The thing I love about Australians is inventiveness. Down Under there are so many unusual spaces that have been reconverted into galleries, and they are in the most unexpected places. I talk about them in my new article for the Australian webmagazine ArtsHub called “Unconventional spaces democratising art”:
Here’s the link to the article
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Sooo… updates from my life! In the middle of my usual freelance hustling and my book launch, I have also took a new collaboration on. I’m talking about my debut as video journalist for a news agency run by a cultural association in Rome, an experience which I find both exciting and challenging. The whole team is great; they are genuine, interesting and friendly people. Then of course, talking and doing interviews in front of a camera is a relatively new experience for me. Prior to that, I’ve only took part in a series of video interviews in artists’ studios, but here I’m basically presenting the whole thing. The guys have been merciful and my first report has been about an event at MAXXI, the contemporary art museum of Rome – so at least I was playing in my home court.
My interview with Xiaoyu Weng – director of Asia Programs at the Kadist Art Foundation in San Francisco and independent curator – has just been published on the Italian magazine Art a Part of Cult(ure) with the title “There is no such a thing as globalization in the art world”. In the interview we discuss exoticism in art, the role of the curator in bridging cultures and Xiaoyu’s approach to Asian art.
Here’s the link to the interview (in Italian)
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Here’s my first published piece of two thousand and fifteen! Is there a more wonderful way to kick off the new year than an interview with curator Roberto D’Onorio and his project at Rialto Sant’Ambrogio in Rome?
Roberto is not just one of the most articulated and sensitive curators I know, he’s also a dear friend. This interview is already known in the sketchiest Roman art circles as the “notorious Naples interview” and it has been a lot of fun to do. It has been published by the Italian web magazine Art a Part of Cult(ure) with the title “L’immaginazione per reinventare la felicità” namely “The imagination to reinvent happiness”.
If you haven’t been to the Rialto Sant’Ambrogio yet, you totally should. It’s straight-up amazing! And now for the article:
Here’s the link to the interview (in Italian)
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My interview with the amazing artist and Cemeti House co-founder Mella Jaarsma has just been published on the Aussie magazine Trouble with the title “Mella Jaarsma: Give me shelter” (a title who clearly echoes the Rolling Stones). This is the second interview from my reportage on contemporary art in Indonesia published on Trouble Magazine!
Here’s the link to the interview
Here’s the link to the online version of the magazine
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The one thing I have in common with Hans-Ulrich Obrist is that we have both interviewed Indonesian artist Heri Dono. Well, that interview (mine, not Hans’!) has just been published on Trouble Magazine with the title “Heri Dono: Making Fun of The King, The Gods and The People”. The interview, accompanied with my pics from Heri’s studio, is part of my reportage about contemporary art in Indonesia that… guess what? Is going to have the shape of a book pretty soon!
Here’s the link to the interview
Here’s the link to the online version of the magazine
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My interview with Aussie artist Alasdair McLuckie has just been published on Trouble Magazine with the title “Modernism on Gertrude”. The interview is part of my reportage about emerging artists in Melbourne and it’s my eighth feature on Trouble!
Here the link to the interview
Here the link to the online version of the magazine
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My interview with Melbourne-based Kiwi painter Jake Walker has just been published on Trouble Magazine. The interview is part of my reportage about artists in Melbourne.
Here the link to the interview
Here the link to the online version of the magazine
Muchlis Fachri is a young artist based in Jakarta, who is also part of the street artist’s crew called TAS – TAS and the artistic collective Aspaleho. We found each other on Facebook and I was amused by his cartoonish and ironically splatter style, with many references to punk aesthetics and popular culture.
Muchlis explained me that he wants to make art accessible to people. I find this conception resonating very strongly with young Indonesian artist in particular (I remember talking about that a couple of years ago with Agung Kurniawan of Kedai Kebun Forum, one of the first galleries to push forward the idea of accessible art, right in the middle of the painting boom in Yogyakarta).
With his practice Muchlis embodies this democratic idea of art, alternating his graffiti practice with conventional painting and the production of merchandise. Indeed, together with his girlfriend Puji Lestari, he also founded the company JUNK NOT DEAD, producing a range of edgy and offbeat products, from posters to bags and dolls – the patches are definitely on my shopping list next time I’ll pass by Jakarta. With a pulp and excessive imaginary, Muchlis Fachri’s art is definitely an artist to keep an eye on.
Did you have a moment when you knew you wanted to be an artist?
I did actually. In senior high school, I would often made unusual things that were different from the ones of the other students, like bags made of a cardboard or I’d decorate my sneakers with drawings. During my third year I visited an exhibition in the Galeri Nasional and I was stroked by the art exhibited – that show has been fundamental to arouse my interest in painting. When I came back home from the exhibition I was so excited that I started painting on canvases and researching about artists.
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Made Bayak is a Balinese artist, painter, musician, educator and environmental activist.
Through is ongoing project Plasticology – a concept that fuses the words “plastic” and “ecology” – he is exploring Bali’s ecological, social, cultural and political issues. Plasticology develops across different media Plasticology and is associated to an educational campaign against plastic trash.
Plasticology is your long term project that combines art with environmental issues. Bali in fact suffers with plastic pollution. When did you first become interested in that?
I started to make art related to plastic issues in 2001, when I was studying visual art at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Denpasar. The first plastic-related project I created was an outdoor installation called PLASTILITICUM. The name is from human history periods, like Megalithic, Palaeolithic, etc. I imagined that in the future people would research about a time in the past where plastic polluted the earth. Therefore the artefacts they will find won’t be stone tools, but plastic objects. At my first solo exhibition at Sika gallery at Ubud in 2008, I created some kinetic objects and sculptures using waste and ready-made materials such as frying pans, wood from the beach, sandals, plastic bottles and broken toys. At the end of 2010 I started experimenting with flatten plastic wastes on a canvas. Since that time I created a series of paintings – I consider them paintings because they are two-dimensional – and I decided to use them for my art project. Plasticology though is not just about paintings and art, but it rather tackles problems directly. We have organized presentations, workshops, river and the beach cleaning up etc.
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The Australian art magazine Trouble has just published the interview I had in Perth with photographer Graham Miller. The interview is part of my reportage about artists in Perth.
Here the link to the interview
Here the link to the online version of the magazine
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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
Published! Interview with Eddy Susanto on Global Comment
My article “Why must the East continue to be objectified? An interview with Indonesian artist Eddy Susanto” has just been published on the webmagazine Global Comment. This interview is part part of my reportage about contemporary art in Indonesia.
Here’s the link to the article
You can have more Eddy Susanto in my newly released book (in Italian)
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