The Italian web magazine Art a Part of Cult(ure) has just published the interview I had in Rome with artist Benjamin Skepper with the title “Benjamin Skepper, l’olandese tra Australia, Tokio, Russia, resto del mondo e bellezza. L’intervista”. The interview is part of my reportage about artists in Melbourne.
Here the link to the interview
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For the “Nothing happened since yesterday – Due Artisti da Melbourne” exhibition, I organized a talk at Accademia di Belle Arti Roma – aka Rome’s Art Academy – with the two exhibiting artists.
The talk was hosted by Prof. Isabella Tirelli and was meant to fuel a discussion with the students about the path of artists after art school. I thought that the experience of Kenny Pittock and Georgina Lee could have been interesting for the students. To start as emerging artist in Melbourne is certainly easier in Rome, thanks also to a very tight community and the presence of artist-run space. I hoped that by comparing the Australian art system to the Italian one, the students could have been inspired and come with new ideas for their own art environment.
I started the talk by introducing the Australian context and my research on the Melbourne art scene. Then Kenny and Georgina went on talking about their own work.
I’m happy about the outcome of the talk. Some students asked about the conceptual process of making work, some others inquired about how an Italian artist could start exhibiting in Australia. Georgina replied very clearly to all the questions and Kenny made even the more impassible students laugh. A student called Francesco even made a drawing of Georgina and Kenny and gave to them as a gift!
I feel like the curator’s job is a little like Charles Xavier’s at times. After all both the curator and Prof. Xavier go around the world gathering mutants with superpowers – or artists in my case. My team for the “Nothing’s has happened since Yesterday” exhibition is sure smaller than a Marvel one but by no means less powerful.
One day, surfing on the internet, I stumbled upon a blog which reviewed exhibitions in Australia. It was when I was researching about the art scene in Melbourne, so I send a mail to the website asking for an interview with one of the two authors. At table of a cafe, waiting to be interviewed, sat a petite girl with resolute manners, nervous nostrils and round glasses. She was called Georgina Lee and chatting with her I found out that she was not only an arts writer, but also an artist.
Few weeks later I visited the TCB art space with a friend, and we were greeted by a gallery sitter with curly dusty hair and a worn out jumper. “I’ll give you guys a tour”, he mumbled and he started to list the names of the artists exhibiting, gesticulating with the hands in his jumper’s front pocket. One sculpture hanged on the wall looked like something that I had seen in exhibition at the Perth Centre for Contemporary Art a short time before. “Oh… that’s my work”, he said quickly and shyly. That’s how I met Kenny Pittock.
“Nothing’s happened since Yesterday – Due artisti da Melbourne” is going to open tomorrow at Galleria 291est in Rome and we are super-excited. These days have been pretty busy for exhibiting artists Georgina Lee and Kenny Pittock; I dragged them to gallery and vernissage all over Rome, yesterday we had a talk at the Art Academy (pics soon on this blog) and most importantly they have installed their work in the gallery. On the second day both artists showed up at Galleria 291est sporting “I love Rome” t-shirts. Kenny was so in love with his t-shirt to the point that he refused to change it even for the ultra-posh opening in Villa Medici, the French Academy. That’s the best part of being an artist after all, you can wear whatever the hell you want and no one can tell you anything!
The whole setting-up process has been filmed by Mauro Piccinini of Hour Interview, a great video series that catches snippets of artists’ working day. I’m super curious to see the result! If you are in Rome in these days, come visit us for the opening tomorrow!
Giovedì 29 maggio ore 15
incontro pre-mostra con gli artisti Kenny Pittock e Georgina Lee
incontro moderato da Isabella Tirelli e Naima Morelli
Thursday May 29 , 3 pm
pre-exhibition talk with artists Kenny Pittock e Georgina Lee
talk moderated by Isabella Tirelli and Naima Morelli
Accademia di Belle Arti
Roma via ripetta 222 Aula 207
Giovedì pomeriggio all’Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma si terrà il talk degli artisti australiani Kenny Pittock e Georgina Lee. La discussione, che coinvolgerà anche gli studenti, verterà sulle peculiarità del sistema dell’arte australiano rispetto a quello italiano e sul percorso artistico degli artisti emergenti in entrambi i paesi.
Nel corso dell’incontro gli artisti discuteranno la propria pratica artistica in vista dell’imminente mostra alla Galleria 291est, curata da me nell’ambito della rassegna Common Place. Inoltre, codiuvata dalla Prof. Isabella Tirelli, fornirò una breve introduzione del contesto australiano basandomi sulla mia ricerca condotta a Melbourne nel corso del 2013.
A talk by artists Kenny Pittock and Georgina Lee will be held at Rome’s Art Academy on Thursday afternoon. The discussion with the students will focus on the peculiarities of the Australian art system compared to the Italian one and on the emerging artists’ path in both countries. The artists will also talk about their work for their upcoming exhibition at Galleria 291est, Rome, curated by me for the Common Place series. Together with lecturer Prof. Isabella Tirelli, I will also give an introduction to the Australian context based on my research on the Melbourne art scene.
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After visiting Dario Carratta’s pen-drawings exhibition at Galleria 291est in Rome, I was totally curious to see his paintings. On the way to his studio in Conca D’Oro, a north-east suburb of Rome, I was wondering where his twisted world of dingy nightclubs, pulped faces and blue hair in the wind came from. I won’t say I was expecting to find corpses and carnivorous plants in Dario’s studio, but I was actually pretty surprised to hear that the artists was so sensitive to bad vibes he wouldn’t even see the news. He explained me that art for him was an outlet to negative emotions that would otherwise overwhelm him. That’s why he needed to paint every day and he couldn’t picture himself not doing it.
The paintings in flesh looked much more violent and rougher than what I could observe from the photos, but for this very reason even more exciting and fascinating.
I have always been obsessed with plans for the day and routines. At the same time I know that I can’t stick to a particular routine for more than one month. That’s mainly because I had a double-base this year, Rome and Sorrento, so I need to continuously review my routine plan.
In Rome it’s harder to have a routine, since there are things to do all the time and life is quite hectic and unpredictable.
On the other hand, when I’m in Sorrento, I get back to my antisocial behaviour, and it’s much easier to stick to a routine and be productive. I have been away from Rome for almost a month now, so I had all the time I needed to establish a routine that really works for me and makes me happy. Here how it went so far:
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.
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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“The Act of Killing” is the kind of movie that shuts you up for at least fifteen minutes after the credits. It makes you so uncomfortable that you can just chatter about irrelevant stuff with your friends out of the cinema.
Then, on the tram the way home, you suddenly burst in wordiness.
What happened is that “The Act of Killing” has finally been screened in Italian cinemas.
I went to see it the other day with a group of friends at the “Cinema Aquila”, in Pigneto, Rome.
The Act of Killing is an unconventional documentary film directed by Joshua Oppenheimer.
The film deals with the systematic slaughter of real or supposed communists in the aftermath of a failed coup in 1965 that led to General Suharto assuming power.
The director was not interested in gave a full picture of the historical events though. He didn’t even mention Suharto once.
The documentary revolves instead around the character of Anwar Congo, a leader of paramilitary organisation Pancasila Youth, whose job was to kill prisoners.
Because the historical picture was only hinted, I wouldn’t say it is a movie specifically about Indonesia’s ’65.
I would rather say it’s a movie about “the act of killing” itself, the psychology of the killer and the banality of evil.
Obviously openings are not for art appreciation. Openings are for networking, for the glamour of being there, for “bella figura” and so on.
Sometimes though, if you talk with a friend about the opening of the night before, she may happen to mention the art.
Sometimes she would even have an opinion about it. Maybe she went there, she wouldn’t meet anyone she knows already, everyone was grumpy and unfriendly, no buffet even! (so rude).
What was left was to pay attention to the art.
Well, that’s not certainly the case of the recent opening at Volume! Foundation in Rome.
Forget about people being there reporting you about the art. In the opening aftermath the only comment you could collect was: “There were so many people.”
I mean, it was Kounellis opening we are talking about, not a light weight.
You certainly know who Kounellis is, but maybe I can repeat it for the guys who failed in the contemporary art test.
You may argue Kounellis’ worship is mainly in Italy, but then I remind you that his work is exhibited all over the world from Minnesota to Paris.
So, to keep it short, Kounellis is a talented Greek guy who decided to subscribe the art academy in Rome when it was still reputable. (There are still tons of people lured to the art academy in Rome from far countries, and I really feel bad for them).
1960 is the date of Kounellis’ first exhibition at Galleria La Tartaruga in Rome, and in the following years he contributed to the emergence of Arte Povera.
Kounellis, according to the principles of Arte Povera, started using materials from everyday life, animals, fire, bed, stones, iron in his artwork.
He also did some fun stuff artists use to do in Rome in the sixties, like unleash twelve horses in the gallery L’Attico. Just like that, for the sake of art.
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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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
