‘The gates stay closed’: Artists Joseph Matick and Vato Mierda navigate money, access in Paris

Artist Vato Mierda, whose legal name is Sergio Vergaras, said taxation and tariffs have reduced his ability to ship work from Paris.

“Taxation and tariffs screwed me,” Vergaras told Urgent Matter in responses to a questionnaire. “Since I live and work in Paris, I can’t really ship items anymore through the post. So, I lost half of my collectors, clients.”

Joseph Matick, a poet, is finishing his eighth book while writing from hotels, cafes, sidewalks and gutters. The pair are close collaborators who answered the questionnaire separately but from the same Paris orbit.

Matick described poetry as a job shaped by discipline and contracts, while Vergaras wrote of the financial constraints of being an artist and the need for side jobs.

“I’m making sure I destroy any taboo around artists and their ideas not being a utilitarian and necessary trade job. A working class poet is something to be. I have no broader practice. I write. I am a poet. I care about the work,” Matick said.

“And I happen to wear a suit just to upset people. I love dressing well. This is important to the French and generous to the eyes of everyone else.”

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