Early ’900 experience in Mexico City

Posted on 7 December 2013

Hey jumpers, we head to Mexico City. It is not just a jump in the space but also in time, since the experience we are about to describe takes place in a building that dates back to early 1900s expressing a style inspired by grand european railway stations. If you are confidential with Mexico City road caos we are speaking of Colonia Roma, Avenida Alvaro Obrégon 49, near to Plaza Rio de Janeiro.

Our guys are called Rodrig Espinoza and his two partners, Marcela Lugo and Arturo who designed Romita Comedor restaurant catching our environmental excellence attention. We encountered few examples of this cross-over style in Paris and Buenos Aires, with a taste of french voyages of early ’900, Lisbon vintage coffee shops, wet Brasilian vintage dance-halls.

Wood and tile, wood furnishings, many plants create a sense of perfect setting in the building evironment. And then we got to taste the food, ok give a look to these generous pics.

Categories: Brand / Place Identity

Tracés Directs Palais de Tokyo

Posted on 7 December 2013

Alongside their official contribution, Lek and Sowat invited twenty street artists to the Palais de Tokyo to work with chalk and water on a blackboard, the tool used by the institution’s docents. The short film “Tracés Directs” – with its choppy editing and monochrome esthetic – documents this clandestine experience while exploring the consequences of this shift from the street to the institution. It chronicles the appearance of letters, the violence of destruction, the fragility of the work.

“It is crucial that the work be ephemeral, as this fosters a rage that pushes you to act. It motivates you to be different, to not be static,” explains Lek. Sowat adds: “In this time-lapse film, we hope to show the works as though we were glimpsing them through the windows of a subway train, barreling down its path at full speed.” The film ends with an alphabet created by Jacques Villeglé that evokes the countless political messages spray-painted anonymously in streets throughout the world.

Categories: Contemporary Art

Artprint edition of 50

Posted on 24 November 2013

Sarteri’s fine art print on 31x31cm – 300g, Fedrigoni’s Stucco Tintoretto gesso colour, paper board, felt-marked on both sides. Numbered 1 to 50, signed and stamped by the Artist. More about the original painting here.

Pay With Bitcoin

Available for 0.20 ฿ each, one print one buyer till sold out. Check the current bitcoin exchange rate here.

Categories: Limited Series, Sarteri Art

Coffee brand in a small batch

Posted on 7 November 2013

Visitors to Brighton can appreciate 8 Small Batch Coffee Company shops where coffee lovers come to taste and experience the creation of high quality gourmet coffee. We do it often.

We’d like to cover this brand because it is iconic for what we define experiential branding. Their buildings has been painted battleship gray, also the color British Railways location cases are painted, after buying the excess paint from the Royal Navy following World War II. The golden name and logos are stencilled directly onto the buildings.

Paul Nicholson of Chalk Architecture, short-listed for the 2011 Retail Interiors Awards, explains:
“We look to create a story which ties together the various strands of the design brief, usually there is one big idea which everything springs from. On Small Batch we try to capture the spirit of the Indie coffee trade – honest, quality led, budget conscious, waste not want not. It’s all about the coffee. In particular, it is the process of roasting, grinding and brewing that our client wants the customer to be bedded into, as this is the heart of the Small Batch Coffee Brand. Our brief evolves from site to site, with each new unit having a different material palette to the last. The ‘Coffee Shop’ is part of a series outlet venues where ‘retailtainment’ is key.
The design drawing for the interior acts only as guide for the construction phase, but the spirit of the concept or rather the ‘big idea’ is retained. The final resolution depends on what materials can be found to suit the construction cost. The interior evokes a sense of the history and process of the coffee trade, part warehouse interior and part antique luggage trunk. The walls, floors and counters are clad in up-cycled dark hard wood timber that was procured from an architectural salvage company, antique brass shelf brackets, glass shelves & brass edged light fittings add a sparkle and luster to offset the rich timber textures. The remaining walls and the ceiling are painted in a dark grey leaving them as a back drop so the eye can focus on the rows and rows of coffee jars and brewing equipment. Signage is incorporated into the texture of the exterior and is site specific in its design. Though the logo is a constant, how it reveals itself on the façade will change each time.”

If experiential branding is the key for this successful case, then let’s watch “Small Batch Small Moments” a short video-document about experiencing the brand.

Categories: Brand / Place Identity

Jaques Villeglé & Lodovico Sarteri, Brescia 2013

Evening with Jaques Villeglé

Posted on 20 October 2013

It has been an absolute pleasure to spend some time with art master Jaques Villeglé yesterday evening. Not only because I’m a great fan of his art since decades but also for the traits of the man himself. After the vernissage we had a perfect dinner with Matteo and Federica and the wine could only be a French must: 2005 Vignobles Brunier, Domaine Vieux Telegraphe Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Crau AOC, Rhone.

Jaques Villeglé’s graffiti alphabet

Categories: Art Life, Contemporary Art, Sarteri Art

Rotary new logo & identity

Posted on 5 October 2013

“Rotary has an identity that’s recognized around the world,” said Justin Peters, global executive creative director of Siegel+Gale. “The team didn’t set out to reinvent the wheel (logo). On the contrary, the goal was to celebrate the wheel’s heritage and build upon an identity that has unified and inspired Rotarians for over a century. The new identity enables the organization to move forward with a stronger, more consistent visual expression. While the design system better aligns Rotary communications, it also provides enough flexibility that each club can have its own creative voice within the framework.”

Categories: Brand / Place Identity

11 September,1973, 2012
Acrylic and mixed techniques on canvas 100 x 100 cm — 11 September,1973, 2012 Acrylic and mixed techniques on canvas 100 x 100 cm

September 11, 1973

Posted on 10 September 2013

11 September,1973, 2012 Acrylic and mixed techniques on canvas 100 x 100 cm

Inspirations

On September 11, 1973, just prior to the capture of the presidential palace “Palacio de La Moneda” by military units loyal to Pinochet, President Salvador Allende made his famous farewell speech to Chileans on live Radio Magallanes.
The president spoke of his love for Chile and of his deep faith in its future. He also stated that, as he was committed to Chile, he would not take an easy way out or be used as a propaganda tool. The radio address was made while gunfire and explosions were clearly audible in the background.
Shortly afterwards an official announcement declared that he had gone to war with an AK-47 rifle. An autopsy also recorded his death as a suicide. Allende’s weapon was purportedly given to him as a gift by Fidel Castro. It bore a golden plate engraved: “To my good friend Salvador from Fidel, who by different means tries to achieve the same goals”.

Categories: Paintings

MART Rovereto with South African friends

Posted on 1 September 2013

Found a little time to get to Rovereto-Trento where the Contemporay Art Museum MART is located. It was the occasion to meet again Justin Southey, talented artist and illustrator we met with Paul Senyol in Cape Town South Africa some months ago. He was visiting his wife Tara who is doing a Phd at a local Foundation. We checked the permanent collection of the Museum, stubling over some Isgrò and Depero productions. Pop in to the two temporary exhibitions: “The ideal city” – Fifty years after Adalberto Libera, visionary architect, death, the Mart is dedicating a tribute. “There and again. Souvenir de voyage”: providing a link between the tourist’s eyes and the space of tourism, with a selection of photographs taken during 19th-century Grand Tours, early 20th-century guidebooks for travellers, travel diaries, a series of advertisements ranging from artistic illustration to kitsch, the irony of Pop Art, the contemporary languages of video and installation.

Just a few kilometers from the Museum there’s a great slow food starred restaurant called “Locanda delle tre chiavi“, offering a rich menu focused on local specialities. Could we exempt to try it? Obviously not.

Categories: Art Life, Contemporary Art, Sarteri Art

70th Venice Film Festival

Posted on 28 August 2013

On 28th August we took part at the opening day of the 70th Venice International Film Festival, organized by La Biennale di Venezia, ran on Venice Lido and directed on this edition by Alberto Barbera. We spent a dainty day in Venice heading then to the Lido and enjoying the privileges of being on the day dedicated to press and VIP. This was my first time meeting in person George Clooney and Sandra Bullock and I was impressed by their genuineness. Then we watched “LA BELLE VIE” by Jean Denizot with a great interpretation of Nicolas Bouchaud.

We got the time also for an urban tour along concealed “calli”, spotting some unconventional urban sights of Venice and uncommissioned public art, just before getting back to the Lido to profusely admire the decadence of that narcissistic misery that is the vernissage red carpet – not for everybody of course, then for many.

Categories: Art Life, Contemporary Art, Sarteri Art

August reboot

Posted on 16 August 2013

August represents for many people a month dedicated to annual leave. Not for me this year. Having travelled a lot in the previous months I needed to refresh my mind and relax. Then living in a touristic region set just few kilometers away from every kind of italian beauties is like being on holiday over any lunch break. It has been a reboot time as I had many in these last years. This was deeper and more intense due to the incoming challenges that wait for me and my team starting from september. I’m working out each day to ensure my body will hold up the incoming high levels of stress. I’m also scheduling and booking next flights and checking old contacts. So let’s appreciate these few detoxing days left. More to come.

Categories: Art Life, Sarteri Art

Guglielmo Achille Cavellini personal in New York

Posted on 26 July 2013

GUGLIELMO ACHILLE CAVELLINI (1914 – 1990)
18 September to 27 October 2013
Opening Reception: Wednesday, 18 September 2013
175 Rivington Street, New York

Lynch Tham, gallery owned by Florence Lynch and Bee Tham, in collaboration with the Archivio Cavellini, presents GUGLIELMO ACHILLE CAVELLINI, a survey exhibition covering two distinctive bodies of Cavellini’s works beginning 1966, when he started to devote himself entirely towards self-oriented artworks, to late 1970 when he became famous for autobiographical artistic endeavors associated with Autostoricizzazione (self-historicization).

On view are two pivotal series: Crates with Destroyed Works (1966-1970), and From the Page of the Encyclopedia (from 1973).

Crates with Destroyed Works are a collection of works Cavellini made by destroying the art he was creating and subsequently encasing them into crates. These works originated from an internal and emotional source, revealing an attitude brought about by a deep and obsessive self-search. The work encapsulated a strong sense of self-purging and annihilation as he would destroy his work for the sole purpose of re-creating a new ideal, a new form of work.

From the Page of the Encyclopedia is a series of works originated from a theoretical and linguistic code Cavellini invented as a direct consequence of self-historicization. By the 1970s, Cavellini had adjusted his self-oriented works to autobiographical projects that expressed the idea of self-historicization. Starting from actual biography, Cavellini would expand his own life story to temporal hyperbolic appropriations. Fabric, objects, clothing and live people would become a direct canvas for Cavellini to “paint” his story. While Crates with Destroyed Works relate to issues of self-annihilation, From the Page of the Encyclopedia are text-based works that allowed Cavellini to insert himself into the past and future art history, thereby exploring the idea of self-expansion in these works.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the gallery will produce a documentary that features Cavellini’s life as an artist, and his interest and interactions with New York artists such as Andy Warhol, Ray Johnson, Carlo Pittore, Buster Cleveland and Ed Higgins III. The 1981 historical performance of Higgins III, who painted Cavellini’s body as a performance piece in red, white and green, the colors of the Italian flag, will be re-enacted by Steven Rose at the opening reception.

Cavellini is a historically important artist who gave context to the Italian Experimentation period and was the first artist to bridge postwar-Italian art with American Pop art. Yet, his diverse body of work defies easy classification. He had quite spontaneously eradicated art/life boundaries, recycled imagery from past works, appropriated and reused other artists’ works, generated exhibition possibilities, staged live events, utilized advertising strategies, inserted fictions into real events, celebrated silliness and devised publicity stunts. Throughout his career as an artist, Cavellini executed paintings, objects, works and performances that would relate to, and anticipate practices such as Art & Language cataloguing systems, John Baldessari’s text panels, Joseph Beuys’ felt suit, Marcel Broodthaers’ poetic diagrams, Chris Burden’s performance relics, Hanne Darboven’s all-over writing, Robert Filliou’s unstructured games, Gilbert and George’s posturing, Ray Johnson’s mail art, Yayoi Kusama’s polka dot obliterations, Cildo Meireles’ Insertions into global systems, Allen Ruppersberg’s Picture of Dorian Gray and Lucas Samaras’ boxed shrines.

Guglielmo Achille Cavellini was born in Brescia in 1914. His artist’s books are represented in the permanent holdings of New York’s Franklin Furnace and in the archive on 20th century art maintained by the Venice Biennale. His work is in many private and public collections including the Civiche Raccolte Comune di Milano, Museo Pecci Prato, Museo MART Rovereto, Museo di Cavalese Trento, Collezione citta di Pesaro, Civica Raccolta del disegno Sal, FRAC Nord Pas de Calais and Le Consortium Dijon in France, among many others.

Categories: Contemporary Art

Interview with Jorrit Tornquist, master of colors

Posted on 7 June 2013

Your art manifests itself in different types of artistic production. Do they influence each other or preserve their autonomy?

Painting and design of public works are not different things, are all research on the sense and see and have always had a political fund. For this reason I don’t perceive them as separate. They are different objects, it is true, and each requires a specific application, depending on what it has to communicate. But you can not separate the experiences. Ideas are born in the art and can later turn into visual objects within the urban or industrial environment, or it is possible that working on some projects new ideas for other jobs arise. For these reasons I prefer not to draw great distinctions about my experiences. The only difference actually existing is from the economic point of view: I don’t ask for apps the same wages I take in the world of art: if I asked higher pays I would risk not to work on these types of intervention anymore. Certainly, the different kinds of research I’ve done in my life had an influence on my experiments, but that’s another story. My first interest was the biology and the behavior of animals, particularly with regard to their reactions to external stimuli. But there wasn’t a job suitable for me in the field of biology, because I wasn’t interested neither in teaching nor in vivisection. So I decided to devote myself to architecture and there I have applied my studies. I didn’t begin as artist, I was discovered as an artist thanks to my works in architecture. At that point, I decided to charge as an artist in order to have the freedom to devote myself to what I was interested into. The most important thing for me, now as well as then, is to do what I’m fond of and live on it. For this reason I consider my work more research than art, with the advantage of being declared art. Things, therefore, affect each other, they are not separated. In the past I also had to work on bad structures, but today I do not accept anymore these works, because when a structure is poorly designed it maybe will improve, but it will never become beautiful. I decided to stop working on this type of architecture, because it happened that the responsibility for its ugliness in the end fell on me.

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Categories: Color Design