When we turn our thoughts to contemporary art from Egypt, the first images that come to mind are political graffiti and militant posters. Our idea of Egyptian art is attached strongly to concepts such as uprising, revolution and the Arab Spring. In this piece for the webmagazine Middle East Monitor I look at how the upcoming Something Else Off Biennale Cairo is changing those labels and refreshing the Cairo art scene.
Here’s the link to the article
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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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The Australian webmagazine RAVEN has just published my interview with Melbourne artist Penny Byrne. I met Penny at Palazzo Franchetti, in Venice, and we talked about the artist’s work in Glasstress, an official Biennale satellite exhibition.
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Uk/Aussie webmagazine ArtsHub has just published my article “Australia’s biggest year at Venice” about the Australian presence at the Venice Biennale 2015 – which is unprecedented in terms of numbers and critical success. It was great to see these talented artists exhibit in the one of the world’s most prestigious events and have a chat with them over coffee… or ice cream.
Here’s the link to the article
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I’m back home after five days in Venice for the 56th Biennale di Venezia, reporting the event for ArtsHub and realizing interviews for Art a Part of Cult(ure). I had a great time, meet with extraordinary people and lost myself in the maze of narrow streets. Venice is so beautiful it cannot be. Between the pavilions, the “All the World’s Futures” show and the collateral exhibitions, the Biennale was overwhelming. So much great work around you couldn’t believe! I didn’t nearly get to see everything I wanted to see. Just like everyone, at the end of this tour de force I had my feet completely broken and I laid sick in bed for a couple of days. But even then, the spirit was high and I now I feel incredibly energized, happy and ready to take on the world! While you’ll see my articles about the Biennale coming out in the next few days (my personal selection for ArtsHub, the Indonesian pavilion on the Manifesto and the Australians in Venice are already out) here’s the visual counterpoint.
Uk/Aussie webmagazine ArtsHub has just published my highlights from the 56th Venice Biennale. With so much good work around and so many interesting shows it has been difficult to narrow down my selection to ten… but here we go!
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My article on Voyage Trokomod, Heri Dono’s work for the Venice Biennale, has just been published on Alias – the special edition of the Italian newspaper Il Manifesto – with the title “Between horse and Komodo dragon – the bestiary between east and west”. It is a great honour for me to contribute to Il Manifesto, which had such an important history! If you live in Italy I recommend you to grab a copy of Alias in the newsstands; this edition is all about the Biennale. I’ll be off to Venice next week and look forward to meet Heri and the curators from the Indonesian Pavilion in Venice.
Here’s the link to the online version of the article
For a thorough introduction to Indonesian contemporary art, have a look at my book (in Italian). Find more about it here.
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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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
Published! Interview with Reko Rennie on Global Comment
My interview with Australian artist Reko Rennie has just been published on the webmagazine Global Comment with the title “Aboriginal Royalty at the Venice Biennale: Interview with artist Reko Rennie”. This interview is part part of my research about artists in Melbourne.
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