At the beginning of the year I visited Cambodian artist Sopheap Pich in his Phnom Penh studio. He explained his view of contemporary art in Cambodia and what young artists need in order to grow the local art scene. The article is part of my reportage on Cambodian contemporary art.
Here is the link to the interview
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Another interview with a super-interesting Khmer artist has been published on CoBo, as part of my reportage on contemporary art in Cambodia. For this piece I spoke with Kanitha Tith, one of the young, emerging voices in the artistic landscape, who is gaining more and more recognition internationally.
In the article she tell about her creative process and what it means to be a multi-passionate creative in Phnom Penh.
Here is the link to the interview
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The webmagazine/collector’s platform CoBo has just published my interview with Hou Hanru, curator and artistic director of the contemporary art museum of Rome MAXXI. In the interview I have found Hanru not only to be a great inquirer of our times through art, but also a person of deep intelligence and kindness. All of that clearly transpires from the shows at the MAXXI, which is the channel for Rome to take part in the international dialogue for contemporary art.
Here is the link to the interview
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I’m honored and humbled to have had the chance of writing about the work of an extraordinary artist and human being such as Cambodian painter Vann Nath. The piece is out in the new issue of Art Republik and is part of the Cambodia reportage I realized in February. This is the fifth piece about Cambodian art I did for the magazine, and I’m so happy to have these beautiful pages as an outlet for the research.
In the article, which I wrote in conjunction of the publication in Italy of Vann Nath’s memoir by ADD Editore “Il pittore dei khmer rossi”, I traced the legacy of this artist on Cambodian contemporary art, and how his example and practice influenced the new generations of artists in the Kingdom.
Here is the link to the pdf version of the piece
Culture360, the webmagazine of the Asia-Europe foundation, has published my interview with videomaker Christopher Basile, who has recently realized a documentary and the art of Kartika Affandi called “9 Ways of Seeing”.
The film tells the story of this visionary artist, daughter of Indonesia‘s most celebrated painter, and a groundbreaking personality and painter in her own right.
Here is the link to the interview
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I can’t be more happy and grateful when I see a new article of mine on the homepage of CoBo Social. It still gives me the same buzz of 10 years ago, when I was just starting out writing for online magazines.
This interview with Srey Bandol, co-founder of the art school Phare Ponleu Selapak in Battambang, Cambodia, is particularly rewarding because it is a part of the reportage on Cambodian contemporary art I did at the beginning of the year. I really hope that through these articles CoBo and I will be able to give a more complete picture of the art scene in this fascinating country.
Here is the link to the interview
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I have just been back from Japan a couple of days ago, and it has been great to find my essay on the state of contemporary art museums in Rome published on Culture360, the webmagazine of the Asia-Europe foundation.
The piece stems from my conversations with Hou Hanru and Giorgio de Finis, and takes into consideration the example of the ex-GNAM, La Galleria Nazionale directed by Cristiana Collu. While in the piece I take a bit of a critical tone, I hope that you can read through the lines my positive feeling for a scene in transformation.
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Naima Morelli is an arts writer and journalist specialized in contemporary art from Asia-Pacific and the MENA region.
She has written for the Financial Times, Al-Jazeera, The Art Newspaper, ArtAsiaPacific, Internazionale and Il Manifesto, among others, and she is a regular contributor to Plural Art Mag, Middle East Monitor and Middle East Eye as well as writing curatorial texts for galleries.
She is the author of three books on Southeast Asian contemporary art.
Reach out: contact [at] naimamorelli.com
