UK/Australian webmagazine ArtsHub has just published my new piece: “The slow truth behind overnight success”. For artists, the fairy tale of a big break is usually only half the story. Years of preparation is often behind an ‘overnight success’.
Language
Here is my take on Hermann Nitsch’s highly controversial exhibition “Das Orgien Mysterien Theater” at the Cantieri culturali alla Zisa, Palermo, Sicily. A petition by animal rights activists tried to boycott the show by the Wiener Aktionismus and Body Art pioneer. I look into the reasons behind the petition, and question the idea of sanitized art and censorship. The piece has been published on the Sunday edition of The Times of Malta with the title “On disturbing the comfortable”.
Here’s the link to the article
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The Italian magazine Art a Part of Cult(ure) has just published my review of the exhibition “Sintattica”, featuring artists Luigi Battisti, claudioadami e Pasquale Polidori. The show was curated by Francesca Gallo at Museo Hendrik Christian Andersen.
Here is the link to the review
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I generally don’t like snarky – you’d rather build something than destroy something, right? At the same time, when I’m in the snarky mood, I go full on. And of course, when that happen, I really enjoy the bravado. Otherwise how would I earn the title of contemporary art super-villain? Like in this piece for the Sunday Times of Malta, for which I love to put a desecrator of contemporary art attitude. You might say, making fun of contemporary art is way too easy, but I can’t help it; sometimes you just walk in an exhibition and you start rubbing your hands!
A few weeks ago one of the coolest festivals in Rome took place at Forte Prenestino, an ex-jail turned occupied centro sociale. CRACK Fumetti Dirompenti is devoted to independent publications, comics, street art, zines, graphic work, art and books. This has been by far the more fun report for TeenPress; I have found so many friends joining the festival, each one looking for something different and getting a variety of inputs from the event. The theme this year was “The Capital”, alluding to the recent Italian scandal of Roma Capitale, but also to the relationship of artists with economic powers and dynamics. Enjoy the video (plus a couple of pictures below).
My interview with Tunisian-born, Italy-based graphic journalist Takoua Ben Mohamed has just been published on Middle East Monitor with the title “Drawing her own story from Douz to Rome”.
“‘I don’t actually read that many comic books,’ laughs Takoua Ben Mohamed. ‘And I have never set foot in a comic book fair.’ Don’t mistake what she says for a snooty, ‘I don’t read comic books, I only make them.’ Make what you’d like to see in the world, they say. More broadly, make something that embodies what you want to see in the world, whatever the medium you choose. It just so happens that the world of speech bubbles and comic strips is Takoua’s cup of tea.”
Here’s the link to the article
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The reason why I enjoy writing for the Australian/British magazine ArtsHub so much , is because it gives me the possibility to delve deeper into the media industries I’m working into. So here’s my piece number eight for this great webmagazine. Here I explore how online sharing has created new rules of exchange for artists who must find ways of converting followers who like their work into paying customers.
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Tiburtino III, Rome. In a neighborhood deprived of green areas, a small park is everything to kids and their families. This park has been built in the seventies, putting down buildings to make room to play. For TeenPress my colleague Ornella and I followed a party in the park organized by the Ludobus – a bus bringing old-school games to the peripheries of Rome. We sat with the people coming to bring their kids to the park and with regular dwellers. Tiburtino III is definitely a tough neighborhood, but the sense of community and the presence of people with incredible faces and attitude, makes it really welcoming and super-interesting! As you can tell from my jolly attitude from moment one in the video, we had loads of fun! Just get to the end of the video to see the bloopers… ah, Romans from the outskirt! You are so damn charming!
Article number five for the Times of Malta! Here I talk with Australian artists Sonia Leber and David Chesworth, who are researching the Maltese community in St Albans, a suburb of Melbourne, for their new video projects called “One from Mosta, Two from Zabbar”. Having always worked with sound in their art, the duo was interested both in the technical aspect and the social valence on Spirtu Pront.
“The singing is extremely skillful, in a loud and tightly strained voice, exemplifying Malta’s dual Arabic and European influences.” they explain “The ritual incorporates a cadenza where everyone respectfully renounces their insults and emphatically reconfirms the need for friendship.” In their video project the artists are interested in presenting this form of singing ritualised arguments as a positive social force and as a metaphor for the resolution of conflict in the public space.
Here’s the link to the article
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Thursday, June 25 at 5pm the Library of Oriental Studies at Sapienza University of Rome will host the presentation of the book “Arte Contemporanea in Indonesia, un’introduzione” by Naima Morelli. The presentation will be introduced by Filippo Salviati, professor of Eastern Asia archeology, art history and philosophies, with the partecipation of Michela Becchis, art critic and art historian, Francesca Gallo, professor of contemporary art, and Claudio Cozzolino, Press Office at Embassy of Indonesia to the Holy See.
The book is an introduction to Indonesian contemporary art, which now occupies a prominent place in the international art scene, from both a market and cultural standpoint. Placing itself in the dialectic between the global and the local, the book analyzes how in Indonesia the cultural, artistic, political and social context have influenced four generations of artists. The author guides the reader in the contemporary art places in Yogyakarta, Jakarta, Bandung and Bali, looking for the answer to the question: is there really something called Indonesian contemporary art?
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While with our fluttering dresses and carefree attitude we might not look like the toughest girls on the block, we gals of TeenPress love the borgata. So this time around we ventured to San Basilio, one of the most difficult neighborhoods of Rome. While San Basilio has a cozy architecture and great graffiti pieces, it is mostly talked about for its crime, killings and drug trade. In making this report my colleague Ornella and I had a couple of weird experiences ourselves. From a group of shirtless guys throwing clothespins at us from a window, to kids on scooters intimating us to put away our camera, not everybody was so friendly. At the same time, in the Centro Aldo Fabrizi we found an oasis of peace and protection. We documented the activities of the center in this video, hoping that it will be able to keep on growing a new generation of responsible and caring adults.
Published! Interview with Koushna Navabi on Global Comment
I’m back at my desk (figuratively) after a few days hiatus. I didn’t go far really. I’m spending summer in my hometown Sorrento and I have been exploring the beautiful surroundings – Positano, Amalfi, Capri, Ieranto and so on – with my partner in crime, curator Roberto D’Onorio. (Here and here our visual diary where we shamelessly glamourize ourselves.)
Back to my beloved work, it was great to see that Global Comment published my interview with Iranian/American/London-based artist Koushna Navabi. I visited her studio one year ago, and I was fascinated by the delicate dark beauty of her art. Koushna left Iran at sixteen and flew to America. In her teen years, she discovered art, and felt in love with Europe. She therefore moved to London to attend the Goldsmith college, in the beginning of the Young British Artists movement.
Today Koushna is a successful artist living in London. Her work addresses the relationship between West and Middle East, Iranian identity and women issues. It is based both on memories and personal experience, but also discusses past and present politics of her native country. She considers art therapeutic for both the artist and the viewer. In this interview we talk taxidermy, orientalism in art, Koushna’s artistic process, her struggles to accept her Iranian identity and her final decision to embrace it.
Here’s the link to the interview
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