09/07/2012

“The Small Utopia. Ars Multiplicata”

“The Small Utopia. Ars Multiplicata”

When recently an article published the list of most influential art collectors in the world, unsurprisingly only one name was Italian. Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli have created an empire both in fashion and art industry. So when last year Ca’ Corner della Regina, a historical palace on the Grand Canal in Venice, became a new temporary home for Fondazione Prada, the announcement came almost as a relief.

Fondazione Prada, under the artistic direction of the superstar curator Germano Celant, has successfully opened its second exhibition in the Venetian venue last thursday. Titled “The Small Utopia. Ars Multiplicata”, the show is one of the most beautiful ones Venice has offered in a long time. The title of the exhibition refers to the idea, born at the beginning of the 20th century and pursued until the 1970s, that art should pervade the society through ‘the multiplication of objects, experimenting with unprecedented aesthetic and social uses for them’.

Thus, the exhibition, spread throughout the 2 floors of the beautiful Venetian palazzo, presented over six hundred editions – objects familiar across cultures – that ideally should have enabled the artist in creating connections with the society through industry, technology and systems of popular distribution. The exhibition traces the transformation of the idea of uniqueness in art starting from the early 20th century Avant-Gardes – Italian Futurism, Russian Constructivism, Dutch Neoplasticism and German Bauhaus, through pop and optical art, ending with contemporary ‘dematerialization’ of art in the works by Sol LeWitt, Laurence Weiner, Ed Rucha, Dieter Roth.

This language of art, involving the common, banal and everyday, both as medium as well as way of expression, far from being a small utopia, has surely touched the way we perceive both art as well as our daily routine.

“The Small Utopia. Ars Multiplicata” runs until the 25th of November at Ca’ Corner della Regina, Venice.

Rujana Rebernjak – Images courtesy of Fondazone Prada. 

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18/06/2012

Art Basel – Design Miami/Basel

Art Basel – Design Miami/Basel

Speaking about collectible design is almost a contradiction in terms. The idea of design we might have inherited from modernist ideology, differs significantly from the one seen at Design Miami/Basel. Even though the space offered by design galleries, a reality from complexities of industrial production, is surely an incredible platform for inquiry and experimentation, Design Miami/Basel doesn’t exactly leave you with your mouth open.

The line-up of this year’s fair was a mix between European and American galleries, extremely different in nature and attitude. The exhibitiors ranged from Gallerie Kreo, the ‘institution’ that raised to glory many of today’s most important designers, commercial giants such as Fendi or Italian jewels, like Milanese Nilufar, showing both modernist Italian furniture as well as pieces of contemporary designers, among whom the incredible Martino Gamper.
In a long list of exhibitors there were a few that stood out. The British Gallery Libby Sellers has shown a chess set project, insipired by a 1944 exhibition titled “The Imagery of Chess”. While Gallerie Kreo has dedicated its stand to lighting projects, one of the true highlights of the show was Galerie Ulrich Fiedler showing two Frederick Kiesler pieces designed for Peggy Guggenheim.

Among a very shy selection of contemporary pieces, two projects have to be mentioned. The first, and most obvious one, was Formafantasma’s performance Craftica, showcasing a collection of objects made with leather. The second one was Matali Crasset’s “Cutting” project exhibited by the Parisian Granville Gallery. “Cutting” is a collection of glass vases which take their shape from pieces of a tree personally chosen by the designer.

If collectible design, as much as a contradiction in terms, must also be an inevitable reality, maybe our culture might gain a bit more if the idea of design promoted by events like Design Miami/Basel would shift from a burgeois attitude towards the idea of design as a democratic place of research and critique.

Rujana Rebernjak 

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26/03/2012

Painting Lounge

Painting Lounge

Let’s face it: being an artist can be a bitch, especially if you have to spend 40 hours a week stuck behind a desk or, even worse, flipping burgers just to make ends meet. Materials get expensive, inspiration runs dry and some of us just don’t have the time ―much less the chops― to make a real go at becoming the next Monet. Especially when we’d rather spend our free time at the bar, right? Thank god, then, for the Painting Lounge, a near-nightly paint and drink class that allows people like me and you the opportunity to play dress-up artist while milking a bottle of cheap red wine.

The Painting Lounge is not geared towards serious artists, but the stuff you paint is usually based on works done by artists were very serious. Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Bob Ross, and Salvador Dali are just a few subjects on the bucket list. It’s paint-by-numbers, only the numbers are a real instructor who encourages you to draw outside the lines. Meanwhile, the alcohol provides the courage necessary to push forward. This is particularly helpful when you realize you’ve somehow managed to turn a Van Gogh into a Pollack with one swoop of the brush.

The instructor, artist Kevin Tarasuk, reduces some of the world’s most popular paintings down to a basic science that even a blind baby could comprehend. Upon arrival you are seated in front of a blank canvas with tracing paper and a simple outline clipped over the top. You trace the outline, remove the paper and spend the next two hours painting whatever happens to be on the calendar that day. (Fun fact: “Starry Night” seems to be the most popular painting, which is somewhat surprising.) When I was there the painting was “Boone vs Bear,” an obscure folk-art scene that depicts a hunter about to grapple with a very angry grizzly bear. The bear has been shot, but the hunter is out of bullets and stands ready to strike, his gun hauled over his shoulders like a baseball bat. What happens next is open to artistic interpretation.

Thankfully, the Painting Lounge eschews pretentiousness and skill-level for a hands-on approach that allows everyone in the room to make something worth hanging on their wall. Interested? Here’s how it works: look at their calendar, pick a painting you want to replicate, and reserve your spot ($50 for two hour sessions, $65 for three). They provide the necessities: canvas, brush, easel, paint, apron, cups and instruction. All you need is the booze and a friend or two and you’re good to go. And hey, it’s the most practical way to get a Van Gogh into your living room.


Lane Koivu

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01/03/2012

Sometimes She Disappears: Cindy Sherman @ MoMA

Sometimes She Disappears: Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman has played many parts over the years, Hitchcock lady, horror victim, Madonna, Monroe, low-brow actress, ageing socialite, and sun-burnt Beverly Hills do-nothings among them. A lot of what she deals with identity and gender, but a lot of it is also deliberately abstract and multi-faceted, which is why it’s always been somewhat difficult to keep Sherman pigeonholed in one camp or another for too long. She simply refuses to be pinned to one thing or another. It’s also why she’s so popular.

What has never been revealed is the real Cindy Sherman, and you’re certainly not going to find her here. Her expansive, brilliant retrospective at MoMA should instead be viewed in part as an exercise in mass identity contortion. Though you can see that iconic face in nearly every shot, at 58 she remains an elusive figure as ever.


Sherman has long been in the business of deception and illusion, ever since she blew up with her Untitled Film Still, a brilliant 69-picture series from the late 70s that showcased many of the themes she would spend the next four decades exploring: gender roles, identity, voyeurism, exploitation, and consumerism. She executes in one frame what most filmmakers couldn’t dream up with three hours worth of tape. It’s impossible to tell exactly what you’re looking at. If born 100 years ago she probably would’ve been a rabbit-wielding magician in competition with Houdini, but in an era where media images are cropped and manipulated beyond recognition she is instead a modern trickster who utilizes photography as a way to showcase the unreliability of identity. Contrary to popular belief, the camera does lie―hers does, anyway―and often does so with an eye winking in the audience’s direction. The first thing you see off the escalator at MoMA are four 18 foot pictures of women dressed in what look like homemade Viking costumes, their facial features photoshopped just enough to make you cock your head. It’s funny, but not in a laugh-out-loud kind of way.

Artifice and irony have always bled through even her most serious portraits, though a large chunk of the opening afternoon crowd seemed to miss the inherent humor in her work. “That is disgusting!” remarked one young woman, notebook in hand, when she saw one of Sherman’s “LA women” staring at her, her tanned and sagging breasts all but dripping out onto the floor. Others could hardly stomach her late 80s work, one of the rare times Sherman stepped out of the frame and instead filled it with raw meat, cookies, vomit, and sunglasses to make some sort of comment on the AIDS epidemic (Untitled #175). A few people laughed when they saw Sherman playing Caravaggio playing Bacchus, wryly eyeing the camera with fresh grapes between her fingers.

How could you not?

Lane Koivu – Images courtesy of MoMA 

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27/02/2012

Deconstructing The Thing

Deconstructing The Thing

The Thing Quarterly is, in the words of the founders, a periodical in the form of an object. The object is typically functional and designed by celebrities and people otherwise notable in their line of work. Contributors in the past have included writer Jonathan Lethem, media artist Anne Walsh, and experimental geographer Trevor Paglen. They make things like military mugs, blank books with shoelaces sewn into them, and flags embedded with instructions on how to fold a flag.

It’s called art, and it’s brilliant.

It works like this: You pay them money ($65 an issue, or $200 a year), and at the dawn of each season you’ll receive a Dominos-shaped cardboard box with the contributors name stamped boldly in Helvetica. It’s clean and would look nice on top of a coffee table. It’s also minimal, as much as an offshoot of the absurd humor of Marcel Duchamp as it is with the craft aesthetic of something like Ready-Made, a crafty monthly rag that tells its readers how to build their own living spaces without having to go to Ikea. But where Ready-Made tells you how to build things, The Thing has celebrities build things, and you pay money to have their objects sent to you. The thing is, you don’t know what they’re going to put in the box until it arrives. One publication described what they do as part MacGuffin, and part… something else. The MacGuffin is the only part I can remember now that I’m thinking it over.

But it’s what’s inside that counts, right?


It depends on who’s putting what inside, and why. The most recent issue is an original Dave Eggers short story printed on a shower curtain. From the perspective of a shower curtain, too. If you’re a die-hard shower curtain fan, you can’t live without it. But James Franco’s tribute to Brad Renfro is downright ridiculous, arriving complete with lipstick, mirror, and a photo book of Franco getting “Brad” carved into his shoulder. If you want a piece of glass that has the words (written by Franco himself) “Brad Forever” smeared on glass in front of a neatly-tucked pocket photo of Renfro, Issue 14 is for you. It’s tacky, vain, and wildly pretentious even for a project where pretentious and indulgence are entry requirements.

But The Thing is heady like that. The people who produce it, visual artists Jonn Herschend and Will Rogan, promote the project as a surprise of sorts, something fun, like finding an object you weren’t looking for in the leftover bin at the local thrift store. Maybe a wolf t-shirt, maybe a set of hand-made wine glasses with a message inscribed on the bottom, maybe a Brad Renfro knife or something. Brad forever.

Wait, that knife exists and costs $650? These guys are full of surprises!

At least it seems like the contributors are having quite the time. Who wouldn’t want to, like Starlee Kine did in Issue 10 (sold out), write a short story about an onion on a cutting board designed for cutting onions? Or silk-screen a post-it-note on a functional shade says, “If this shade is down I’m begging your forgiveness on bended knee with tears streaming down my face,” like Miranda July did in the inaugural issue? This, too, is sold out, though I can’t imagine those words having the same kick the second time the shade is drawn.

But like Duchamp’s urinals, it’s the idea of The Thing is more important than what’s inside the box. And the objects sometimes are surprising, at least in the degree of incompetence they assume of their subscribers. But hey, it’s not like you’re forced to buy into this thing. I mean, if you’re the type of person who thinks it’s cool to spend $65 on a Dave Eggers shower curtain, I’m certainly not going to stop you.

Lane Koivu – Images courtesy of The Thing & Lenny Gonzalez

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16/02/2012

A Silent Choir

A Silent Choir

Everybody knows that matter is made of particles and these particles can be split in many other micro-particles going to smaller and smaller. But what people very often omit to consider is the importance of lack, the emptiness, which is among all the molecules and is a part of every inanimate object or a living being. Emptiness is not only a formal concept, but also a generating element that creates balance. “There is no sound without silence, there is no silence without sound”, says Jacopo Mazzonelli (b. 1983, Trento), who recently opened his solo show entitled Coro (Choir), curated by Marco Tagliafierro.

The young Italian artist -with a musical education and a keen interest in alchemy- plays with full and empty spaces, pause and action, sound and silence.

In Petit (2011) Mazzonelli, using two plumb lines hanging from the ceiling and the pedals of an old tricycle running on a neon tube, recreates the suggestion and tension of the morning of the 7th of August 1974, the day in which Philippe Petit walked a tightrope between the Twin Towers.

No sounds can be heard from the mouths trapped in geometrical shapes cut on the covers of the five volumes of Coro (2011). Each shape and each mouth – which cry, laugh, scream or declare – belong to a character: circle/crying baby, cross/Martin Luther King, triangle/Marilyn Monroe, square/Adolf Hitler, pentagon/John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The tomes, resting on five iron lecterns, are carved from inside and they treasure small screens that project video fragments of the characters.

In Limbo (2011), in which an hourglass seems to be resting, hanging horizontally on the remains of a broken light bulb, the artist suspended a stream of time, creating a feeling of calmness accompanied by a latent and unexplainable tension. Just before closing, the exhibition path Inner (2011) catches my attention. By putting funnels on large candles (bought from an old rectory) Mazzonelli turns them into the pipes of an organ, which seems to be about to let the sound out.

Minimalism permeates all the exhibited works, but the minimalism of this young artist is not just a matter of aesthetics. All the installations are not only well defined works arranged in a clear (and sometimes ‘cold’) manner. They are the results of pondered thoughts along with a solid knowledge… not so common in the young – and even in the ‘not so young’ – artists.

The exhibition will run until March 16 at Federico Bianchi Contemporary Art in Milan.

Monica Lombardi – Images courtesy of Jacopo Mazzonelli & Federico Bianchi Contemporary Art

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15/02/2012

Ward Shelley: Unreliable Narrator

Ward Shelley: Unreliable Narrator

Ward Shelley likes to make maps. Not of cities, countries or continents, but of cultural trends, literary genres, and social movements. And he likes to fasten his topographical expeditions underneath the skin, within the realm of the body, exploring and tracing his curiosity through the highly intricate human network of arteries, veins, and internal organs. His fascination lies in exploring the existential question posed by David Byrne over thirty years ago, and with the same shrug-of-the-shoulder immediacy: “Well, how did I get here?”

The only difference is that Shelley takes the question a bit more literally, preferring to explore every detail to the most minute edge of his conscious mind. All of which leads us to his current exhibit, Unreliable Narrator, which will be on display from February 17th to March 18th at Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn—the same gallery that first showcased his live-in installation We Have Mice (where Shelley spent a month living between the walls) and has represented Ward for years. Pierogi first opened its doors in 1994 to painters, sculptors, film and multi-media artists, and has spent much of its time and effort showcasing New York-based underground notables whose work you’ve seen but probably never heard about.


Shelley is equally allusive—he started his life as an artist around the same time period, having his first show in 1990—although no less notable. There’s no reason for him to be “underground”, nor is he “difficult” or hard to get in any sense of the terms. Shelley is, in a nutshell, of the now. He’s quite straightforward, at least as far as history and pop culture are concerned, preferring to obsess over, cut up and document the history of downtown New York, science fiction, and Williamsburg—101 topics for anyone with a fascination with Gotham City.

He is the first to admit his role as an unreliable narrator, having done so nearly a year ago in an interview with Slate, saying “It would be easier to do [my paintings] on a computer than by hand. But the reason I do it by hand is that one of the important ethical points to make here is that, in the end, this is one person’s point of view. It has no real authority.” In that quote he was ramping against (and in support of) the level of criticism he received for his piece The History of Science Fiction that left many ardent followers of the genre—enthusiasts, forum geeks, under-performing fathers—with a lot to say of their own personal taste. To Shelley, that’s the point: We all have opinions; no history or taste can ever be absolute. If his goal was to spark controversy and conversation in regard to the subject in question (in this case, science fiction), then he certainly succeeded.

Unreliable Narrator will provoke similar emotions. As the title suggest, these familiar infographic formations—intestinal charts, diagrams, intricate histories—lay bare Shelley’s acute attention to detail, putting his observations and private fascinations on full public display, for all to scrutinize and obsess over.

Ward Shelley’s Unreliable Narrator at Pierogi Gallery, 177 N. 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY, from February 17 to March 18, 2012 .

Lane Koivu – Images courtesy of Pierogi Gallery & Ward Shelley

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26/07/2011

Segalega / Zero + Giò Marconi

Segalega / Zero + Giò Marconi

June and July are usually not the best months to see exhibitions in Milan. The artistic season has essentially drawn to a close and, except for some blockbuster institutional events, most of the time, people can only find slack summer shows proposed by art dealers who are planning to leave the city until September.

But Segalega, the unusual group exhibition split between two of the most important galleries in Italy, Gio Marconi and Zero, doesn’t fall within either of these categories.

It seems that the show has been thought to hold the interest of the small ‘community’ of art lovers, who keep on going to visit galleries, in spite of tropical heat of Milan.

The project, running until last week in the two venues contemporaneously, came out under the pretext of overlooking the same street (via Tadino near Porta Venezia) and features some rather remarkable works. The exhibition opened with a weird and amusing performance by Marcello Maloberti untitled Doppietta, in which two people – one black and one white – wearing alpine uniform, crawled side by side from the first gallery to the other one and roamed around the visitors, who were watching the shows.

Among the works presented in both the art spaces, Kerstin Bratsch, the German artist, based in New York, draws the attention with his colourful pieces where subjects give the impression of being trapped between two boards of Plexiglas and make fun of painting. Rosa BarbaRosa Barba’s installation entitled Invisible act, on display at Zero gallery is characterised by the usual elegance through which the Italian artist, who lives in Berlin, is able to create sculptures that seem to be made of light. But a special note goes to the Andrea Kvas (b. 1985), who makes his debut among the already known international artists John Bock, Massimo Grimaldi and Markus Schinwald. Courageously, Zero dedicated one room of the gallery – in a sort of solo show – to the young artist that shows small works on canvas, which privilege the gesture.

With many ups and just a few downs, Segalega gave the opportunity to see a satisfying number of works, which truly spoke about painting, colour stratification, afterthoughts and some interesting effects. It was, happily, a good reason to challenge the hot weather of these past few days and see the show within tomorrow.

Monica Lombardi
  
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21/07/2011

Protein / Animate Everything

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Protein / Animate Everything

Animated GIFs spread like wildfire in the early days of the net. As we away on the blazing fast 56K modem speeds of the day, the junky little motion clips – each containing a series of frames running in running in a continuous loop – stood in for our inability to download real video. They were in every creepy religious chain email your aunt sent, on Myspace pages, and they even dotted the e-porn landscape like devious 1990s kinetoscopes. Then high-speed internet hit, and they mostly faded into the sunset – save their obnoxious flashing banner ad cousins – replaced by high quality images and real video.

But it turns out they have a longer shelf life than just their technical simplicity. They’re somewhere between films and photos, and as such offer a typological bridge between the two. Over the past several years, especially with the advent of Tumblr, designers and all sorts of other people one the web have brought them back, someitmes to pretty spectacular effect. And several artists are even working in the medium (can I really call it that?).

Opening tonight, the endlessly clever UK creative firm Protein has curated the first exhibition of some of the most notable work being done in the format. The time seems right, after all. Artists include Parra, Jiro Bevis, Mimi Leung, Nous Vous Collective, DDF, Will Robson Scott, Tyrone Le Bon, as well as several others.

Opening tonight, 21 July at Protein’s gallery space on 18 Hewett street in Shoreditch, London, just off Curtain Road. Vernissage starts at 7pm, and the show will run until the 15th of August.

Tag Christof – Animated .GIF courtesy Protein

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23/06/2011

The Adam & Eve Projects

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The Adam & Eve Projects

The Adam & Eve Projects takes the hazy idea of the “creative collective” to fantastic new heights. At once a sort of borderless community for our generation’s most influential creatives and a display case for their work and ideas, the initiative includes “the most exciting and important shapers and definers of our cultural landscape” In the collaborative spirit of Wonder-Room, the project draws on particularly relevant talents to produce a body of projects, and in the process becomes a fantastic cross-section of the creative landscape as a whole. It’s like a 21st century salon, with big ideas and lots of rule-breaking. Except cooler.

No medium is off limits, and contributors span the entire creative spectrum, from musicians to architects, to filmmakers, artists, fashion and industrial designers, and illustrators. Both individuals and organisations take part. New talents join regularly as the project’s influence grows, and the discourse and scope only makes it more interesting. In some cases the work created is even for sale (especially from the fashion designers), and the site is also a great place to score some seriously distinctive bespoke fashion.



Three of 2DM’s photographers are actively participating in the project. Skye Parrott, well known for her emotional snapshot photography, has contributed quite a bit (see her stream here), and her magazine Dossier Journal also contributes regularly. Roger Deckker, in his project billed West End Artisans, shot badass Jesse Hughes from The Eagles of Death Metal in grainy, tactile film. Roberta Ridolfi is also slated to contribute, and after her recent and fruitful stay over in New York she certainly has something good in the works. Other photographer participants in the project include our recent acquaintance, the very talented Kuba Dabrowski, as well as Ari Marcopolous, Nick Night, Cass Bird, and others.


Beyond photography, other contributors include lovely British design duo Jamesplumb, who we met at Spazio Rossana Orlandi for their solo exhibition there late last year, architect extraordinaire Bjarke Ingels, designer Sarah Applebaum, A.P.C. creator Jean Toitou, and way too many others to mention.

We’ll be watching closely!

Tag Christof – Images Skye Parrott & Roger Deckker courtesy Adam & Even – Special thanks to Scott Woods

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