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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Coming back from Australia, I decided to see the Venice Biennale before it ends.
Maybe it was not the greatest Biennale ever, but there are some artworks worth talking about. Here you are, my personal list of favourites:
I didn’t know about this incredible Brazilian artist before. Apparently he spent fifty years confined to the attic of a psychiatric institution because he started telling people about his visions. In the institution he started making art not with the idea of becoming an artist, but for his own eternal salvation. His work was first shown at the Venice Biennale in 1995 and now he is exhibiting again at the Arsenal.
I have always been attracted by work that relates with paganism, religion and folk tradition. His clusters of waste material, paper, wood and rags are just beautiful. His installations look like toys or fetishes.
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.
In the chaos of an art fair is usually quite difficult to find some art work that attracts you straightaway. So was at the Roma Road to Contemporary Art Fair at MACRO Testaccio.
Actually, there was an exception.
Coming from Sorrento, a picturesque town near Naples, I was quite influenced by all the traditions, all the sort of stuff coming from people. The “Popolo”.
I never stop questioning about it. What is the Popolo? Does the Popolo really exist nowadays? What are the features of the Popolo?
From Jorge Amado to Pasolini, I enjoy the subject, that eventually became the topic of my thesis at the Academy of Fine Arts.
There’s one thing that a particularly like about the Popolo. It is how they mix the religion and the sacred with everyday life and how they show it through the objects.
Angelo Formica, the exception in the art fair I was talking about, takes this concept to the extreme with his artworks.
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
