“Before you start painting, you’re a person in flux, multi-dimensional and colourful. You decide what characteristics you want to embody as a painter prior to entering the studio each day, ” says Ruben Pang from his studio in Sardinia, Italy.
I have interviewed the artist for Plural Art Mag for his new online solo show at Primo Marella Gallery.
Here is the link to the interview
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I have just started a new series for the webmagazine CoBo about Indonesian contemporary painters. The first installment is Murni, recently celebrated in the show Merayakan Murni at Ketemu Project Space and Sudakara Art Space in Bali.
Here is the link to the article
The Australian webmagazine RAVEN has just published my interview with Melbourne artist Sam Leach. I met Sam at Palazzo Bembo, in Venice, and we talked about the artist’s work in Personal Structures, a collateral exhibition to the Venice Biennale.
Here’s the link to the article
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My interview with Melbourne-based Kiwi painter Jake Walker has just been published on Trouble Magazine. The interview is part of my reportage about artists in Melbourne.
Here the link to the interview
Here the link to the online version of the magazine
The Australian art magazine Trouble has just published the interview I had in Melbourne with painter Emily Ferretti. 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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I recently interviewed the artist Twoone (Hiroyasu Tsuri) in his studio in Collingwood.
The studio was quite empty because he had brought all the paintings at the Backwoods gallery, for his upcoming solo show “Define Nothing”.
Twoone’s Japanese background is evident in his paintings’ balanced composition. His mystical-looking characters with animal heads, realized in his unique style, are his trademark in the Melbournian thriving street art culture.
The exhibition has been a success. I took some pictures of the Twoone’s artworks in the gallery, and then I followed him in a street nearby where he was painting a wall.
Oky Rey Montha is an interesting pop-surrealist artist from Indonesia.
I already wrote a post about one of his painting “Dark Venice” here.
Oky just had a big solo show in the Galeri Canna in Jakarta. The title of the exhibition “Brigitta Queen” is referred to his new character, a mysterious girl from Moscow with her face constantly hidden behind a mask.
Here you are a gallery of photographs from the exhibition that can give you an idea of Oky Rey Montha’s visionary world:
Robberto is a young artist based in Rome, native of Sardinia. I met him at the Pastificio Cerere, in Rome, and I soon find out that he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti as well. He gave me this painting of Nietzsche – charcoal and chalk on wood – as gift. The back of the wood is slate, so the artwork is super-heavy. I needed some help to carry the artwork home.
Nietzsche is my favourite philosopher, his writing is incredibly powerful. He said “I’m dynamite” long before the AC/DC.
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I just come back from Perth, Western Australia. I was there for a reportage about the local contemporary art scene.
Before leaving I wrote this list to clarify my own ideas and to see what I learnt from my mistakes.
Maybe someone else could find it useful too.
“To be an art reporter is fun, but if you don’t plan everything in the details it can be very stressing.
If you are lucky someone, maybe the magazine you collaborate with, has sent you in foreign city or country to do an amazing five pages reportage about the local art scene. If you are extra lucky maybe your magazine would be also open to pay you for that.
But you know, even Oriana Fallaci and Martha Gellhorn would have an hard time to find good assignment nowadays.
Times are tougher and tougher, especially in the field of contemporary art.
If you’re an enterprising free lance journalist or art critic you can probably decide to make a project of your own and try to sell it later to magazines and newspaper. Maybe you can even make a book out of it.
Anyways remember to plan every step in advance.
1. Focus your research
The first thing you have to do is to focus your research. Maybe you are interested just in the painting scene of that city, or just in the hipster scene, or the influence of craft on contemporary art.
Or maybe you want to have a general picture, not very specific but quite thorough.
This second kind of macro reportage is the one I personally like the most. However my tips are valid also if you are conducting a more specific research.
2. Make a previous research on the city
Have a quick look of what other people already wrote about the art scene. Don’t exaggerate, it’s better to not build preconceptions based on what other people thinks. The best thing to do is read a novel or two set in the city you are going to visit. Have a look at a very general travel guide that gives you neutral information, like Lonely Planet or something like it.
If you find some catalogues of exhibition about artists from the city that you are going to visit, try to have a look at it.
If you know someone in your own city that has a link with the place you are going to visit, talk with them, either informally or with an interview.
If these people have a link to the art world is better, but don’t undervalue the impressions of friends or acquaintances disconnected from the scene.
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.
I just moved to Melbourne and, of course, before even having a place to call home, I visited the National Gallery of Victoria.
I was particularly keen to see the exhibition “Rally: Contemporary Indonesian Art”, featuring Jompet Kuswidananto and Eko Nugroho.
Actually, the choice of just two artists to represent Indonesian art is interesting.
I’ve found the show very useful for my researches, as the Australian perception of what contemporary art in Indonesia is.
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
