Indo Pop Painting draws influences from comics and graffiti. In this essay for the Hong Kong-based webmagazine CoBo I analyze a style that goes beyond a simple market trend. From the “fathers” of the style, such as Eddie Hara, Heri Dono and Agung Kurniawan, to the “older brothers” Uji ‘Hahan’ Handoko and Eko Nugroho, and the plethora of younger 20-something artists, Indo Pop is here to stay.
Here is the link to the article
Middle East Monitor has just published my article about Syrian artist Randa Maddah, whose work has recently been presented in the exhibition “A Hair Tie” at Gallery One in Ramallah, Palestine.
Here’s the link to the article
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I have just started a new series for the webmagazine CoBo about Indonesian contemporary painters. The first installment is Murni, recently celebrated in the show Merayakan Murni at Ketemu Project Space and Sudakara Art Space in Bali.
Here is the link to the article
Since I have started writing about contemporary art for magazine – around 2007 – I have collected a number of interviews. Some have been published straight away, others have been used later on as sources for articles or in books. Then there are all the others that have never been published, and are part of my personal archive, informing every word I write.
Every now and then, I decide to pull an interview out of the archive, like this one with Richard Streitmatter-Tran, who I have met and interviewed first in Paris at the Palais de Tokyo, then in Rome, where he was attending a sculpture workshop. The new art magazine I’m collaborating with, D/Railed by Deianira Tolema, was the perfect home for the piece.
Here’s the link to the interview
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Catilina has been my most beloved historical figure of all times since the time of the Liceo. On the other hand the Roman webmagazine Art to part of Culture has always been the place where I felt more at home writing-wise, encouraged to express myself both in terms of ideas and style. The two came together for a review of the play Catilina at Teatro Orione.
Here is the link to the article
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Escape, the Sunday magazine of the Times of Malta, has just published my interview to the Green Root Lab, an artistic collective of two, devoted to environmental activism through contemporary art.
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Italian webmagazine Art a Part of Culture has just published an article on Laslo Iera’s open studio, with the title “Surrealism on the Prenestina” (that’s the street of Rome where Laslo’s studio is located).
When you write about your dear redhead friend, you must force yourself to step back from a work that you saw in its evolution, and look at things more objectively. My strategy in arts writing is going personal with artists you don’t know, and being more detached with artists you know way to well.
I feel it balances things; with my articles I want to give information about the work but also give an peek into the personality of artists, and what brought them to realize a certain work. Laslo’s ideas are powerful and his aesthetic is polarizing: you either love it or hate it – just like the artists who created it.
Here’s the link to the article
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Lately I haven’t written a whole lot of art critique in the real sense of the word, dedicating myself more to articles or interviews. Every so often though, I encounter artworks that I just can’t shut up about. This is the case with the latest pieces of Indonesian artist Eddy Susanto, who is one of my favorite contemporary artists ever; so I wrote this piece for CoBo, reading through the cross-references inside “Transhumanism Paradox (Dante’s Divine Comedy)” and “PANJI: The Linguistic Culture of Southeast Asia”, which will be realized for the upcoming Singapore Biennial. The first work was particularly interesting to explore as an Italian researching Indonesian art; it was the perspective of an Indonesian artist on what is a staple of Italian literature.
Hong-Kong based magazine Cobo has just published my new article on the way Singaporean artists work with the topic of nature. This is an ideal second episode of a series on artists and nature which started with this piece on Indonesian artists and nature. In the book I’m currently working on, focused on Singaporean contemporary art, I have an entire chapter out of four dedicated to the dichotomy nature/urban through the eyes of artists, and the specific form it takes in the Lion City.
Here is the link to the article
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The webmagazine/platform Cobo has just published my piece entitled “Three Indonesian Artists Between National History and Personal Memories”, featuring work by FX Harsono, Jompet Kuswidananto and Boedi Widjaja, plus a mention to an iconic piece by Dita Gambiro and Rifqi Sukma. As always, I have decided to mix artists that are staples of Indonesian contemporary art (such as Harsono and Jompet) with others that might not be household names yet!
For the rest, I’m in a blessed phase of working (almost) uninterruptedly on the third draft of my book on contemporary art in Singapore. When you concentrate on one single thing, ideas are connecting and synapses are snapping like never before! Writing this book is a great learning process for me and gives me the chance to expand on ideas I explored in my book on Indonesian art, seeing how these have evolved over time, with my experiences and chats with artists. But I’m digressing; below the link to the article on Indonesian artists and memory!
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Among the art pieces I write each month, every now and then I churn out a funny one. This time the Sorrento local magazine Sorrentum was looking for a short write-up about the participation of the miniature sail boat Stella Maris and its team of two to the annual maritime festival of the French city of Brest (the same one of Jean Genet’s “Querelle de Brest”). Half of the team was Capitain Giancarlo Antonetti – a super-chatty sea dog and certifiable nuts – and the other was my brother, who is by far the sternest and most taciturn person I have ever met.
In the article I imagined the two-days long car trip of the two from Italy to France. You can read the piece on the August issue of Sorrentum or, more straightforwardly, below. It is in Italian, but the title can translate as “Fear and Loathing in Brest”
Paura e Delirio a Brest
Prendete un pizzico di Hunter Thompson e frullatelo con una manciata di Jean Genet, e avrete la nostra rappresentanza sorrentina al Festival Internazionale Marittimo di Brest, in Francia. Questo evento tanto atteso dagli amanti della vela accoglie ad ogni sua edizione migliaia di imbarcazioni da tutto il mondo ed è volto far conoscere ai visitatori le diverse culture marittime.
A tenere alta la bandiera sorrentina, anzi, la vela a tarchia, è il comandante Giancarlo Antonetti, l’esuberante fondatore dell’associazione velistica che da sempre si fa promotore di questa antica tradizione in penisola, affiancato in veste straordinaria dal compassato Leandro Morelli, un nome che solo di recente comincia a risuonare nell’ambito nautico, ma che già è noto in alcuni circoli ginnici sorrentini per far sospirare più di una donzella.
Ed ora immaginate questo improbabile duo, il vivace e chiacchierone Giancarlo strizzato in una striminzita minicooper color petrolio con il laconico Leandro, un duo lanciato sotto l’infinita tratta del traforo del Monte Bianco con una piccola feluca pericolosamente legata sul tetto, ed ecco, avrete davanti a voi il girone che Dante aveva lasciato fuori dall’Inferno per premura.
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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! Why satire should come of age on Global Comment
Global Comment has just published my article titled “It’s not just a cartoon: why satire should come of age”. Writing for Global Comment gives me the chance to get a little bit out of my comfort zone, writing about topics not necessarily related to contemporary art and – like in this case – making reflections and drawing connections to the news of the day.
In this piece I’m referring to the parallel upheavals caused by Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon on the earthquake in Italy and The Australian’s cartoon of the Aboriginal dad. While coming from different contexts, both caused a stir. I’m looking at why this happened, and how satire should take into consideration in a modern, more complex world.
Here is the link to the piece
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