Kanishka Raja: „One of my ancestors was once asked 26 questions about life and work by a Romanian guy.”

By The Chronicle / 5 June 2012 / Opinion

Switzerland for Movie Stars 2012.

Chestionarul The Chronicle vs. Kanishka Raja

George Şerban: What book(s) are you reading now?
Kanishka Raja: The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film by Michael Ondaatje.

G.Ş.: What do you fear most?
Kanishka Raja: Ignorance.

G.Ş.: Electric or acoustic ?
Kanishka Raja: I refuse to choose.

G.Ş.: What is truth?
Kanishka Raja: Refusing to choose.

G.Ş.: Where are you now?
Kanishka Raja: In my studio in Brooklyn, at the end of the day.

G.Ş.: Do you believe in life after death?
Kanishka Raja: No.

G.Ş.: What is the strangest thing that ever happened to you?
Kanishka Raja: Hmmm… I’m not sure. Love maybe?

G.Ş.: The most sentimental song you’ve listened to ?
Kanishka Raja: There are probably many, but the one that comes to mind immediately is „The Traitor” by Leonard Cohen. I like the sentiment that the men of action fall back against the dreamers.

G.Ş.: Do you like sushi?
Kanishka Raja: What? I don’t trust anybody who doesn’t like sushi.

G.Ş.: What’s to be done if the end of the world won’t come this year either ?
Kanishka Raja: Stop paying attention (to idiots).

G.Ş.: With what impressions you would leave the Earth today?
Kanishka Raja: It’s a bit crowded, innit?

G.Ş.: What are you thinking when you hear about “human rights”?
Kanishka Raja: That at any minute of the day, someone, somewhere is being deprived of them.

G.Ş.: The thing you’re looking for but still haven’t found it?
Kanishka Raja: –

G.Ş.: What is a poem?
Kanishka Raja: News that stays news. Ezra Pound said that and I don’t think I can improve on it.

G.Ş.: Everything is relative?
Kanishka Raja: Yes. Especially relativity.

G.Ş.: What is rationality’s purpose?
Kanishka Raja: To complicate happiness.

G.Ş.: Are you happy?
Kanishka Raja: No.

G.Ş.: To what extent Kafka would have had problems with the law?
Kanishka Raja: I think he probably would have found a way around it. I bet he’d get arrested by the academy though.

G.Ş.: An artist you recommend and a reason to why we should pay him/her attention?
Kanishka Raja: It seems too unfair to pick one from the dozens of friends I can think of, so I’ll pick a dead guy: these days, I’m really loving the oddball Mystic-Tantric-Geometric-Sexy abstractions of the Kashmiri-Indian painter G.R. Santosh. There’s something almost incantatory in their individuality that I can’t stop thinking about.

G.Ş.: Is life enough?
Kanishka Raja: Yeah! It’s plenty.

G.Ş.: What can you tell us about Paris?
Kanishka Raja: I went there once. It’s a fucking museum. Except around the edges, where it’s brown and interesting.

G.Ş.: Who killed Kennedy, after all?
Kanishka Raja: An American, no doubt.

G.Ş.: What significant progress you notice from cave life to the present?
Kanishka Raja: One of my ancestors was once asked 26 questions about life and work by a Romanian guy. He had amazing, brilliant answers; answers that could have changed the course of history. Too bad his replies never reached the Romanian guy.

G.Ş.: What are you planning to do tomorrow?
Kanishka Raja: Work. Cook. Watch a movie maybe.

G.Ş.: The illusion you refuse to confront with the concrete reality?
Kanishka Raja: That anybody cares.

G.Ş.: A question for posterity?
Kanishka Raja: Really?

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Kanishka Raja este pictor.