First published article for 2017 – and what better way to kick off the year than an interview with Montreal-based Indonesian artist Ari Bayuaji – for the webmagazine CoBo!
Here’s the link to the interview
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“I never decide in advance why I want to talk about a subject; it just arises from the context. The wall in particular is a symbol that speaks to me strongly,” says Tunisian-Russian artist Nadia Kaabi-Linke, to explain her new work at Dallas Contemporary gallery. “For me, walls mean separation. But walls are also skins that say something about a city and the people who live there in hidden ways,” she observes. “I have always been interested in revealing the invisible.”
Nadia Kaabi-Linke was born in Tunis in 1978 to a Russian mother and Tunisian father, she studied at the University of Fine Arts in Tunis before receiving a PhD from La Sorbonne in Paris. Her installations, objects and pictorial works are embedded in urban contexts, intertwined with memory and geographically and politically constructed identities. She currently has a solo show, called “Walk the Line”, at Dallas Contemporary in Texas, USA, from September 20 until December 21. I have interviewed Nadia for Middle East Monitor , asking her about her personal path through art, the Tunisian contemporary art scene and the theme of migration in her work.
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I have just came back from two weeks in Paris. It has been an incredible time. I was there for the Art Paris Art Fair and the exhibition Secret Archipelago at the Palais De Tokyo – yet again on a reporting mission for Art a Part of Cult(ure), the Italian magazine I write for. My boss at Art a Part is the M to my Bond, the Charlie to my Angels, the Xavier to my X-Men, well, you get my drift! In Paris I’ve met with a number of interesting people and had chats with artists I wanted to talk to from a long time, including Eddie Hara and Richard Streitmatter-Tran.
The first week has been a whirlwind of interviews. I already knew what it means to do three interviews in a day – I did it before, and it was crazy! But five interviews in a day? That’s don’t-try-this-at-home insane! Luckily enough, I generally feel energized by working under pressure. Plus, all the artists and gallerists I talked with have been super nice. I can’t wait to share their interviews with you! In this situation it also helped to have the most amazing sidekick a journalist can ever had, a gorgeous Sorrentinian gal called Marta, who also hosted me in Paris. We jumped from metro to metro chatting endlessly about everything from Catilina (ancient republican Rome anyone?) to haircuts, all that while chewing a pan au chocolat (aux amandes, aux pistaches…) and rushing to the next interview.
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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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