m reading for the seminars. If someone is giving you an input that’s always nice and with the seminars these inputs are out of my existing knowledge and understanding. I have my own texts, and I know why they’ll be useful, but with the seminars it’s texts that I maybe wouldn’t otherwise read.

Did you read much as a child? No not really. I wouldn’t say that my parents made a big effort to make me someone that reads. I read a lot of comics.

Was that the beginning of an aesthetic/artistic interest? Yeah definitely. Before wanting to be an artist I wanted to draw for comics, but then I realised that they were only artisans and I wanted something more than that.

Has your reading changed over time? Definitely. There is the fact that during the summer I would read a lot because I worked as a lifeguard and I would spend a lot of time reading to relieve the boredom. I would read enough for the whole year. It was mostly art theory books. But I don’t really miss it that much. It is something that is completely out of… I also like to read poems, sometimes take a day for myself. But not that often. I used to like to say that reading is overrated, I think some people really see it as a religion. It’s also scandalising to say that.

Do you think there is too much reading here? Maybe. It’s not that it is too much importance placed on it, there’s just too much to read. All the time you need to engage with a text. All these people are reading a lot and it’s easy for them, but it’s too much for people with more material practices sometimes.