 This video is about Iron Crafts. Sometimes in your lifetime you're going to be lucky, you're going to meet extraordinary people. And I was lucky when I met Gonzalo Budi. He's an Argentinian visual artist with an incredible craftsmanship. In this video you're going to see an interview I made him in his Buenos Aires studio. Hi, my name is Gonzalo Lenedi. I'm a designer, architect and PhD candidate. And this channel is all about design and other sweet tricks. So subscribe and hit the bell to receive notifications. Gonzalo Budi is a multi-faceted artist. He doesn't like to be tagged into one specific area. He rather smooth like a chameleon, changing his skill in order to accommodate to the project he's working on. Arbudi is a true representative of the old traditional arts and craft movement, but today in the 21st century. But before meeting Arbudi, let's talk a little bit about Buenos Aires. If you think about Buenos Aires, probably the first thing that is coming to your head is Maradona, or maybe Madonna, interpreting Evita, or Tango, or maybe a Milonga, or maybe an Asado, a delicious Asado. And sometimes you're going to think about those huge bookstores that are open till very late. And of course it's wonderful parks. But for me, Buenos Aires is much more than that. For me, Buenos Aires is rock and roll. I had a grandfather who taught me how to work with the tools, this grandfather that I always count on. And until that moment I knew I had to work with my hands. It's something important for someone, unlike your friends, when you're a kid, that you know how to do things, nail it, fix things. And that wasn't something that I had as something to win. Until the adolescence or the time to enter the university and choose a career. I made visual communication design in La Plata, which was a design career that I wanted to do. I had everything that I could have now in visual art careers. And I was good because I also had a good industrial design, graphic design, very good. And well, I did it until the third year there, and in parallel I did it, I did it, I did it and I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it. That was the third year there and in parallel I did the plastic career in the same university. I got bored of the two because I was already doing other things that surpassed a little more my expectations about the career, about the university. So I left, I went to study cinema, I went to work, I worked in the shopping bag while I was studying. Yes, because my old friends lived in the south, they lived in the south and I wanted to work and I wanted to do something else. And there I went, it was the first time I started to leave the university and have my own workshop. My workshop at that time was always my room, the desk, that I had to see with other things. I started to work the most in three dimensions and that's where the idea of the workshop appeared, what a workshop is. Until that moment I did not consider it as my study. And well, then when I came to, I obviously put myself in, that I came to the capital, here, where I rented the first house with Lucia, with my wife, there it was, I had to have a workshop. And there I started to work, I bought electric machines, all that, and I really started to give shape to this workshop and research into the pieces that were, let's say, that I faced already with more, with more intensity, more seriousness, and more research. Well, then I started to give classes, I gave classes for kids, I started giving classes more for adults, I set up places, I set up a toy shop that was mine, a toy brand from Madeira, then I set up an office house that was Palermo's, the office house of Palermo's, and, in parallel, I was growing up with Vistager. Until then I went through more, more frustrating experiences of commercials, I was finding more the format of teaching, let's say, if that allowed me to have a workshop space. Well, the workshop space also allowed me to have more time for my research, let's say, the absence allowed me, somehow, not to depend on being making something to sell, but to be researching something that would be part of my work. I think in the last ten years I developed a more research method that has to do with what I had already studied, visual arts, but more than anything, from a morphological research. And, in my case, with Madeira, because Madeira was the office that I had chosen to develop an investigation. Well, there they appeared, forms that, let's say, I was compromising more with the morphology of the workshop through my work, and this appeared, this is what you see here. Are you a designer or an artist? I am a visual artist, and that, as I always say, that is also what I talk about today, there is no, let's say, especially now, perhaps at the beginning of the past century, but now, all of them are designers, all of them are visual artists who study these careers, somehow. I am a visual artist, a sculptor, basically, from each of the three-dimensional pieces, but what I always say is that visual arts are everywhere. Now there is a competition of an architecture study that invites you to make a facade for four buildings that are going to be very important awards, it's great, and the competition goes on and says, for architects and visual artists. I say, no, for everything. There are no architects and visual artists. Architects are visual artists. No, there is no upper rank between the two. Well, and also the interesting thing is that, let's say, a graphic piece, which could be graphic design, is also part of a plastic search. In fact, now in the brand that I am doing with these friends, we were working on the design of the, to upload it to social media, and so on, that I did not think about finding a typography or finding a box, the logo or the type, and I also love it, I like it. But it's part of the same. What is design? Design is something that I do not feel very committed to, precisely. Design, if you were to say that, in the open world, that interruption during these ten years they invited me to talk, they invited me to tell my work, always. I do not give classes at the university, but if they invite me, I go to all the categories that have to do with industrial design, graphic design, architecture. And I, in general, speak against design, because, let's say, since I have an investigation that has to do with morphology, the morphology freed me from design in some way. Design is, let's say, an invention of consumer society, basically, because it kept going, let's say. But what design does, design careers, they limit us to become designers. An example that I always use if you have received an industrial design career, a job account and say, well, now we design a lamp, that action, that request is already limited, because the first thing it is going to do is always think as a designer, it is going to think of a lamp from design. And in that case, what it is going to do is going to think of all the lamps it liked him during, let's say, forever. It is going to try to convince its bosses that they will ask for the lamp and it is going to try to understand the taste of its bosses. But it already works with a limited idea, it is a lamp. And it changed, if the design careers were more about design, if they were more about morphology, about housework, the investigation of the shape, it has much more value than suddenly working on the investigation of something. It is always like a geometric investigation. Suddenly you find a piece, or you find yourself with a lot of pieces that can be divided into a lamp, into a chair, into a wheelchair. And that is going to be only a lamp. So it means morphology opens paths, opens, and suddenly you find yourself with that investigation and it could be what it wants for a daily use object. Instead, the design closes, the design is very within the orbit of what is consumer society. Yes, it is not design. What is not design? Not all the rest. Well, it is true that what the design did and what the consumer society did with us is to make the arts and offices, the origin of the design careers, to have relegated, they relegated precisely the way of working, not with the offices, the carpenteries, the railway, the ceramics, the banisteries, the sesteries. It was an exercise where one finished doing repeated actions of the same to reach an object, but with that you acquire fine motility with the hands, that makes fine motility also have to do with our own head and that makes us somehow have aesthetic decisions about what one is working on. The design a little came to occupy that place in some way in consumer society. Like it ordered, according to the design, for consumer society that and everything became design. So nowadays, what is not design is difficult. Because also one day a plant has been studied, the growth of the plants to see how it compares with the design. Today you see a car that is taken out of a form of nature or something, it always has to do with that. So nature can be said to be designed in a natural way. What do you think is the border to the limit of what one is designing? The limit between what is and what is not. The border, well, I talked a little in Malva we talked a little about that because I did a sample of my objects in the Malva store, a museum store that supposedly is like a trap that we made because showing sculpture that they are objects made by, it is supposed to be I am in the Malva store since it was made with my designs my toys and more. But this time the first is that no designer is supposed to be known inside the store to show objects. The border that is made that in front of the look of the others is not an object of daily use what I am presenting but it is also an object if one wants to buy an object of decoration on the side of his library or his polterine of the Inns I hang a Egon Salarusti mobile and I buy it in a store so the limit is to put it on the market maybe there are also people who buy a piece of Enzo Mari of a vase or a chair made of plastic that was precious or a puzzle that is a game and has it as a ornament does not use it as such so the limit is to put it on people and on the market What do you think are the elements or components of the design? About in what sense? What do you think what does the design do? be a design when you work with certain things with certain elements certain characteristics what does the design do for those parts that have to be present so that one can as you said a little while ago it has to do with the market the design is more connected in that case something more well finished although it could and something serious because it has to do with the serious beyond that it can be pieces of one to a hundred numbered or serious and beyond that they are not made completely by machine or made by hand has a special finish that could be and it also depends on the object but that could be some of the elements that have the design has as certain elements that one recognizes this let's say people who are also committed to that or not who know that it is a piece especially worked from that look Do you think the design is static or dynamic? It is dynamic It is dynamic depending also precisely of this of the new looks or together here it is put also now if it is all design there if it is static not like one enters to a store where exaggeratedly there is a piece of each this of each designer known I imagine this house, I don't know the name but suddenly it becomes static only the piece there there are brands of friends, Argentinians who go very well happy for example and I always insist on Pat it is a brand that sells a lot in Buenos Aires very very well but you have to do something you have to invite an artist you have to invite someone to put a piece that is not only related with the design that accompanies, that takes the look in that place when it becomes something static something that gets tired that is not very cold it seems this already cataloged where where do you want to design to make visual arts I hope yes yes, something more integrated more integrated those are all questions well there is more? do you want to do it like this? volume or what? no, it is difficult because it depends also on the regions because in Buenos Aires I am in the middle I am like an outsider I am I am not a plastic artist or a designer I try to run from all those places because I do what I want in that sense so if I am very linked to something even as carpenter carpenter is not a carpenter sign if I want to get my deer meat or whatever what I want is that you also need to label the names designer visual artist, architect all in the same in fact today more than ever when I started around there a visual artist I think of a friend from Chile, Nico Nico Armu who makes furniture, wood, wood or Rodrigo but Rodrigo is more industrial but Nico is an architect but he dedicated himself to architecture exclusively but he makes furniture he is very nice suddenly he makes a file of a series of furniture that he is making and the graphic piece is beautiful it is also very nice there you think there is what is there? yes it should be it should be part of the new design career design that is why I would have to change the names because integral design, morphology now the genotica is a morphology professor from Fado is making an integral design career in detail which is a very good private university and it is called integral design as everything is integrated it seems that it makes more sense because now it leaves to you yourself, it leaves you to free yourself a little more and be all within that design to be a visual artist, to be a sculptor that suddenly one could project a house as a designer then that of the integral allows a student I imagine to free himself a little more the subject of time in your work of time in evolution in how it evolved you speak a little bit at the beginning for example, everything has to do with tradition for example, art of architecture of visual art a lot of things in the background recur and they are going to see past knowledge of this form I always talk about William Murray for example, of the Salton Craft that from a paper for a room a carpet, a furniture and an editorial for the paper the cover, the translation the typography for that the library the house it was all from the beginning and the time you refer to the time of creation also and it is going to give I sometimes I would like to dedicate whole weeks to develop a leg of a table that I was doing but in my head I have three plastic works that I am doing suddenly you mess with each other and you end up doing everything at the same time and it also depends on the workshop you have I find it interesting that the universities of visual art and design should have all the workshops those workshops should be integrated somehow work that I final work that you should do to get a product or whatever an object that has had to be done at least for three workshops that have things of the workshop wood, ceramic and iron to say something like the Bauhaus yes, it happens that Bauhaus Bauhaus has these things with which we don't let's say it is interesting, it was interesting for the time let's say this integrated thing yes but then it didn't end it stayed in Bauhaus nothing else happened and to close your work your work what importance do you have that you are in Buenos Aires now in 2019 no, I don't know no I have the other day a friend bought me a work a small work of the objects that I am doing for practice and he told me I thank you, that you have sold it to me it is a composer he lives as a composer younger than me he is multi-instrumentist he lives 6 months in Europe and 6 months here it goes well, it goes well he just came from a trip that in Italy and in I think in Frankfurt they had bought him two pieces of music and he went to prepare what is called the rehearsals when you buy you have to go well he is a genius he is a master's work he even paid me more than I had sold and then he said let's go to Europe if you went to work in Europe you would break it you are genius but those things can never be known I live in a context where I was born here I formed a family here although I try not to belong to closed groups I have a gallery but not because I went to look for it the gallery looked for me I try not to belong to closed groups of artists or designers I do what I can it is true that during years Gonzalo Aruti is a recognized name in I do not know what for some in the plastic for others as a designer for toys or for students like Carpinter you can count as a carpentry master and morphology that is a recognition later in Argentina it is very difficult economically what we all know and to stand out with something that really gives you economically I think to everyone except that you have a desire to do this and look for that path but it is not my case I am the antiempress somehow what I did since I realized I was not going to have a formal job with everything I knew or your life that I could do my investment my capital is to have bought me time with time to do my things I was lucky to realize that what everyone wants at the end of their life is to have time so I said how do I buy time of young people well the best way was to give up everything and buy me time I said I had the chance to meet initially Gonzalo here at Santiago de Chile when we invited him to do some workshops at the university we knew he had an incredible craftsmanship but what we didn't know was that he was also an extremely passionate person yes he was able to transmit technique but the most important thing our students learned from him was passion for what he was doing passion for the things that he was doing passion for what other people would see when he was doing so and passion for teaching our students if you are a design or art school director you can't miss the opportunity to invite him in order to teach a workshop at your institution you won't regret it your students are going to learn what I just said passion for what they do in the description you'll leave how to contact Gonzalo Gonzalo thank you bye