Associação Cultural Videobrasil

The tragicomic melodrama appears to be the foundation and birthplace for all your creations. Is that right?

Absolutely. This distorted view of reality and feelings provides things with an amazing strength, it allows one to see details in a wider scale, out of orbit. It is the ultimate decontextualization within daily life, an inspired, visual gaze that everyone can have. If, on the one hand, it is artistic, the constant resignification of all things is also a feature of daily life. To me, humor is essential. The act of turning something silly into something extreme has a charm that hallucinates me. I enjoy melodramatic products, whether created conscious or unconsciously. I like the common places they generate, the intense emotions they conjure, the mechanisms they use. Soap opera dialogues, love letters and love songs, Xuxa singing an antidrug song to a girl in a wheelchair. How can something so simple give rise to an experience of the “sublime”? Why does it arouse such emotion? Love pains are a very powerful driving force.

Based on a single work, Dani Umpi Records, you changed not only your career path, but also your very artistic persona, abandoning the name Daniel Umpiérrez to be reborn as character Dani Umpi. Was that also the point of inflection for your sudden twist in the direction of fields such as music and literature?

My experience with institutional art in my country was conclusive. I do not want to make destructive criticism, so I could say that there were beautiful things and pathetic things. The most pathetic is that artistic practice, my activity as a contemporary artist, gave rise to lots of prejudice in me. The fact that everything has to have a statement, an explanation, a reason, has limited me to a great extent. I have always been a dispersive person, with a zapping sensibility. To have a symbolic production that encompasses so many languages (music, literature, art) raises suspiciousness. The medium awards continuity and insistence. Most artists’ careers are built upon the perspective of discursive redundancy. I used to feel that I should define myself through one single language, until I realized that I had no reason for doing so. What is so strange about writing, singing, creating work? To me, it was the most natural thing in the world. That was what I did. The artists who interested me were like that: Yoko Ono, David Byrne, Boom Boom Kid. The key was to find a place from where I could produce. Not a physical place, but rather a mental and social one. When I showed, I felt that I was showing things to people who were not interested in that. I felt that no one was interested in art. I began to operate within that evil logic. I used to attend exhibitions myself, and it all seemed silly, a digression. Fortunately, I exited that state. When I started singing, I noticed that there really were people interested in my stuff, both in the art world, and people who never entered a museum or gallery. I felt a lot of freedom because I created my own space, and did so without taking it away from anyone. I feel as if I am something apart. This allows me to be inside and outside. The paradoxical thing is that, instead of having a dispersive oeuvre, I increasingly gained coherence. Now I realize that I always speak of the same issues.

Under the alter ego Adriana Broadway, you wrote a rather mean review of your own oeuvre, claiming that Dani Umpi creates different theatric views of his own intimacy. Is fictionalized reality easier to digest, and does it attract more interest?

My character Adriana Broadway is very mean to me because she has an academic background. Since I am very prejudiced about these people, I gave her that trait. The reality is far worse than this thing of “creating theatric views of my own intimacy,” because oftentimes there is no intimacy, there is no experience in these issues, I have completely made them up. How can I discuss relationship issues if I haven’t had a boyfriend, or fallen in love in ages? It is not my intimacy recreated, but rather fictionalized, fantasized. It is an idealized view of being in love. For some reason, this appeals to me. You have a charming musical genre, which is sertanejo music. Those rough men, from the countryside, suffering for love and singing in a quasi-falsetto, making such delicate metaphors, telling such dramatic stories. It is much better than the tango. That interests me a lot. I do not know whether it is easier to digest, because these things hurt sometimes, but the fact is, there is something that forces us to listen to those songs. The emotional dimension always attracts interest, and it is always savored. I am convinced that people want stories. That is why self-help books bring so many examples, so many illustrative cases, and they work so well. Not to mention religions and their derivatives.

The mocking character in some of your work echoes and corroborates criticism with regard to contemporary cultural icons and prejudices. To take Xuxa to the Blanes Museum, to combine an essentially Uruguayan singer like Fernando Cabrera with Voyage Voyage, to come out as an out-of-tune singer, it all seems as an attack on concepts such as high and low culture, art and mass culture, good and poor taste. In Brazil, a prominent communicator, Chacrinha, popularized the saying: “I have come to confuse, and not to explain.” Is that also the case with you?

Yes, yes, yes! I love the comparison with Chacrinha. Confusion is of utmost importance because it allows the reintroduction of things. I believe in combining the extremes, in the coexistence of everything with everything (in fact, this is the most natural thing in the world). I am kind of old fashioned, kind of 1990s, kind of Benetton; I think mixing things up is a powerful, healthy thing. There is too much division. I do not criticize the icons; what I do is make a spoof of my own self. That is why I face my imperfections as if they were virtues. When I sing, I wear men’s or women’s clothes indistinctly or, for example, a dress made of rags and real, I mean, real expensive shoes, which I could not afford even with three months’ worth of work. In fact, between high and low culture, I always went for low. But it is a fact that I mix them up.

Your universe and the artistic persona that you have built provide coherence within the rules of paradox. You are a “modern” person who is well liked by old ladies, someone who acknowledges your own sexuality but is criticized by part of the gay community, an iconoclast who reveres images. What is the heart and the ambition behind your investigations and artistic proposals?
See, it is all about tags, places that people put you in. Some people say that I am “modern” or “glamorous.” I know that I am not, but why do people say that? It does not have anything to do precisely with me, but with other mechanisms. Ambiguity is moving, it teases. It also gives you freedom. Why does a homosexual have to act according to a stereotype? What does it mean to be “modern”? Why are iconoclasts revered? Why cannot images be revered? Which images should be revered? These are very relative concepts, and I am surprised that people are not aware of that. I think people need to relax more. To make an effort in order to fit some place is exhausting, and it does not work. Motion is best. Why is it that old ladies cannot go to my concerts? In some rock circles, I feel uncomfortable, I do not understand the codes. With the old ladies, I am perfectly at ease, I love to have tea, to discuss plants. Nevertheless, I sing, and often I do so at rock music festivals. I try to look at the various existing settings as valid locations for symbolic production. Not that it is the same to present a performance on TV and in a gallery. But it all coexists. Television, for instance, constantly generates high-impact symbolic production. Low culture does exist. Xuxa does not come from the art realm, and she only enters it if an artist resignifies her. Nevertheless, “planeta Xuxa,” with its symbology, does exist, and it strongly influences society on the artistic, aesthetic, and ideological levels. No art book makes mention of it, because the history of art runs parallel to the history of the world. If I give my mother the catalogue for some biennial, it is as if I were giving her a book on quantum physics. I am not saying that things should be different. What I mean is that there are other spaces to produce and show. The “pulp” of my core is in several places. Not just in the “art field.”

Were you surprised or amused by being the theme of a cycle of debates at the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires? Has Dani Umpi become a subject of study?

I was surprised and embarrassed. A part of me wanted to go there to listen to what was being said, but my ego is not that large. To me, it was too much responsibility to be cited in the title of a cycle about pop in such an important place for the medium in which I work. Whenever I am presented as an artist who represents my generation, I feel embarrassed. I do not want to represent anything. I never thought I could get to the point where I would be analyzed. Nevertheless, artists are presumed to seek that.

All of your work features a blatant aura of fictionalization. Is simulation the key to enter this world?

Absolutely. My academic background was in communication sciences, which I studied in the late 1990s. Baudrillard was a Paulo Coelho of sorts, a best-selling thinker to my generation. It is impossible for me to see things from another vantage point.

North, the CD-joke that became a hit and opened up a new avenue in your career, was oddly recorded on September 11, 2001. Did you leave the studio and became aware that the world had collapsed? Was that a moment of involuntary “fictionalization” in your life, when you were absent from what was perhaps the greatest “real fictionalization” of this century?

Ouch, I had never thought about that afternoon in those terms! What you are saying is quite interesting, and it is strange that I had never thought of it. First of all, the North CD was not a joke about Jaime Roos, as it was often said to be. One only has to listen to it to start laughing, not at Jaime Roos, but at me. At that time, I was part of the Movimiento Sexy collective (of which Martín Sastre and Paula Delgado were members, among other young Uruguayan artists), and on that afternoon we got together to produce a work. In between one recording and the other, we would watch TV and could not understand what was going on. I think we still do not really understand that scene.

“I like to be on good terms with everyone. In that sense, I am honestly fake,” you said once. Is living, inside and outside the artistic context, a “make-believe”?

No. I no longer live within that scheme of “everything can be a work,” I no longer “make believe.” Not that it is wrong, but I am not interested in that. What I am interested in is making. But not everything I do is a work. I learned a lot about that when I had to face a situation with an important ethic component to it. I decided to make a series of “travel notebooks” with some fans. I would write them and they would answer me, and so on, until the notebooks were filled up. I was thinking of showing that material, of using it as a work of art. But many fans would use the notebooks as journals, they would tell me personal stuff. I would also keep everything that was given to me at the shows, dolls, letters, because I took that as “a work,” something that would have a gallery as its destination. But in the letters people told me about their lives. I could not show that, it would be a lack of respect. So I decided to live those “actions” for what they are, without rereadings. As opposed to “making believe” that I was a singer, and that I was making artistic experiments based on that.

In 2004, the Tics exhibition, which you curated, was named “one of the innovative happenings of the year” by Uruguayan daily La República. What do you seek as a curator?

I am very curious. I like to be fascinated, to satisfy my capacity to be amazed. Perhaps that is why I am very little retro, revisionist, nostalgic. I enjoy the new, the emerging production. Tics was part of Adriana Broadway’s project; the exhibition was curated by her. The curatorial script was based on works done in a compulsive or neurotic manner. It included work by artists widely known in my country, work by artists who had never shown, by people who did not consider themselves as artists, and by children.

Many people who see you singing are not familiar with your work as a visual artist, and some sectors in conventional art do not consider your musical work to be art. How do you position yourself amidst this “amphibian” situation, between two worlds?

I really like that “amphibian” notion. I regard this situation as something very interesting. It does not make me uncomfortable, even though sometimes I get a bit tired of having to justify and explain what I do. People do not need to know why I write, nor do they need to view my music as “artistic.” I do not ask for that kind of “whole” valuation. What happens is generic, and it does not have much to do with me. Not all of the people who are interested in current art are also interested in music, not all of the people who are interested in narrative follow current art. Not to mention the producers, the curators. The more specific the interests are, the more closed off they are to other languages.

You once defined Dani Umpi as the kid who tries to showcase his abilities at the year-end party to get applause. This might be the initial concept for the character, but the success of Dani Umpi stems from other elements, does it not?

The mise en scène that I put up when I sing live or in my music videos is a festive one. I like party, it interests me. Nearly all of the songs are “dance songs.” On the other hand, I am concerned with making it a good product in the technical sense, well done, competent. The image is an original one in my medium, and I think it works. Perhaps the relative success derives from the “spirit” of tragicomedy. The songs have despairing lyrics, but they are up-tempo. I present myself as an “antidivo divo,” an imperfect, humane star. But it does not please everyone. Many people cannot stand me.

One of the reasons for the popularization of your work is the fact that you prepare it to, if not captivate, at least attract attention. Is resignifying the established culture while operating with the market codes another serious game by Dani Umpi?

The market is the only instance that receives me as a “multifaceted artist,” which does not find it odd that I write, sing, and create artwork, because it views it all as virtues that contribute for the whole. The market sees figures. To me, it is more of a scenery, which has allowed incredible things: when a song of mine entered the Top Ten at MTV Latino, I was competing with Madonna and Shakira. Is that a work of art? I do not know, but for an artist like me to be in such a situation seems significant to me.

What are your upcoming projects, desires, or obsessions?

I am very enthused about the invitation for the Videobrasil, the Meetings, the Dossier, and Brazil. In October I will show in Rio de Janeiro, in Niterói. Since I am going to be in those lands, I want to meet Elke Maravilha. Her manager contacted mine because it seems that they have heard a song I dedicate to her, Vira Elke Maravilha, and she liked it. I was ecstatic. In fact, what I am planning is to make, in Rio, a place where I can meet her, a blue sky filled with cut paper.