Here are some of my highlights from the Artissima art fair in Turin which I attended last week with my colleague Roberto D’Onorio (here’s his take)!
My article focuses on Artissima’s Per4m section and has just been published on the Australian and UK version of the web-magazine ArtsHub with the title: “Art Fair gives space to the anti-market”.
Here’s the link to the article on ArtsHub website
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The summer of 2012 is not a long time ago , but from my perspective and for all I have experienced in this two years it feels like decades ago. Back then I just graduated from the Art Academy with a thesis on the “Popolo” in the arts and, at the beginning of the year I started to became intrigued by Indonesian art thanks to the exhibition “Beyond the Est” at MACRO, curated by Dominique Lora. I began researching about contemporary art in Indonesia and in a few weeks I was a regular visitor of the Castro Pretorio library in Rome. I would go there every week sourcing and memorizing everything I could find related to art in Indonesia and South East Asia. I would fill notebooks on notebooks and start planning to go to Indonesia. At that time my partner in crime Lucas Catalano was eager to go back to Bali to work on a photoessay and he offered me his help with the project.
I mailed Barbara from Art a Part of Cult(ure), the magazine I was writing for from three years, asking if she would be interested in a reportage of the art scene in Indonesia. She said yes, of course! I started sending emails around to the artists and fix interviews. Once in Indonesia, everyone was super nice, open and welcoming. Every interview gave me not only fundamental insights into the art practice of the artist and his context, but it was also really good fun! Here some pictures that give you some glimpses of the field-research that I did for my upcoming book “Arte Contemporanea in Indonesia”. There are no captions; let the images do the talk! Then of course, if you are already accustomed to the arts in Indonesia you will certainly recognize all the faces. (And of course, don’t miss the updates for the release “Arte Contemporanea in Indonesia”)
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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I don’t now if your grandmother ever had a garden, and in that garden she used to keep palms, bamboos and other tropical plants. Imagine yourself sitting in a corner of the porch after a good grandma-style lunch. The November sun behind the vegetation transforms the leaves into mysterious green neon lights and makes the bark of threes shine like silver. You may call it a Sunday afternoon enchantment, you may call it Refulgenzia. In that moment you can even expect a tiger jumping out from behind a terracotta pot – which of course, now looks like a column from some Bengalese temple. It’s the exact same feeling that Paolo Conte – the Italian musician – so well depicted in his song Azzurro: “Cerco un pò d’Africa in giardino, tra l’oleandro e il baobab” (“I’m looking for a bit of Africa in my garden, between the oleander and the baobab”). It’s about looking for the exotic in the familiar and the familiar in the exotic. In contemporary art not many artists are able to convey that. Oreste Zevola does it.
They say you don’t have to judge a book by its cover but, as people working in the arts, we all know how powerful an image can be. Ever since I had seen this artwork entitled “Masihkah Garudaku ber’Nada’ Pancasila dan Bhinneka Tunggal Ika…??” at ART/JOG12, I knew it was the perfect image for my book. I jotted the name of the artist who made it on my notebook: Karyadi. It was not easy to find his contact, but thanks to Aditya Chandra and Abdul Fattah I finally got his email address. Karyadi was super-nice and he allowed me to use a photo of his work for the book cover.
I worked together with graphic designer Lucas Leo Catalano for a beautiful and striking cover. As you can see we tried many different solutions – there are actually many more than the proofs above. Some of them were interesting, but I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that something was missing. What I did then was to open my Photoshop and experiment a little by myself. After an hour I got it. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that before? I called Lucas who was waiting for me to decide: “Bub, I made up my mind of the cover! It must be red!”
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I have been talking about my so-called “Indonesian book” for such a long time. My profile description at Trouble magazine reads: “she’s currently working on a book about contemporary art in Indonesia that will be published in Italy the near future”. Well, the near future is finally here. My book “Arte Contemporanea in Indonesia – un’introduzione” will finally be published and presented in Rome during a series of exhibition focused on South-East Asia and Australia called “AU.SIAN”, that I will curated with my collegue Roberto D’Onorio at the gallery Parioli Fotografia.
I look at this book as a step in the process of connecting different cultures via contemporary art and people’s stories around contemporary art. Thus the decision to link this book to the wider program of AU.SIAN. I’ll give you guys all the details of the November/December release pretty soon!
“Arte Contemporanea in Indonesia ” is an introduction to contemporary art in Indonesia and looks at how the cultural, social and political conditions in Indonesia have influenced four generations of artists. Through this book I didn’t just learn about art in Indonesia, but I also reconsidered my idea of contemporary art. I started became more and more aware of the context that surrounds contemporary art. I went around asking questions, rather then just see a show, come home and write my thoughts about it. I still consider myself an art critic, but I don’t want to criticize anymore. I want to understand and let people understand what’s behind every human expression. I’m convinced that by giving background coordinates, readers could see beyond the pretty picture. One of the aim of this book is also challenging the outdated western hegemony on contemporary art, a point of view that is still prevalent in Italy.
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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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One of the reasons I decided to become a journalist – or whatever you want to call me, art critic/curator, writer, whatever – is because of my unconditional love for magazines. Although art magazines are usually those which I write for, I’m a self-confessed reader of Marie Claire, Elle and the Italian weekly magazines Io Donna, D and Il Venerdì di Repubblica.
I love the first ones because of their carefree attitude. The way they create beauty with couple of pictures of Erin Wasson and a caption reading “I’m a female Johnny Cash! To hell with the it girls!” Fashion magazines create dreams and aesthetics. One can criticize them for a whole bunch of reasons – from the fact that they usually push the starving-model look to the fact that half of these mags is usually composed by advertising. That can true sometimes, but on the contrary what these magazines elicit in me is a sense of empowerment. Those worlds that Elle is creating may be fake, biased, too far away from reality. But still, just by browsing through a good editorial or reading a feature on Colette, I can’t shake off that feeling that I’m part of the beauty of the world. That through my writing, drawing, playing, photographing, I’m creating an personal aesthetic – in my own terms.
My article “An insight into South-Italian culture through the art of Angelo Formica” has just been published on the web magazine Global Comment.
This is my second article for this web-magazine. What I’m aiming at with this long-winded articles is to show how contemporary art can be an invaluable tool to investigate topical issues of modern society with a global perspective.
Here’s the link to the article
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Walking into Stefano Canto’s studio feels like stepping on the moon. Tucked in a quiet area of Rome, Canto’s working space reflects his need for order and clarity.
The artist has a background in architecture and that comes off pretty clearly from many elements of his work, such as the relationship between solids and voids, the use of modular elements and the choice of materials to work with. In sculptures/installations like “Caedo (Opus Caementitium)” he creates evocative shapes by filling the bug-damaged interior of a tree with concrete.
As often happens in contemporary art, there are many ways to look at “Caedo (Opus Caementitium)” – for some absence becomes presence. For others the work is a comment on the damages of urbanisation – the pathogens attacking the tree trunk are indeed caused by smog and other similar substances. You can even look at these works as simple evocative shapes, reminiscent of the black obelisk-shaped object that Led Zeppelin featured on the cover of their seventh album ‘Presence’ (that’s actually my own take and when I told Stefano he looked at me like “what the hell are you talking about?) Well, my point is that there are so many layers to each work that you can fill a book – Stefano actually has an upcoming book with a few curatorial texts, so keep an eye on this guy -this is a studio visit though, so I’ll let the picture do the talk…
My article about coffee cultures in Naples has just been published on the American magazine Fresh Cup. In this article I go back to my hometown Naples interviewing three owners of different typologies of cafès, the historical Gambrinus, the typical Bar Nilo and the innovative Spazio Nea.
Here’s the link to the article on Fresh Cup website
Here you can order a copy of the magazine
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Do you remember MSN? That fairly basic chat you used to spend hours on, chatting with your faraway summer friends during winter? Ten years ago MSN was one the first ways to keep all your “contacts” together.
Back then, my friend Enrico was very big on “contacts”. He was – and still is – a very friendly person who is comfortable with pretty much everyone. When he was thirteen the idea of having all his friends in one single place was to him the most exciting thing ever – right after Harry Potter I suppose. As for me, I used to considered other people being an annoyance most of the times – fictional people like Harry Potter included – so the fact that he was bragging about the number of his MSN’s contacts sounded funny to me. Fast forward to the Facebook era, my friend’s account is bursting at the seams, and so he periodically purges it – only to repent short time after and re-add his unfriended ones.
Today as a grown up girl I finally understand the importance of other people. I gave up my antisocial punk attitude and I started to appreciate talking and exchanging ideas with people big time. If I have to spot a precise time I decided cut on my misanthropy, I would say when I first encountered the Roman art world. At nineteen I was going to plenty of vernissages, often with my two best mates – “compagni d’arte” – and we were wondering about why all those caryatids, err, older people, didn’t want to talk with us. If you are not familiar with art openings in Italy, you should know that you seldom see younger people there. This was far from bothering me. I figured I just had to be more stylish, so I started wearing a little black dress, red lipstick and the right amount of boldness.
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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
