Our interview with Robert Montgomery, we discuss the power of poetry and art for change during his residency at the Eden Rock - St Barth.

In honor of the Eden Rock hotel turning 70, a slew of exciting events have been taking place this season, one of the most eagerly awaited has been the artist Robert Montgomery&rsquo;s works on view throughout the hotel, presented by Art Saint Barth. Having done a show at Eden Rock &ndash; St Barths ten years prior, this year&rsquo;s residency was a return to the island for the artist and a chance to re-install his &lsquo;All Palaces&rsquo; (2018) piece which was destroyed by Hurricane Irma. The artist&rsquo;s stay, which included the performance of the fire poem &lsquo;Love Is The Revolutionary Energy&rsquo;, is a moment for the hotel to celebrate creativity and inspiration, and a chance to showcase the powerful nature of art in the beautiful oasis that is St Barth. The artist has also created an exclusive limited edition flag with Utöpia Flags and Istanbul74. Other editions and works of the artists will also be available at Eden Rock &ndash; St Barths.

JENNY MANNERHEIM: How do you define your art?
ROBERT MONTGOMERY: Everything I do is an investigation of where art and poetry might meet, and how to make poetry physical, how to make it concrete. So I&rsquo;m trying to make paintings that are poems, light works that are poems, billboards that are poems. I&rsquo;m always trying to hit the magic point where something is an art object and a poem at the same time, where there is no separation between those two things. For me poetry is almost my religion. Poetry isn&rsquo;t just a language of reflection, it&rsquo;s a place we can go for solace, a place to heal. The languages that dominate our world are the languages of the news media and the language of advertising, and what they share is that they are entirely materialist languages. They treat us only as a demographic, as a voter, as a consumer, or as our exterior identity, just as a number really. As a relief from that type of language poetry treats us as whole beings. Poetry can speak to the child inside of us, and it can reconcile our fragile hearts with a brutal world.

JM: Your art brings a lot of comfort to people, especially in times of loss. Can words heal sadness?
RM: Well some of my pieces like, &lsquo;The People You Love Become Ghosts Inside of You and Like this You Keep Them Alive&rsquo;, are about grief. They are things I have written to help myself work through my own grief, so maybe they are helpful to other people. Can words heal sadness? I don&rsquo;t know. I actually think we are in a kind of collective trauma at the moment because of the assault digital media has made on our psyche. And that poetry is the place we can go to heal from that, and to rediscover the actual magic of the world. The real world actually has lots of magic and kindness in it. It is magical to still be alive on this hurtling blue-skied planet, but we are too often blind to that and we seem to have lost a spiritual connection to the world. Poetry, which can reconcile the material and the immaterial, can reconnect us to the earth and recover the magic hidden in the mundane.

JM: A word to define Eden Rock &ndash; St Barths? 
RM: Well maybe a few words: a graceful promontory in the warm gentle sea.

JM: Tell us about your &lsquo;Love Is The Revolutionary Energy&rsquo; poem.
RM: It&rsquo;s from &lsquo;Love Letters&rsquo;, a series of texts on love that I've been working with this year, writing about the dramatic, forceful, transformative power of love. Especially in times of global conflict like we are in today I think we all need to re-focus on love.

JM: Tell us about your permanent public outdoor art piece at Eden Rock. The work reads &ldquo;All palaces are temporary palaces.&rdquo;
RM: The art historian Fabio Barry recently said that &lsquo;All Palaces&rsquo; is a vanitas, like the genre of 16th Century Dutch and Spanish paintings, still lifes with rotting fruit juxtaposed with precious things that are designed to remind us of the transience of wealth. I think it&rsquo;s important to remember that our wealth and possessions are transient and that only our human relationships are real.

JM: Much of your art is made with recycled light, powered by solar panels, and a lot of your sculptures talk about the environment. What&rsquo;s your perspective on environmental issues?
RM: Well, I think we all know we are in a period of environmental crisis and we quickly need to change our behaviour if we want to save the earth. I was proud to work with the solar power charity Little Sun on our collaboration for the COP26 in Glasgow.

JM: You made a special edition flag for St Barth and Eden Rock, as part of the Utöpia project &lsquo;Flags For Future&rsquo; raising money for environmental causes in St Barth, together with Istanbul74. Is it important for you to partake in charities and give back?
RM: Yes it&rsquo;s great to be involved with Flags For Future, I think it&rsquo;s important for artists to do what we can. I also work with Greenpeace and Choose Love in the UK, which are two charities that I think are immensely important and I encourage everyone to support.

JM: You are photographed in the fashion pages of this magazine with your wife. What&rsquo;s your definition of style?
RM: I like to keep clothes for a long time and wear them again and again. I buy a lot of second hand classic tailoring and vintage silk scarves. I like old things and a sense of time. You should wear something for a decade, not just for a season.

Revolutionary Energy

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