Jago, why did you choose such a contemporary visual identity, a modern logo built from lines and an equally modern form of communication, while your sculptures are made of bodies, curves and matter, and engage with a deeply classical tradition?

It is an interesting question, because no one has ever asked me that before. The way I express myself aesthetically is a language, made up of a vocabulary of images, impressions and emotions that belong to a particular tradition. That does not mean, however, that it is a dead language. Through it, I am still able to capture the attention and understanding of the person in front of me. It is a language that I speak in the present and, for that reason, I can share it through the means of communication available to us today. Every period in history has had tools capable of conveying ideas to a wider audience. I think, for example, of Pasquino and the pasquinate: texts and images displayed in public spaces to tell stories, spread ideas or mock those in power. Today, we have tools that allow us to reach a vast number of people immediately, but also to reach no one at all, precisely because communication has become so saturated. What I look for is a balanced relationship between the medium, the way I communicate and the content itself. The content remains fundamental. I try to use the medium consciously, knowing that it changes far more quickly than my language ever could.

You have said that identity is not only something we receive, but also something we choose. Jacopo is the name you were given; Jago is the name you chose. What happens in the passage from Jacopo to Jago? What lies behind it?

There is no substantial difference between Jacopo and Jago. It is rather an exercise, also an aesthetic one, in asserting one’s identity. A name also carries an aesthetic value. Choosing a name means, in some way, asserting a new identity for yourself; one that feels necessary and consciously chosen. The reasons may be many: personal, familial, or connected to the need for self-assertion. In my case, I felt that I did not fully correspond to everything that, however wonderful, is inherited. Even a name is something entrusted to us, and it carries with it the hopes, expectations and even the traumas of the person who gives it to us. The beauty of being alive, however, also lies in the possibility of choosing. In many initiatory traditions, there comes a point in the journey when a person chooses their own name. To me, this feels entirely natural. I am Jago. That is the sound that feels true to me.

Your hands are the means through which you transform what is in your mind into matter. Your work requires time, physical effort, noise and a certain degree of irreversibility. When you stand before a block that will demand years, while everything outside moves at an increasingly rapid pace what keeps you there?

The question almost contains the assumption that we should keep pace with the frenzy surrounding us. But I do not need to keep pace with everything else. I move at my own pace. The rest can follow its own course. The answer lies in the nature of the process itself. Its quality belongs to that temporal dimension. It needs that amount of time to grow, and it is not the process that should adapt to everything else; everything else must adapt to the process. If it takes me three years to complete a work, those three years are not an obstacle. They are my therapy, my way of being in the world, my journey. I do not need to hurry out of fear that I might miss an opportunity. That three-year journey is necessary and fundamental. Every stage within those three years is already part of the work. The fact that I show people the different stages of its creation comes precisely from this. For me, the work already exists when it is still embryonic, when it is nothing more than a drawing or the first strike of the hammer. It is as though every stage were already complete in itself. I think, for example, of the animated works, the hearts or the water: every individual slab is a work, just as the video that brings them all together is a work. Every frame of our existence is a work of art.

You said that, after looking at Aiace and Cassandra for a year, you felt the need to distance yourself from it in order to understand what you had truly created. Does there come a point when the artist is no longer the person best placed to see their own work? Can the gaze of others reveal something you did not know you had placed within it?

Absolutely. I need the gaze of others in order to understand the work and to gain from a perspective that I do not have. For this reason, I try to avoid narrating, explaining or defining the work, because doing so would mean bringing an end to the multiplicity of meanings it contains. I may attribute one meaning to it, but I want to leave the work open to the possibility of truth, and truth lies in the plurality of interpretations. I possess only some of those meanings. The eyes of those who stand before the work participate instead in a collective truth: a truth connected to images, to the things of the world and to the meaning of the work itself. My point of view is not the only one. I am the vehicle of a transformation. The moment I choose one form from all those potentially contained within a block of marble, I am already giving it a definition and putting an end to a multitude of possibilities. If I were then to add an explanation, I would further flatten its layers and complexity. Instead, I must remain silent, step away and listen, because the meanings I need also belong to the eyes of others. I believe this is my role today: to trust my intuitions and the images I see, and then entrust them to the gaze of others. It means accepting everything: criticism, love, rejection. All of it belongs to the experience of the work.

The Jago Museum Capri was born from an intuition that took shape very quickly. What was the urgency that made you feel the idea could not wait and had to be realised immediately?

In Capri, I met people with the same qualities and the same way of working as the “geniuses” I had encountered in Naples’ Rione Sanità, where the Jago Museum was first established: people capable of placing their trust in madness. By madness, I mean those intuitions that elsewhere might take a lifetime to materialise, but here are able to become immediately transformative. I found myself straight away in a dimension of mutual trust. When you meet people willing to embrace your madness, and therefore your love, everything accelerates. That human element is what made the difference. Because, ultimately, places are already there, waiting for you.

You have built an independent system to protect your creative freedom and avoid having to ask permission to realise what you imagine. Yet building your own freedom also means taking on greater control, risk and responsibility. How demanding is it to remain free?

It is more demanding to remain a prisoner. That requires far greater effort. I would rather invest four years of my life in building a model, a museum, for example, that may then guarantee my freedom for the rest of my life. Someone might think of those four years as wasted, but it is simply a way of being in the world, and it also depends on your tolerance for risk. Mine is very high. I have no particular ambition to possess things. I am happy because I create. Wherever I am, if I have the possibility to create and add something to the world, I can generate my own sense of fulfilment. That is already a great form of freedom. At the beginning, however, I wanted to enter the traditional system, because I did not yet know or imagine any alternatives. When I was young and presented galleries with the same ideas I pursue today, no one trusted them. I was told that those works would not sell and that the language was outdated. There was a different way of thinking at the time, but that does not mean they were wrong. A gallery has its own history, its own poetics and very specific needs. If your work does not correspond to that system, you cannot blame the people who represent it. You can choose to adapt your language because you want to become part of that system, or you will suffer. But the truth is that you have to confront yourself and find another path. I understood that, at that moment, I was not suited to that system. I became calmer and told myself that another path had to exist, not one that would make me famous or rich, but one that would make me happy. It is the path of finding one’s own measure. So I began doing things in my own way. Social networks were emerging, and within that new space, I found my gallery.

You have spoken about boredom as a space necessary for creativity: an emptiness that forces us to search for a resource within ourselves. What happens to human beings when they deprive themselves of that emptiness?

We can already see what happens: depression, passivity, an inability to create, performance anxiety, even the difficulty of raising one’s hand when a question is asked. The human potential to inhabit the world begins to disappear, while dependence increases. We end up believing anything and constantly needing something on which to depend. Creativity is triggered by boredom. If, instead, we spend our time scrolling through content from morning until night, we lose that possibility. I no longer use social media unless I am looking for something specific that interests me. I produce content and share it, but I am not interested in it reaching people accidentally within the endless flow of scrolling. If someone wants to see what I do, they can come and find me. I no longer feel the need to be constantly surfaced by the algorithm or to participate in that mechanism. We live in a world of cheap content to which we have become addicted, but none of it fills the emptiness within us. When we stop consuming it, we often feel even worse. Instead, we should learn to engage with that emptiness, because it is a space of possibility. I recognise that I have enormous gaps in my own knowledge. I encounter them constantly, every time I meet someone and become aware of what I do not know. But that is something wonderful, because it means that the possibility of learning still exists. Learning is what makes life worth living.

You create works intended to endure, and you have chosen a material associated with permanence. Alongside the works, the name Jago is also destined to remain. How would you like Jago to be remembered?

I do not have a precise thought about that. I desire what I already have, and that is one of the reasons I am happy. I create works, bring them into the world and share them. From that moment onwards, something else begins to happen. I do not worry about how I will be remembered. Memory is the mechanism that allows us to inhabit the world. This morning, for example, I remembered our meeting. That handshake and that exchange were probably rich enough to leave a trace. My grandfather had Alzheimer’s, so I know what it means to lose one’s memory: to search for meaning while things and images begin to blur together. It is a tragedy when memory disappears. But precisely for that reason, I do not want to worry about how I will be remembered. It is not mine to control, and therefore not mine to worry about. All I can do is concern myself with doing good things and being happy within my own measure.

What kind of relationship do you have with your works?

It is similar to what a parent feels when they must learn to allow their child to live freely and have their own experiences, without trying to live their life for them. The more fully a child lives their own life, the more a parent can learn something about themselves through that experience. The same happens with a work. You bring it into the world, and then you let it go. In the moment it offers itself to others, it begins to give something back to you.

Is there a work you created that did not turn out as you had expected?

Yes, it happens. I am used to returning to works when I feel that they do not yet feel true to who I am. The bust of the Pope, for example, did not satisfy me. When Benedict XVI resigned, I thought: “Thank you. You have given me the opportunity to transform it into something that truly corresponds to me.” That is how Habemus Hominem was born. For me, the real question is: when can a work be considered finished? A work is finished when it truly feels aligned with who you are. Until that happens, I can continue to correct and transform it, so that it becomes aligned with my idea and my expectations.