The Australian magazine Trouble has just published the interview I had in Melbourne with artist Two One (Hiroyasu Tsuri). The interview is part of my reportage about emerging artists in Melbourne.
Here the link to the interview
Here the link to the online version of the magazine
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ITA:
Il giovane artista Robberto è recentemente tornato da Los Angeles dove ha esposto nella galleria Madhood Temporary (qui il mio comunicato stampa).
Una settimana fa ci siamo incontrati su sua richiesta al Verano, uno dei cimiteri più belli di Roma – almeno credo, non sono un’esperta in materia – e abbiamo chiacchierato riguardo l’esperienza dell’artista a LA, le opere realizzate lì, il mondo dell’arte americano a confronto con quello italiano e così via.
Sono stata a lungo combattuta sul pubblicare o meno sul mio blog l’audiointervista nella sua interezza. Sebbene mi trovi d’accordo sul disappunto e la disillusione di Robberto riguardo al mondo dell’arte italiano, mi piacerebbe essere comunque portatrice di una visione ottimista.
Nell’intervista però si trovano anche dei momenti di grande afflato e bellezza dove Robberto parla con passione della propria arte e di come, nonostante le difficoltà, non possa rinunciarci. Siccome gli artisti non vanno censurati, sopratutto quelli che si esprimono rispetto ad una condizione condivisa, ecco Robberto in tutta la sua incazzatura.
EN:
Italian emerging artist Robberto is back from Los Angeles where he recently had an exhibition called “Fake Skin” at Madhood Temporary (here my press release).
A week ago he asked me to meet at the Verano, Rome’s biggest and the most beautiful cemetery I suppose – I’m not an expert of cemeteries so I can’t make comparisons- and we had a conversation about his experience in LA, the US art world vs the Italian one, his art and so forth.
Until the last minute I didn’t know if I wanted to post the entire audio record on my blog or not. Robberto turned out to have a very disillusioned and bitter opinion of the Italian art world and, even if I share his concerns, I would rather have an optimistic attitude.
Then I thought about the parts of the interview where he talks about the joy and the inevitability of art making, and I thought that could be very inspiring.
I don’t really feel I should censure artists, so I decided to post the interview, unfortunately available only in Italian.
What the National Gallery of Victoria is trying to do with the Melbourne Now exhibition is to define the identity of Melbourne through its cultural practices, with a special focus on contemporary art.
I’m in Italy now, ironically writing my book about emerging artists in Melbourne, so I couldn’t visit the exhibition. Luckily my Australian friends and the artists that I have interviewed always keep me updated.
Some time ago I got a mail from artist Danius Kesminas, who told me about his new project with Slave Pianos for Melbourne Now, called Gamelan sisters (Sedulur gamelan). I posted some images, which gives you the feeling of this evocative machinery. On Slave Pianos’ website I find more information about it:
“Sedulur Gamelan (Gamelan Sisters) consists of two interlocking wooden structures that reconfigure elements of traditional Javanese architecture through the De Stijl philosophical principles of neoplasticism to create an abstraction of an 18th century double grand piano.
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Three years ago Isabella Tirelli, artist and professor at the Art Academy in Rome started a video project called “Dialogo con l’artista”.
The project was based on collective interviews to artists in their studio and was realized under the direction of videomaker Leonardo Settimelli.
Tirelli gathered students and ex students from the Art Academy – I fell into the latter category – and we visited the studios of the most amazing artists in Rome.
The most notable visit for me was certainly the one to Luigi Ontani’s studio in Piazza Popolo.
I wrote about Luigi Ontani work before (for this blog, Artribune and I-Magazine Bali) and I obviously love his art. Who doesn’t afterall?
Once I was in Naples and, going down the Museo Madre’s stairs, I saw Ontani around the corner. I was wearing his typical blue silk suit and there were two guys literally throwing at his feet whispering:”Maestro… maestro…”. Even if Ontani’s physical presence is enough inspire devotion among many, the artist himself is much more down-to-earth than his public persona.
I recently visited the studio of artist Alessandro Cannistrà in San Lorenzo.
It consisted in a white, neat room, pretty bare, except for some books, stucked in an arch in the wall over the door, and a black sofa with some black hats on it.
“This is an original gaucho hat.” he said grabbing a wide-brimmed leather hat on top of the stack “I bought it in Argentina, during my artist residency in Buenos Aires”.
Alessandro has travelled quite a bit lately and he recently relocated in Rome. His work keep on travelling internationally through exhibition and fairs, that’s why his studio was almost empty at the moment.
My attention was attracted by some 3D reconstructions that were pinpointed on the wall.
“Is that what are you working on at the moment?” I asked
Alessandro explained me that he was working on these pyramids for his new solo exhibition at Toselli Gallery, in Milan, curated by Luca Tomìo. The title was “Oggetto di Pensiero”, namely “Object of thinking”, and will open on March 28.
Milan is a strange city. It’s not like Rome, where beauty is blatant and majestic.
Milan is more discreet, its beauties are hidden and only locals and curious people living there for a long time are aware of them.
Sometimes it feels like falling down the rabbit hole. What I mean is that you wouldn’t expect to find conceptual art, Dan Flavin to be precise, in a quiet suburbia at the end of the green line, Abbiategrasso (which in an English translation sounds like “Be fat”).
This year I will be busy finalizing my Indonesian book project and organizing the material from the Melbourne reportage.
In the meantime I can’t help reading articles about contemporary art in countries that I would like to visit.
That’s why I decided to start this column on my blog, gathering links and images for hypotetical art reportages in the future. You never know!
I want to start with Azerbaijan. Its pavillion already catch my attention during the last Venice Biennale. If you’re interesting in knowing more about contemporary art in this country, here a digest of links:
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Robberto is a talented emerging Italian artist that I have been not only following but also collecting.
I recently wrote the text for his exhibition Fake (Skin), now on at Madhood Temporary in Los Angeles. I posted it below along with some pictures that Robberto sent me as a preview.
FAKE (SKIN)
For his first solo show in the United States, Robberto is presenting a new series of work realized during his stay in Los Angeles.
His research starts from a linguistic observation around the meaning of the word buck, that is used for call “dollars ”
The artist decided to go deeper into this duality and study the etymology of this expression, finding out that buck is the abbreviation of buckskin, a common medium of exchange in trading between the natives and the Europeans.
There are documents from 1748 saying “Every cask of Whiskey shall be sold to you [Indians] for 5 Bucks.” The transition from buckskin to dollars seems only natural.
This finding leads the artist to think about the perception of wildlife and nature in the city of Los Angeles.
He reached the conclusion that the nature in town, is just a fake perception of the real natural environment and that the trees, the water and the animals have just been pushed in 150 years, a really short time, to cohabit together with 20 millions of peoples, this created in him a feeling of displacement.
The Indonesian magazine I Magazine Bali has just published my review of the Bali Bulè exhibition at Museo Archeologico in Naples, featuring artists Bickerton, Ontani and Sciascia.
Here the link to the magazine website
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If you think that in the eighties in Italy there were just Loredana Bertè, Donatella Rettore and the Diaframma to dress weirdly, you are wrong. The eighties in Italy were truly rad. (If you are not Italian there are good chances you never hear of Loredana Bertè, Donatella Rettore and especially the Diaframma).
Anyways, if you have any doubt about the radness of the eighties in Italy, you should check st. foto libreria galleria, ironically just two steps away from the Vatican. You will be surprised to know that all the people looking at you from the pictures on the wall were actually everyday roman people, except that by night they transformed into dark eighties rockers.
The photographic work of Dino Ignani is anthropological. The portraits are almost segnaletic pictures, with a neutral background and no particular choice of light or pose.
He was “archiving” the underground dark scene of Rome. All these young people were photographed in roman discos and they dressed up for the occasion.
“It was startling to see all these people coming at the opening of the exhibition” said curator Paola Paleari ” you can tell that there were the same people of the pictures, but they look cleaned up from that dark look and even their attitude was different”.
It was an interesting choice from the st gallery to cover this less-known period of the Italian recent history, focusing on that particular community. For some it would be nostalgia, for some others even inspirational. Eighties are back.
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The Australian magazine Trouble has just published the interview I had in Perth with artist Tarryn Gill. The interview is part of my reportage about the Perth Art Scene.
Here the link to the interview
Here the link to the online version of the magazine
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I met Marco Cassani in Bali during my reportage about contemporary art in Indonesia. What supposed to be an interview has become a lively chat about Marco’s art, hallucinogenic experiences and, of course, Bali. A month ago he sent me this mail about his new work that is going to be exhibit at “Imagining Indonesia, Tribute to S.Sudjojono” on the 23rd of November at Tonyraka Gallery in Bali:
Dear Naima,
How are you?
I am sending you the picture of my new work for the group exhibition
Tribute to Sudjojono at Tonyraka gallery on November, 23rd.
The work, entitled ‘CHANCE Project 2, Tribute to S. Sudjojono’, consists in:
1) a sculptor that represents the Sudjojono head (cement, 140 x 90 x 90 cm)
2) a box (wood, 120 x 70 x 45 cm) with a text (“This sculpture is designed
for people to interact with. The audience is free to do whatever they
want, with or without the tools provided. This is part of an interactive
event between art and its audience. The result of this encounter is a
reflection of the behaviour of the people. As Sudjojono stated Еarth of
Indonesia should reflect the character of the land and its people.”)
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
