Mia Florentine Weiss is a mythical beast; a human collage made out distinct body parts. Not a Harpy (half bird, half woman), for harpies are unscrupulous, not a Sphinx (half lion, half woman) – although Weiss certainly travels with some riddles up her sleeve – and not a Mermaid (half fish, half woman), for mermaids only remain in the sea where they belong. No, Mia Florentine Weiss is a Pegasus—the winged horse that can gallop on hard grounds and glide through soft skies. Metaphorically speaking, she is as agile on the ground (handling busy conversations with visitors at her latest exhibition, Symposium 3.7 at Epicentro Artspace) as she is in the air (on that higher state of mind where creative thoughts are constructed before they get brought down and molded into objects of art). I catch up with Mia Florentine Weiss for the second time since she last shared with us her absofuckinglutely crazy story of her decade-long travels, asking the question: “What is your place of protection?” Today, the answer to this question doesn’t seem as relevant as posing the question itself. I posed new questions for Weiss on the eve of Symposium 3.7 to discover an artist in constant state of evolution.

The Sky Is No Limit

Artarasites: If you had a real pair of wings, where would you fly to that you can't get to in your current state?

Mia Florentine Weiss: Wow – after having built wings, worn them and now rebuilding new ones, I never ever considered any destination, probably because there is not a specific place I would fly to. I rather see the wings as a metaphor for our never ending search for what is beyond. The wings are symbolic answers to questions that nobody has ever asked and the innocence of the feathers lies in their non-intentionality, wanting to explain more than bare consecutive energy. A standing still entropy! 

APs: Just like the chicken and the egg: what came first, the art or the artist?

MFW: God is the greatest artist! Therefore nature is pure art turning us human beings into constant art warriors fighting the battle of life between hungry creativity and sated satisfaction. I belong to the first: I was born an artist, my brain is the petrol for creativity, my body is my canvas, my blood is the essence of my written words and when my heart decides to stop I will still be thinking of how to record that last breath of mine in order to turn its vibration into a piece of art.

APs: What do you think: do we come into the world like a shooting star or out of the world like a flower?

MFW: ​ That must be different for each of us.Very individual. My Dad surely grew out of the world from a red, volcano-hot, epicenter onto the surface whereas my mum must have flown through space just like a feather; right into the ocean somewhere peaceful and remote. Myself, I did the same: I am a super-nomadic space soldier who must have traveled through the sky and accidentally landed in my parents pick-nick basket filled with strawberries & champagne in Italy—Or so they tell me that part of the story, at least.

APs: What could a dachshund possibly have in common with the Pegasus? 

MFW: ​ How long is your space for that interview? The are both different; their otherness is their stigma which people cannot deal with. Just like in real life! If you take the poem by Schiller, Pegasus in harness, it becomes evident that a horse with a pair of wings seemed unsuitable for human society. People felt bewildered by his appearance, the uselessness of the wings and the impossibility to use the Pegasus as a farm horse. So they treated him badly until he was slowly dying away until a young man saved him and escaped with him back into heaven! This shows the periphery between the hybrid contrast of heaven and earth, artistic nature and useful benefit, the non-normal and the normal as well as love and un-love.

So at the end, the Pegasus is the same freaky creature like the dachshund with his little legs who is underestimated and pitied as well as minimized! My performance The Dachshund is the True Rabbit puts the so-called sausage dog into the heart of art (long overdue!) For me it’s neither the rising of Beuy´s rabbit nor Goethe´s Pudel: the one and only “uterus animal” is the dachshund – that’s why I rebuilt him as a white, heavenly sculpture-creature with a pair of wings on his funny shaped back! My dachshund sits in an incubator box not to be touched – because touching can harm the art! I have always had a weakness for marginal figures, hybrid art aliens on earth, just like myself.

APs: If it is a natural process to come out of the uterus, doesn't it seem unnatural to want to return to it?

MFW: ​Not at all – where else would you find unconditional love? 

Mia Florentine Weiss [Price range of works: 1,000 – 32,000 Euros]

Article by Jovanny Varela-Ferreyra

Read our exclusive Artletter

Painting by Catrin Walz Stein

Subscribe to receive the most awe-inspiring stories from ArtParasites, only available by ArtLetter.

Be the first to write a comment.