Julio Linares (Murdok Wsk Crew) is a visual artist born in Caracas on March 24, 1994, currently residing in San José de los Altos, Miranda State.
Today he tells us part of his artistic journey, despite how young this artist is, he has achieved very important objectives within the culture in Venezuela. I invite you to meet this wonderful artist who opened the doors to his world of painting and creativity.
Astrid: How long ago did you start painting?
Julio: Well, I draw and paint from a very young age, I think that since I have knowledge drawing and painting has caught my attention, I started; well from a very young age I saw painting and drawing classes; I started painting in the street (graffiti) at the age of 12, I did little stories, letters, Wildstyle; It was like the style that caught my attention.
Astrid: What techniques do you use most?
Julio: Well I really get a lot of attention to painting as such however I have worked a lot with the assembly, that has caught my attention the issue of materials, matter, the object as a resource to express also, and has led me to the installation, I am really very open in the sense of techniques, Of the materials, I always like to experience something new but at the moment, muralism, graffiti as such the technique, the assembly, the installation is what I have played the most so far and good oil painting and acrylic.
Astrid: What is your goal or message when painting?
Julio: I think that in the development of a plastic language especially public leads you to problematize many things, because when you paint in the streets (the murals) there are people behind the walls, there is always an interlocutor and it is always time to defend what one is producing in urbanity, right? The public is something that is disputed even by the powers so that has led me to question myself about relational aesthetics, about how art can transform reality understanding that it is transforming an environment, it is generating a relationship with others and you are practically shaping your thinking but also those things that are in the collective imagination, You can make it visible then my research on public art and urban art has led me to problematize and say well art is an instrument of mediation for social transformation in the sense that you problematize things, I have been behind working lately (and it is what I will soon be exhibiting at the Museum of Fine Arts of Caracas within the framework of my defense of special degree work) ‘Art as liberating mediation’ recreating the imaginaries of the local and the spatial cyber then they are like two dialectical themes, two themes that are antagonistic in the sense that the local and the spatial cyber or how there is a world that increasingly becomes more virtual, less face-to-face and how from art I can claim the local as a resistance that before a mediatized and very ephemeral world, How can this context of pandemic and automation be, that is, I think that it is leading us to the automation of the gaze and also of the body in the sense that the face-to-face has already gone to the background, to virtuality and the inpresencial is taking on increasing importance, so in that sense I have created two collections, one that is called ‘Urban Times’ and another that is called ‘Local Trips’ that good ‘Urban Times’ as it denounces and evidences that virtual reality that we are living in the context of the pandemic and ‘Local Travel’ is to see the public again, face-to-face life and claim those beautiful things that are in the squares, that they are in those little things that’s why that metaphor of traveling locally or “seeing again” what we already stopped seeing, then well that’s my message and that’s my search for the moments and I’m carrying it out from murals, assembly and installations and paintings, Also exhibition works, I’m in that search right now.
Astrid: Have you painted nationally? What places?
Julio: Yes, I have really painted in several places nationwide, in Caracas and Miranda, outside of here, in Mérida, in Lara, in quite a few parts especially the central region of the country, in Vargas but especially in the capital Caracas and in Miranda.
Astrid: Have you represented Venezuela outside the country? What has been your experience?
July: Yes, I have represented Venezuela outside the country in Argentina, I was about 7 years ago, I painted in Córdoba, in Buenos Aires, in Paraná, Río cuarto, in Rosario, all that was in Argentina, I was also in Colombia, I painted in Bogotá with an artist who paints as ‘Zurik’ is very good graffiti, and representing Venezuela I have been in a sample of ‘Venezuela Art Favor’ that was shown in New York, I was not there but my work arrived at the gallery ‘One Space’, a work I did at a gate here in Parque Central (Caracas). But also through a project that I am carrying out called ‘Gallery of Latin American Street’ a movement of international artists, we have done didactics of international exchange, we have received delegations from Sweden, the Basque Country and Spain, we have received those colleagues to show them the public art that we have been building especially here in Miranda and we always maintain communication and international exchange with those colleagues of the world.
Astrid: How was your experience at the Southern Biennial?
July: Well the experience at the Biennale has been amazing! The experience was based mainly on the production of a sound installation that took place at the entrance of the Caracas cable car where it symbolizes a gratitude to the workers of the world in context of the pandemic, is part of the series ‘Urban Times’, two worlds and two social classes recreated in Caracas and in the middle the workers who enable and mean the machinery of the world and are those who give light and life to the world in the context of infinite adversities, was a work that aims to be a symbol of resistance to the automation of the world in the context of crisis and is interesting because it is also accompanied by a hymn in Latin that my brother Miguel Salvatierra made and that image relationship is interesting, sound and movement because it also has facilities that move, all that within a work, was our proposal and well it was very interesting because at the inauguration of the Biennial I had to present it and expose it with the President of the Republic and other authorities at that inauguration, then it has had a fairly large scope, more than 50 artists from all over the world are participating in the Biennial, and well it had an excellent reception, I enjoyed doing it especially because we integrate the workers of the world in context of the pandemic, health characters, from the cable car itself, we represent one of the oldest workers of the cable car, it is a relational work that is not only limited to a formal work, aesthetic, pictorial if not also relational in the sense in which it involved people in the collection of objects, involved people in the execution, production and well as that organization to carry out that work was also part of the work itself.
Astrid: What other trades do you have outside of painting?
July: Well I am president of the organization that I told you ‘Gallery of Latin American Street’, soon we will open the doors of a gallery that is our headquarters in Los Altos Mirandinos, that is one of the trades I have, I also give private lessons in Art, painting and well I like all the cultural movement, promote it, I also have a cultural services company called WSK Studios, we record music, we have a recording studio, we make clothes, clothing and we offer cultural services of all kinds because, artistic, mural, advertising, Community Manager, audiovisuals, those are other trades apart from my artistic career.
Astrid: Do you think your work can have a big impact on the cultural movement in your country?
Julio: Yes, I think so. We have been working hard based on that, I think it is important to promote a really productive and positive aesthetic at least according to the collective imagination, well I think we all see the cultural decadence to which we are subjected, the most globalized average, which more than anything promotes anti values and good the issue of marketing as such and the difference between culture and entertainment, We bet on a culture that really proposes, that transcends all that sexist, violent issue or that the mass media promote and really bring sensitivity to the city, to our conscience and with productive messages that really contribute to the country and that also represent from our venezolanidad something different, we have been working on that from public art, From the exhibitions and music that we make our artistic team, then of course! That is the objective, to carry out something different, something new, something fresh and also continue to contribute to the tourism of the country, I think that art is production and it is tourism in the sense that many people from anywhere in the world can observe it coming to Venezuela and through social networks. It is our goal to contribute what we can from culture.
Astrid: Do you belong to any crew?
July: Yes, I belong to ‘WSK’ Crew which means ‘Wild Style Klan’. We’re already going for 10 years if I’m not mistaken, 10 years as a crew; at first we were Nahum Pierre (LEGO) graffiti artist who sadly passed away; Ronald Reverón (NOVIT) graphic designer and now resides in Spain and well for a few years here we integrate Edgar Alaya (IVIONE) is graffitero, muralist, rapper; Daniel Mijares who is Community Manager; and Miguel Salvatierra who is my brother, musician, music producer, opera singer. Well we are a very diverse Crew, with diversity of techniques and styles, we are working every day based on that cultural team and also the company that makes up the same Crew that is destined to produce collections of murals, clothing, music, audiovisuals, of our own contents, soon we will show something of what we are working on.
Astrid: And finally. Any message for young people who want to start in the world of painting?
July: Well not only in the world of painting or plastic arts but in art in general is that it really is a unique profession, art has the power to sensitize you and transform the way we perceive the world, and the one who sees from the glass of art, is no longer the same, You see everything from a sensitive critical point where you problematize many things, the one who is really committed to art and culture is destined to problematize and become an intellectual or also to have visual culture, to investigate, to propose languages, aesthetics that transform the look of the public then well I believe that whoever is willing above all to have a real commitment to what he wants to do, Not only to see it from the point of view that “well I am an artist and the egomaniacal representative theme with which we have always been sold in the subject of art” but as a commitment that we are servants of culture and beauty, we are to offer beauty from any point of view that you want to see it or want to propose, That is our goal and well we have to do it with all the effort we can, well my message is that do not hesitate if you are attracted to art and culture, do not hesitate to insist beyond what anyone thinks, to insist, to achieve your objectives to inform yourself and propose something different, something new, that is what will remain for the future.
Astrid: For me it was a pleasure to be an intermediary with you to talk with Julio, I hope you enjoy it.
If you want to know more about this artist, I invite you to visit him on his social networks.
Instagram:
@murdokwsk
@wskcolecciones