A selection of 6 interesting artworks exhibited at Los Angeles Contemporary this weekend.
Al Freeman Invoice (yellow), 2013 Oil on slate on shelf 30.5 × 22.9 cm Brand New Gallery, Milan
Tomory Dodge New West Loves Old West, 2014 Oil on canvas 182.9 × 213.4 cm ACME.
Ry Rocklen Wrinkle FX, 2015 PRAZ-DELAVALLADE, Paris
Jugoslav Mitevski Untitled (3), 2014 Spray paint on pigmented concrete and spray painted concrete 40.6 × 33 cm Presented by Ana Cristea Gallery, New York
Jan Albers thrEEhundrEdtwEntytwOupanddOwnmOrningglOry, 2013 Spray paint and polystyrene on wood 240 × 150 × 13 cm 1301PE, Los Angeles
Channing Hansen ALGO 54 1.1, 2014 Blue Faced Leicester, bamboo, Coopworth, ecru Blue Faced Leicester, ecru Coopworth, ecru Romeldale, Tunis,Tussah silk, and Wensleydale fibers; holographic polymers; cedar 144.8 × 162.6 × 0.6 cm Marc Selwyn Fine Art
Today’s adventure has taken me and Federica to the biggest European Island in a lake: Monte Isola. The Island is not only renowned for its touristic appeal but also for the net-making industry. The islanders of Monte Isola in particular are famous for their historic skill at making fishing nets; now they also make other net items like tennis and volleyball nets and hammocks. A relevant destination for textile art then, spend the day visiting laboratories and listening to enchanting stories. A relevant destination for contemporary art too: Christo next big environmental installation will take place over there, connecting the Island with land through a colorful bridge.
These pics were taken by me:
And these are vintage photographs describing the culture of net-making in the 40’s and 60’s:
Sarteri schemochrome, linen and Egyptian cotton overpainted threads. Inspired by the Hamaguri Gate Rebellion that took place on August 20, 1864, at the Imperial Palace in Kyoto.
In these days of #JesuisCharlie western world rediscovered itself unite against barbarities. An alleged culture clash that burns since centuries. Fundamentals of traditional religions are blocking their evolutions in a future society of equality, unity, comprehension and love. Fear, terrorism are just karmic side-effects of shortsightedness. It’s not the matter of a religion against the other, it’s blind rationality from one part and blind faith from the other.
Selon Hegel, « L’intérêt particulier de la passion est donc inséparable de l’affirmation active de l’universel… Ce n’est pas l’Idée qui s’expose au conflit, au combat et au danger; elle se tient en arrière hors de toute attaque et de tout dommage et envoie au combat la passion pour s’y consumer. On peut appeler ruse de la raison le fait qu’elle laisser agir à sa place les passions, en sorte que c’est seulement le moyen par lequel elle parvient à l’existence qui éprouve des pertes et subit des dommages. »
In October 2014 I got the chance to jump again to my second home away from home, the beautiful and bustling Shanghai. This time I enjoyed myself with an unexpected change of plan and painted a non commissioned mural over the infamous Moganshan Lu with some old and new friends that were bombing graffiti. Painting action of the piece follows.
Shanghai keeps its bittersweet touch as unpredictable urban playground.
By the way I was there for the young – though already interesting – Fashion Week and had great time hanging around with special friends. Creative communities spread worldwide and it was great to meet up!
Getting to China is always about experiencing some of my favorite cuisines.
And that old taste the french concession preserved.
Also found time to check the brand new Power Station of Art latest contemporary art museum of Shanghai placed in the decadent Expo 2010 site, and was already that time you catch a crazy taxi starring at a sunset over the Metropolis heading to Pudong Airport.
Among 2014 projects that became reality one rediscovered me in an intimate form. I was asked by the Milan City Council and the City’s energy public company to project color interventions that were realized with special paintings and coatings, in strategical spots of the urban area. Streets of Milan as any Italian city, town or village are permeated by art, architecture, culture: you literally breath energies of the glorious past mixing them with contemporary life’s flow. A special intervention has been this one, on the right corner of the prestigious Teatro La Scala. Electric boxes are visual abandoned elements of any Italian urban landscape. Designing a new attire for them makes me feel like taking care of something that is not mine but collective. Color and structures open a visual channel that is capable of engaging the environment and the outsiders who experience it in transition. It feels good when you spot tourists taking pics to what was only a dirt service box, children also get impressed by colors and few bright souls try even to read a message in the color scheme. I’m going to post other realized interventions soon.
The view on the box as you exit from Teatro La Scala and turn on the left.
The box on the right with a group of Chinese tourists just dropped off a bus at 6:00 in the morning trying to experience a desert center of Milan, failing in their mission.
The box as it looked like before the intervention.
The color scheme project, color where selected researching the history of the Theater and its urban surroundings.
Close up of the painted box and functional service tag.
Only today I find the time to review my notes about artworks exhibited at Art Basel Miami this last December. These are the selected 10. Beginning with the masterpiece “Nocturne Tropicale II, 2014″ by Robert Kelly showed at San Francisco based John Berggruen Gallery stand.
POUL GERNES – Series with black and white as recurring colours, 1965
enamel paint on masonite
Galleri Bo Bjerggaard, Copenhagen V
GABRIEL DE LA MORA – 333,700 (diptych), 2014
13,346 struck sides of 6,673 boxes of 333,700 burnt matches mounted on acid-free cardboard
Galería OMR
EDUARDO TERRAZAS – 14.1, 1987
rules of wood mounted on a table of wood, Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City
SHINRO OHTAKE – Time Memory 24, 2013
acrylic, pencil, printed matter, cellophane tape, paper and brown paper
Take Ninagawa, Tokyo
RICHARD SERRA – Level V, 2013
1 color etching
Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles
LOTTY ROSENFELD – El Tololo. Observatorio Astronómico, 1984
1 vintage photograph
Galería Visor, Valencia
MARIO SCHIFANO – Untitled, 1963
enamel on paper laid on canvas
Magazzino, Rome
ALBRECHT SCHNIDER – Untitled, 2008
acrylic spray color on paper
Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin
JUAN USLÉ – Soñe Que Revelabas (Brahmaputra), 2014
vinyl, dispersion and dry pigment on canvas
Cheim & Read, New York
In December 2014 I had the chance to travel back to Canary Islands for a mural project using last year color study about environmental colors on the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. Selected colors were iron rich oxidized red bole, gem-quality olivine, black lava.
The occasion was great to visit the Islands and take inspiration for textiles and creativity. Here some backstage pictures.
Bridget Riley is an abstract painter who came to prominence in the American Op Art movement of the 1960s, after her inclusion in the 1965 exhibition “The Responsive Eye” at The Museum of Modern Art. There, her black-and-white paintings—which created illusions of movement—were shown alongside works by Victor Vasarely, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Frank Stella, and Ellsworth Kelly, among others. In the late ’60s, she introduced color into her work and went on to win the Prize for Painting at the 1968 Venice Biennale. Since then her work has unfolded through numerous groups and series that engage the viewers’ perception to induce simultaneously shifting patterns of forms and changing, optical mixtures of colors. Over the past decade, she has also made large, black-and-white murals that shape and articulate the environments they occupy. Her work is ultimately inspired by nature—“although in completely different terms,” she says, adding, “For me nature is not landscape, but the dynamism of visual forces—an event rather than an appearance.”
Backstage shot of the ride to production site through the Huhang Railway (滬杭鐵路) between Shanghai and Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province. Chinese high speed trains are comfortable, very comfortable.
This was a comfort kit of snacks delivered by the shy hostess, many unknown ingredients though. Seats were gorgeous like the ones on a first class Airbus 380.
The distorted view by full speed at 300+ km/h over the rural villages on the road.
Here we are in our favorite floor: the fabrics’ stock.
Those big guys can wash many, many, many clothes and are always full operative.
Alberto working on illustration during a business meeting. Such a productive Sunday.
Finally I reserved some time to update a backstage post on this blog. Few weeks ago me and Alberto jumped in Dubai for some meetings in the Emirates. We left Milan at 15°C and after a short night we landed in a 45+°C on fire Dubai in the early morning. We found ourself cruising along Sheikh Zayed Road in the first morning traffic, heading to Dubai mall for breakfast.
Frozen air conditioning and a relaxed Arab breakfast were legit.
As I stated I don’t like malls, but at Dubai Mall there’s the biggest Kinokuniya library I ever visited. The perfect destination for a color literature hunt. So we did.
At noon, after the meetings we tried to have a walk in Marina but it was really too hot to stay in open air.
We just shot some pics of giant facades in the area and jumped in our paradisiac air conditioned white car heading to Alserkal Avenue.
Situated within the industrial quarter of Al Quoz in Dubai, Alserkal Avenue houses twenty creative and art spaces. Since 2007 it has grown organically in tandem with the Middle East’s burgeoning arts scene to become the foremost arts and cultural hub of Dubai and the UAE. That’s me working at A4 Space, a fresh co-working space where we also met Maria.
Alberto had never visited the Grand Mosque so we decided for a drive to Abu Dhabi and when we arrived the view was ecstatic.
Getting back to Dubai for our next flight to Asia we enjoyed a traditional arabic dinner at Al Fahidi Historical District.
Maser from Dublin is one of the artist that keeps impressing me through powerful, colorful, optical installations. A bold style that reminds me of Canadian designers Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte and Jakub Zak who pooled their design practices under the epithet Oeuffice. But Maser’s installations set in public spaces and environments scale to a brand new level. A selection of artworks follows.
