Naima Morelli

Archive
Tag "contemporary art"

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I recently visited the studio of the Australian artist Mark Hilton in Melbourne.
He just moved from his old studio in Fitzroy to a new one in Abbotsford, so unfortunately he did’t have many past works to show me.
Anyways the one he was currently working on was complex enough to monopolize my attention.

The project is a continuation of  “Hunting Where The Ducks Are”, a series of high reliefs depicting the darkest issues of contemporary society.
Every piece was shaped like a letter. In the end they will form the sentence:”Don’t Worry”.
In this work there is a striking contrast between appearance and truth, something in which Mark has always been interested.
Some of the scenes represented on the high reliefs are inspired to current affairs, like often happen in the previous production of the artist, other ones are drawn from the artist’s personal memories. There is no narrative connection between the pieces, although we can find a train as recurrent element.

The aesthetic look of the artwork is inspired by the decoration of the doors of the Duomo in Milan, where the artists had a residency in 2007.

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cover

My interview with artist Bindi Cole is the cover story of the Australian magazine Trouble.
The interview is part of my research about contemporary art in Melbourne.

You can read the magazine online at this link

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This is a short essay about the Italian photographer Sara Magni that I wrote some time ago for the catalogue of “Fuori 5”, an exhibition at Galleria Gallerati, Rome:

“Waking up from a nightmare of desolation, discovering to be frightening and completely alone.
Founding themselves in a cruel and frozen night, in a pasolinian lawn. When the concrete buildings are the background, you suddenly realize that your room’s walls are just a fleeting shelter. Is it all just in our own mind, or is it actually a torched dream?

The series “Doppio Incubo” (Double Nightmare) was realized for the Premio Cairo at the Permanente in Milan. In this work the author explores the theme of man’s estrangement in the city. Sara Magni ventures in the human psyche, taking snapshots directly from the subconscious. She enacts characters that seems out of context, but at the same time she forced us to deal with them. No one has the voice to cry his longing for an “elsewhere”, we can read in his photos a frozen shadow of reality. Her research is displaced in the suburbs and non-places loaded with a reflection or anxiety, a sort of alienation in between Antonioni and David Lynch.

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rally

The Italian web magazine Art a Part of Cult(ure) just published my review on the exhibition “Rally – Contemporary Indonesian Art” at the National Gallery of Victoria.  The interview is part of my reportage about Indonesian Contemporary Art.

Here you are the link to the review

Here you are the link to the English translation of the review

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bee

The international magazine Women in the City just published my interview with the Taiwanese artist and busker Lin Bee Dwo.  The interview is part of my research about the Melbourne art scene.

Here you are the link to the interview

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04

My understanding of Melbourne so far it that everything is about the lanes. The graffiti, the social life, the art exhibitions.
A week ago I was searching for this Trink Tank gallery and, guess what, I ended up in a blind alley. In a blind lane to be precise.

I asked a bunch of people in front of a bar if they know where this Trink Tank gallery was.
A guy with a chef hat smirked:”You just passed it. It’s there!” and he  guided me without fail to a shrine in the wall.
Inside the small shrine, like a Neapolitan Madonna, there was Marc Standing’s artwork “The Duchess Of Avon”.
I read the press release that you could take off from a stack of papers. Apparently the shape of the statuette was from a 1970s Avon perfume bottle, which ironically contained Sweet Honesty perfume: “Her tribal painted face is a stark contrast to her Eurocentric bridal ensemble. Coloured thread emanates from her bouquet, enfolding her in an almost suffocating embrace. However, her stoic stance is one of pride and reverence.'” stated the press release.

“So… that’s it!”
“Yeeee!” said proudly the guy “This is the gallery!”

Australia. You can have huge streets, kilometers of nothing just outside the city, the broadest spaces ever and at the same time, in a shady lane in Melbourne, the Trink Tank gallery, probably the one of the world’s smallest gallery.

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bigbamboo1

Within few months I’ve appreciated two artworks that look similar but that are very different in the concept.
The first one is at MACRO Testaccio, Rome, Italy and it’s called Big Bambù, by the American artists Mike e Doug Starn.
The second is site-specific installation covering the pavillion of ART/JOG12, Yogyakarta, Indonesia and it’s by the Indonesian artist Joko Dwi Avianto.

Enjoy the photogallery:

bigbamboo

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Dysfunctional Camouflage right lo res

I was ready to go to the beach, but then I came to know about this “South Yarra Opening Day” from the mother of my boyfriend, who invited me to the event on Facebook.
Actually the mother of my boyfriend, at sixty seems to have a life much more cool than me, in my twenties. So, if my boyfriend’s mother suggested me to go to the South Yarra Opening Day, I should go.
I unpacked my beach stuff and I made up my mind for an afternoon of contemporary art.

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More pulp than Tarantino, more heavy metal than Judas Priest, more camouflage than a ARH Tiger helicopter. Here you are Punkasila.

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artjog1

artjog2

Art Monthly Australia published my review of  the art fair ART/JOG12 with the title “Montmartre of the east” in the Summer Issue 2012/2013.

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In October I went to Sicily for the first time and I didn’t miss the opportunity to visit the stunning Palermo.
I had two wonderful guides to show me around, Maria Rita Mastropaolo, writer for the web magazine Prisky (link), and Ciro Cangialosi, an incredible comic books artist (link).
We visited Palazzo Riso, an ancient building turned into Contemporary Art Museum, which displayed works by the most important contemporary Sicilian artist, like Carla Accardi, Pietro Consagra, Salvo, Antonio Sanfilippo, Emilio Isgro’ and also younger Sicilian artists such as Croce Taravella, Alessandro Bazan and Laboratorio Saccardi.

There was a Boltanski’s exhibition going on that was quite impressive. It was related to memory and in some way to a profound sensation of human tragedy, like most  of his work. The clothes hanging from the wall and surrounded by lights seemed to be presences that were no more into the body, but they were flowing around what was left of the body itself. 

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sediapostit

The calm after the storm.
After escaping the Post-it Pandemonium, I moved to Parioli, Rome.
Before that I lived in Piazza Mancini, surrounded by post its that scream to be turned into book chapters all day long, and sometimes even in the night. In my new writing location I finally managed to organize all the information so i could archive the post its. I put a band to each stack divided by subject.
Of course, I’m still writing other post-its but now that the structure is done I’m doing just small bunches of them on few sheets and I’m adding the information time by time.
My book about Contemporary Art in Indonesia is shaping up.

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