rita de alencar pinto

Edwin De LaRosa in Landscape Magazine

2011-01-27T14:46:00.000-08:00

http://issuu.com/landscapemagazine/docs/issuu-13

VIP ART FAIR

2011-01-26T08:16:00.000-08:00

Day 5 of the VIP art fair and I wanted to comment outside of the Facebook or Twitter forum. The much anticipated and first online art fair featuring some of the biggest galleries in the world, opened..or went LIVE on Saturday. Idyllic in their fantasy of collectors waking up with their coffee and logging on to preview and buy art online (with substantial price tags). The reality was that the opening was a total nightmare. Wrought with technical glitches and overwhelmed by users, the experience was far different from the fantasy!

My experience was not so easy, your supposed to be able to login and preview all the sections and have the memory log what you have seen and create favorites. After previewing a large portion I was totally bummed to see that they hadn't saved any of the works I had previewed. I get that I might not be really interested in buying works, but I wanted to support the galleries and artists I love and thought it would be cool to post a list of my fav picks. A day later I went back to and it seems like it was a lot better. I kept trying to see what the feedback was and went to their twitter site etc. but NO comments were revealed. I am usually not interested in the hater vibe but wanted to know what my peers were thinking.

SO it was great that JTD Neil posted about it on Artworld Salon this morning.
http://www.artworldsalon.com/blog/2011/01/zuckerberg-to-vip-art-fair-users-are-fickle/

Apart from the user experience I think I have to give some positive shout outs to VIP art fair for having the balls to follow through with the question that has been on all of our minds since the onset of world wide web, CAN YOU SELL ART ONLINE?

To be honest, if you know the work and you have a good relationship with the gallery and get good condition reports etc. then I think it is cool to buy things online. I have been sent jpegs from galleries with hopes of making decisions on works of art. Collectors buy work at fairs from the gallery binder, or now with ipads, so what is the difference? BUT, VIP art fair has not re-sized the images so some are big some are tiny making it hard to see and even harder to think of wanting to purchase.

Bottom line is was this a success or a failure? I have to say SUCCESS. Apart from the sales aspect, the fair did create an interesting online experience with awesome videos of artists in their studios and collectors giving tours of their homes and works of art...so that was cool. But let's remember that this fair didn't come out of the ether...galleries did have to pay, and for that..we might have to re-think the model and say perhaps more beta testing next time!

MIJAMI...

2011-01-24T17:12:00.000-08:00

AT LAST..uploading pix from Art Basel Miami. Here are the highlights:

ABMB
A Gentil Carioca, who showed this incredibly inventive and really funny installation by Laura Lima, the Brazilian artist who I have previously mentioned, and whom I had the pleasure of meeting in Rio de Janiero. Also large works by Thiago Rocha Pitta, a young artist who also works in video and was also featured in an off-site exhibition called Feijao com Arroz, curated by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti.

Nara Roesler, who had a stellar booth filled with museum quality work. A stand-out sculpture by Laura Vinci, who made a beautiful installation/chandelier of glass vessels. Vinci made a real impression on me with her installation at Inhotim, so it was really nice to see some of her more accessible work.

Canada Gallery, showed some recent works by Matt Connors, who is also one of my favorite young American painters.

Marilia Razuk also from Brazil, had some really great sculptures by Felipe Cohen, whose work concentrates on the juxtaposition of precious and non-precious materials.

Sommer Gallery from Tel Aviv presented an outstanding new video by Yael Bartana, an ode to Otto Dix called Degenerate Art Lives.

Galeria Millan, Sao Paulo, showed paintings by Rodrigo Andrade, an artist that I had previously seen at the Sao Paulo Bienal, and whose work I am following with great interest.

NADA
In general I thought NADA was very strong. I thought the floor plan was very easy to navigate and some great work was presented by members.

The Journal, gallery and magazine always seems to push the envelope, presented HO BAGS zine of collaborative drawings between Harmony Korine and Bill Saylor. Made exclusively for NADA and were an Edition of 100. Also, Sarah Braman, whose sculptures were also seen at her gallery Museum 52.

Sculptor, Ali Bailey had an impressive large work at Andrew Rafacz, Chicago.

Hillary Crisp showed George Young, an artist I have been looking at for a few years and was excited to see at the fair.

SEVEN art fair was a bold step outside the box for an art fair. I thought that the open floor plan and salon style hang was hard to navigate and made it a challenge for the dealers to anticipate interest. Saying that, it was hard to miss the best things in the room..

Postmasters gallery presented this out-of-this-world installation by Adam Cvijanovic. Having worked with Adam in the past I know his work very well. This recent series of broken walls has been explored by the artist with various scenes revealed; the scenic Alps, the moody seascape, but none have reached the potential of this galaxy nebula that he took on for Miami. Here he has really come into his own and challenges our perception. BRAVO! Also at SEVEN, Sam van Aken and Rico Gatson at Ronald Feldman, and Guy Ben-Ner video also at Postmasters.

ZOOM, the first U.S. art fair to solely focus on contemporary art from the Middle East, concluded its inaugural edition with critical acclaim. Artis, an independent non-proﬁt that supports and promotes the Israeli
contemporary art community throughout the world, presented the most riveting video installations by a young artist I think I saw all week. Orit Ben Shitrit's two-channel video, Men Die And They Are Not Happy, 2010. In addition to the video Artis commissioned the artist to create a site-specific performance around the hotel pool, which was very powerful. I am thrilled that I made it to see Zoom and I hope that people will continue to discover the important work from young artists from the middle east.

Outside the craziness of the fairs, MOCA Miami mounted a solo exhibition of Jonathan Meese that featured many works made during the artist's childhood. The texts that accompanied the exhibition curated by MOCA Executive Director and Chief Curator Bonnie Clearwater, provided the much needed explanation of the artists practice. FINALLY...I understand..and appreciate!

OPENING!

2010-11-19T12:31:00.001-08:00

Growing Pains Install

2010-11-19T12:28:00.000-08:00

Michael Kagan

Marcos Brias

Robert Lazzarini

Graham Dolphin

Adam Parker Smith

Michael Kagan

Ryan Humphrey

Marcos Brias


Graham Dolphin


Edwin De Larosa

Jota Castro

Adam Parker Smith

Graham Dolphin

Edwin De Larosa Ryan Humphrey

Adam Parker Smith

Michael Kagan

Robert Lazzarini

Ryan Humphrey

Brias and Antwerp

2010-11-18T04:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I did my first studio visit via skype with Marcos Brias from Sao Paulo. It was a really great talk and Charles and I learned a lot about his practice. There is some great interest in the exhibition so far and I couldn't be more excited!
Stay tuned tomorrow for shots from the opening!

Later in the afternoon Charles, Sofi and I went to Antwerp for a little culture and a LOT of shopping! Here are some cute pix of us at Rubens's house. It was pretty incredible and we were blown away by lot of the paintings inside.

Install for Growing Pains at Charles de Jonghe Brussels 11.18-12.24

2010-11-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

Day 1 install went great!
We had a lot of fun and things went very smoothly. I am totally excited about how things are coming together and I wanted to share some prelim install shots. Having a really nice time in Brussels with Charles and his beautiful fiance Sofi, who is pictured above with me having the bestest dinner! Here are some highlights!

Ryan Humphrey
Gallery Assistant Jonathon Levy, Alix and Janouska the most amazing borzoi pup
Hard at work!
Robert Lazzarini
Michael Kagan
Graham Dolphin
Adam Parker Smith
Ryan Humphrey
Marcos Brias
Robert Lazzarini

Marcos Brias

fall news BRAZIL

2010-11-12T10:47:00.001-08:00

OK I acknowledge that I am probably not the best at blogging..notice absence since March! BUT I went to Brazil with sculptor Doreen McCarthy for the opening of the Sao Paulo Bienal in September. It was an incredible experience to see the galleries and museums in SP and check out the Bienal. Stand outs include: Bienal itself (Nuno Ramos installation with vultures that caused a big upset with animal rights activists. Check out news report: http://interartive.org/index.php/2010/10/white-flag-nuno-ramos/ Rodrigo Andrade's paintings were very strong as well as Alfredo Jar' installation, Paulo Brusky and Amélia Toledo). Stellar galleries in Sao Paulo included: Galeria Millan, which had an incredible Tunga exhibition. Major sculptural works made from giant pieces of quartz crystal and amber and a totally bizarre and erotic video..also included crystals! Mendes Wood gallery is one of the most exciting young galleries in SP. Definitely a must see when in SP. Also, Marilia Razuk's new space in Itaim Bibi, Nara Roesler, and Fortes Vilaca, who had a killer painting show my Luis Zerbini in their 2nd space. Outside of the gallery scene and museums there was a guerrilla stylee exhibition organized by Maria Montero called Abotoados Pela Manga, where a group of young Brazilian artists made installation and video works. Check it all out at www.abotoadospelamanga.wordpress.com

From Sao Paulo we went to Inhotim near Belo Horizonte. Inhotim is ART HEAVEN! Major installations by significant international artists are housed in beautiful architectural buildings immersed in the Brazilian jungle. Need I say more...PARADISE! Standouts included: Cildo Meireles, Ernesto Neto, Janet Cardiff, Helio Oiticica, Miguel Rio Branco & TUNGA! But this is really a short list. The reality is that there is outstanding work by many artists. We hiked all over the place and saw all the installations and outdoor sculptures. It was really a funny day filled with emotion!

Not to be outdone...Rio de Janeiro is the coolest place! Our hosts were Art Rio who are scheduled to open a fair in September 2011. http://www.artriofair.com.br/site/ As part of a group of ambassadors for the fair we had the privilege to tour Rio with the fair directors Brenda Valansi Osorio and Elisangela Valadares. Standouts included, TUNGA studio visit, Ernesto Neto studio visit, Antonio Dias's killer apartment in Copacabana, A Gentil Carioca, who had the most impressive exhibition by Thiago Rocha Pitta. Coolest moments were definitely dancing in the street in front of A Gentil Carioca, meeting Laura Lima, the phenomenal Brazilian artist and Arto Lindsay who also performed street-side.

I LOVE BRAZIL!

ARMORY ARTS WEEK

2010-03-08T12:41:00.001-08:00

Tuesday - The week started with the highly anticipated exhibition SKIN FRUIT - curated by Jeff Koons from the illustrious collection of Greek tycoon, Dakis Joannou at the New Museum. Having faced serious criticism from the arts community for perceived conflict of interest, the show went on... AND I have to say, in my opinion, that it was a celebration of the joys of collecting art. Many well known names were juxtaposed in curious and interesting ways. Highlights for me included Maurizio Cattelan, Matt Greene, Robert Gober, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, and some fabulous early Chris Ofili paintings.

Wednesday - Armory opening! Luckily I was able to enter the fair during the early preview which gave great opportunity to see the WORK...and later on...CELEBS! This year we saw highlighted artists from the Whitney Biennial (which opened the week before), Josephine Meckseper at Elizabeth Dee, who showcased a large installation by the artist, Huma Bhabha at Peter Blum, Maureen Gallace at 303, and Tauba Auerbach at Jack Hanley. Also highlighted was the Armory commissioned artist Susan Collis who created the visual identity for the 2010 fair. Brisk sales were being made at Seventeen gallery where a virtual mob-scene of collectors gathered at the booth! There was also a heavy presence of Marina Abramovic, whose life's work and retrospective opens at MOMA 3/9. Few discoveries were made this year, but if you looked closely you could find some gems: Michael Samuels at Rokeby gallery from London, Erin Wurm's hilarious sculptures of pickles at Jack Hanley, Mika Rottenberg at Andrehn-Schiptjenko, Agathe Snow at James Fuentes and Jacob Kassay's beautiful metallic paintings at Eleven Rivington. Post touring the artwork we gravitated to the VIP room where we took refuge in free champagne and celeb spotting... BJORK!! Kyra Sedgwick and Glenn Close! Here are pix including artists Emilio Perez (currently on view at Galerie LeLong) and Daniel Gonzalez.

Thursday - Volta & Independent Without a doubt this year's newest and coolest was the INDEPENDENT at the former Dia, former X initiative space. To some extent, the spirit of X Initiative lives on in Independent, which in its press material carefully avoids the term art fair, preferring to call itself a collective, a consortium and a “hybrid model and temporary exhibition forum.”

Highlights for me included Seb Patane, the Italian artist who lives and works in London, at Maureen Paley, Cyprien Gaillard at Laura Bartlett, and Ryan Trecartin at Elizabeth Dee. This exciting new art fair drew massive crowds and lived up to high expectations. As in previous years VOLTA showcased 88 different solo projects. Moving swiftly through the dense booths I was delighted to see some old friends and stellar presentations. Namely, Danny Rolph at Poppy Sebire, and Rebecca Chamberlain at Judi Rotenberg.

Friday - Chelsea Having made it through all of the fairs...as if there was further impetus to see galleries! I knew that New York gallerists were planning on putting their best foot forward. Mike Nelson at 303, Marcia Hafif at Newman Popiashvili, Liam Gillick at Casey Kaplan and Yuken Teruya at Josee Bienvenu.

Saturday - Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present at MOMA Thanks to the exceptional VIP program, directed by Manuela Paz, this year we were able to take a few sneak peeks. This performance retrospective traces the prolific career of Marina Abramović with approximately fifty works spanning over four decades of her early interventions and sound pieces, video works, installations, photographs, solo performances, and collaborative performances made with Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen). In an endeavor to transmit the presence of the artist and make her historical performances accessible to a larger audience, the exhibition includes the first live re-performances of Abramović’s works by other people ever to be undertaken in a museum setting. In addition, a new, original work performed by Abramović will mark the longest duration of time that she has performed a single solo piece. As always, April Hunt from PS1 looking glamorous as she leads a group of journalists around the exhibition! In addition to running up to the MOMA, I went to the anticipated Lucie Fontaine, Sign in/ Sign Out opening at Front Desk Apparatus. A MUST SEE! www.frontdeskapparatus.com

Sunday - Lower East Side Gallery Tours. On one of the most beautiful days in New York to date this year, hosted by yours truly, and I have to say an impressive turn-out of participants - we walked all over the LES on a guided tour of almost 17 different galleries. Highlights included: Simon Preston 301 Broome Street - Marco Rios: Plasma Pool, ELEVEN RIVINGTON  11 Rivington St.- Valeska Soares: Vaga Lume, James Fuentes 35 SAINT JAMES PLACE- Book ends, Ben Berlow, Marc Handelman, Matthew Higgs, Larissa Nowicki, Stephen G. Rhodes, Thea Djordjadze and Richard Wentworth and Luxe/ Stephan Stoyanov Gallery 29 Orchard Street - AMELIE CHABANNES | VAST

PHEW...that was A LOT!! We are all pretty exhausted...but NY never stops! Are we art addicts?? The answer is a bonafide..YES!

the latest...

2010-03-01T13:39:00.000-08:00

In lieu of not updating my blog since Up Against the Wall...here are the highlights:

Performa '09 kicked off with a stellar performance by Alterazioni Video in collaboration with Ragnar Kjartansson in, Symphony n.1 at Performance Space 122. The set looked like something from a Fischli & Weiss work, where Alterazioni Video, dressed in tuxedo's, played absurd instruments derived from mic'd appliances; a drying rack became a stand-up bass, ping-pong balls were thrown in a wondrous obstacle course, a giant cocktail was prepared and served from 12 feet off the ground, bowling balls were stacked meticulously in a vertical line, Italian words beginning with the letter P were recited into a microphone with great fervor and Kjartansson accompanied via video monitor on guitar with tasseled pasties attached to his nipples. This hilarious composition reached its crescendo as chaos ensued and 'Super Tele' footballs were kicked into the audience and all over the set. Needless to say a great time was had and both Roberta Smith and Simon Dumenco gave rave reviews in the New York Times!

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/performa-09-gooaaaaallll/?emc=eta1

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/performa-09-alterazioni-video-and-ragnar-kjartansson/

Alexandre Singh at White Columns: taking the mantle from Homer, Singh recited from memory “The Alkahest,” a series of complex tales written by the artist, featuring golems, monks, parrots, 20th-century abstract painters, and the creation of the world. For three hours (inc. two intermissions) Singh took the audience on a adventure that only he could envision. The magic of this performance was how Singh delivered his rhetoric by interweaving formal and informal verse captivating the audiences attention. As the narrative ensued Singh juxtaposed colored transparencies on an overhead projector which gave the work an edge and firm roots in a contemporary art dialogue.

Ryan McNamara's loosely choreographed performance with forty male dancers at X Initiative billed as "The Sacred Band of Thebes AKA In Memory of Robert Isabell AKA Any Fag Could Do That", inspired by 375 BC, whereby the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite force composed entirely of homosexual lovers, annihilated the Spartan army, a brigade three times their size, at Tegyra. 2353 years later, party planner Robert Isabell triumphed as well, becoming an instant sensation when he filled Studio 54 with four tons of glitter. Without a doubt this performance was one of the highlights of Performa '09 for me. Having recently visited with Ryan in his studio I was impressed with the way in which he kept this epic from verging on the extreme of parody. As the audience entered the ground floor at X Initiative there was a pungent smell of sweat..at first not so enticing...but once the room was filled with toga clad men wearing beat-up kicks, parading around the room in various stances of embrace, the smell added to the dimension of the drama. It was funny and fun and engaging and there was a lot going on at once. AWESOME!

Guido van der Werve at Marshall Chess Club. Having seen this artist's work at Manifesta 2008 and at Creative Time's PLOT09: THIS WORLD & NEARER ONES, I was really excited to make it to this live performance in the second-floor parlor room of the storied club (founded by the chess legend Frank Marshall, who held the United States championship title for 29 years beginning in 1909), the Dutch artist presented a “chess piano concert.” Facing off against an opponent from the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, and rounded out by nine string players (two first violins, two second violins, two cellos, two violas and one bass). The chess set was actuated from the bottom so that for each move made by the player, there was an accompanied sound. This intimate setting was perfect for such a soulful composition. The performance mimics a prior date where the artist filmed a game with Grandmaster Leonid Yudasin for his work Nummer twaalf, currently on view at Luhring Augustine until March 13th.

PINTA ART FAIR
As a Latina myself and a student of Latin American art and KEEN fan of what is currently coming out of South America, I always like going to Pinta. Most often works by master artists I love are on view...Jesús Rafael Soto and Wilfredo Lam being the stand outs and always the stellar representative galleries in attendance. But this year seemed a little lack luster. EXCEPT of course for Henrique Faria from FARÍA+FÁBREGAS GALERÍA. The gallery is based in Caracas, Venezuela but shows at most global art fairs. Henrique Faria has an incredible eye and this year showed a museum quality booth. Discovery is the driving force for any curator. This is what we love..what we travel the world to find...and if in doubt, GO VISIT HIM AT ARMORY & VOLTA from March 4-7th.

FRONT DESK APPARATUS
Insightful and serious, this salon program curated by Rob Teeters in association with his artists and peers, has proved to be outstanding. It is rare to see exhibitions outside of museums where lines are being drawn and multi-generational connections made in such subtle and clean ways. Teeters has carefully chosen to juxtapose artists that parle in ode to prior generations while maintaining their own voice. There is a critical dialogue here and Teeters is aware of it.
54 KING STREET, PARLOR FLOOR , NEW YORK, NY 10014, WWW.FRONTDESKAPPARATUS.COM
OFFICE HOURS: FRIDAY & SATURDAY 12-6 PM
Up Next: LUCIE FONTAINE, Sign in / Sign Out, OPENING MARCH 06, 2010 / 8-10 PM

Armory 2010
I AM GIVING A TOUR OF THE LES!
I have been asked by the Armory to give a tour of the galleries in the Lower East Side. Sunday March 7th at 2pm. Meet in the New Museum lobby. This tour will circulate the neighborhood and give a stellar insight as to what is going on in this bustling scene. Highlights will follow online here!

UP AGAINST THE WALL - IMAGES

2009-10-23T11:37:00.000-07:00

Here are the works included in the exhibition:
UP AGAINST THE WALL - Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, 48, Armatolon & Klefton Street, Athens. Through November 14, 2009 Participating artists: Maya Attoun, Adam Cvijanovic, Marta Dell'Angelo, Francesco Simeti, Luca Trevisani, Alterazioni Video and Jonathan Yeo.

OPENING

2009-10-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

ok...I know the opening was on October 15th..and this is a little after the fact...but the truth is..that we had soo much fun that it was pretty impossible to upload anything until now.

Here are a few pictures from the opening where we met some some great contemporary Greek artists and celebrated all our hard work!

Official install shots follow suite...

Rita xx

DAY 4

2009-10-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

All done! PHEW! what a day....finally installed all the work..after going to bed at 4:30 and waking up at 9am...we did it!! SO CHECK IT ALL OUT!!

DAY 3

2009-10-13T16:47:00.000-07:00

Today we made some serious headway...whips are krackin and we are all very excited about the progress! Polako Polako our dear art handler was a super star...he is a trooper for sure...beer helps..and invaluable critic and sure to be the 6th member of Alterazioni Video. Maya nearly finished her install and it took all day but we did finish Jonathan Yeo's incredible "Ode to Autumn". Julia and I went out to get lunch...seriously the grossest gyros EVER! So at around 11pm we decide to come home and Alberto made us dinner. WOW...so nice to hang and relax after a long day at the gallery. Julia and Adam who skived off early...for "naps" made the most beautiful table ever and we had a fam jam stylee meal! We've nearly cleaned out the apt of liquor and it aights...worth it!

More manana!

Day 2

2009-10-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

I am going to let the pictures speak for themselves...needless to say..day 2 things are moving along well. Here are some pictures of works in progress....and of course...a little fun!

DAY 1

2009-10-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

Without a doubt today was epic! After a long journey yesterday and a performance by Yumiko Yoshioka last night at Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, we headed straight to dinner. Our first mission today was the Monastiraki flea market in search of materials for AV's installation. After a fun lunch at a little taverna where we were served by 10 year old kids, we climbed up to the Acropolis! There are no words to describe how incredible it was...the light was perfect..the columns and the temples were breathtaking and walking around the site was exhilarating! No joke...there is a crazy energy up there. The new Acropolis Museum designed by Bernard Tschumi is a perfect juxtaposition of ancient and modern. The top, which is made up of the rectangular Parthenon Gallery arranged around an indoor court, rotates gently to orient the marbles of the Frieze exactly as they were at the Parthenon.

Tomorrow morning we start installing at the gallery. Lots of work ahead before Thursday's opening!

UP AGAINST THE WALL - Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, Athens.

2009-09-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

UP AGAINST THE WALL - a group show I have curated is scheduled to open on Thursday, 15th October, at 19:30, at the Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, 48, Armatolon & Klefton Street, Athens.

Participating artists: Maya Attoun, Adam Cvijanovic, Marta Dell'Angelo, Francesco Simeti, Luca Trevisani, Alterazioni Video and Jonathan Yeo.

For the next two weeks this blog will provide a play-by-play of UP AGAINST THE WALL, from installation through to the opening reception! Many of the artists will be flying to Athens to prepare, Adam Cvijanovic, and I will be flying in from New York as will Maya Attoun from Tel Aviv and Alberto Caffarelli and Matteo Erenbourg of Alterazioni Video from Milan. As the days go on I will trace the artist steps as we move through Athens collecting materials and installing meters of wallpaper! I will also reveal some really exciting works that are being prepared!!

Each has their own story and ALL are worth a closer look!

I hope that you will join us along the way while I document this adventure!!

Many thanks to the following who have been critical to the production of this exhibition to date:
All the artists, Ileana Tounta, Katerina Nikou, Le Case d'Arte, Francesca Minini, Galerie Mehdi Chouakri, Gio Marconi, Lazarides Gallery, berlin tapete.

Image Credit:
Francesco Simeti, Pastiche, 2009, Francesca Minini Gallery, Milano, MACRO, Roma

Press Release:
If the beginning and end point of life is clearly defined by birth and death, then it is the middle, the process, the storyline, that we hope to trace throughout this exhibition. The inter connectivity of our mind and our body, physically and spiritually, is a central theme here. Seven internationally based artists have been invited to engage this theme both through the transposition of their work into wallpaper and in the creation of sculptural objects that will stand against the imagery on the walls and amplify the tactility of the medium and the viewer's experience. Our intent is to create a context in which a duality exists between how we perceive and how we experience the work, and our hope is that that duality will be productive of a moment of pause, or reflection, through which one is able to absorb the underlying messages abstracted by the decorative nature and scale of the wallpaper.

Maya Attoun and Marta dell’Angello work with the brain and the body in a biological and metaphysical context. Attoun mutates images derived from the central nervous system and poetically re-interprets them with distinct narratives. Her work organically weaves together themes of self-reflection and corporeality. By removing the body from its natural mapping system and erasing the imagined anatomical borders between human beings on the one hand and nature and space on the other, Attoun creates an alternative space for the representation of the human body.

Marta dell’Angello is inspired by the physiological mechanisms that guide our movements and actions. Through on-going research on the female body, she has isolated various postures that give shape to specific states of mind. Her early experience as a life model informs this research, as she notes: “while others are looking intensely at your body, it feels like it doesn’t belong to you. You focus on the posture.” Empathy plays a significant role in assigning associative feelings to these postures, as if they were a means of conversing with the viewer.

The acutely incendiary work of Alterazioni Video is also central to this kind of conversation. Violent Attitudes (2009) delves into the collective’s shared or “hive” mind by documenting its Skype conversations over the course of years of working together while the members were widely distributed around the world. The work traces the collective’s process, its arguments and its compromises. “Violent Attitudes, is the sink where every thing goes; in the storage room where noises and lyrics sit together and on the back stage of their violent, desperate waste of energy.” To function as a working collective and maintain one voice is the irony within Violent Attitude. Here the artists reveal themselves as individuals with opinions and vibrant personalities, whereas in other work, the collective is consistent in its message—of pushing cultural boundaries and evoking the absurdity of politics and social agendas— and maintains a clear persona.

Jonathan Yeo’s work reveals the corporeality of human sexuality. In a nod to Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Yeo re-imagines the genre of portraiture by synthesizing pornographic images taken from low-fi, cheaply printed magazines produced in Germany and Asia. These images are not intended for shock value but instead are used as a palette, as if painting the figures and drawing on skin-toned paper, which makes the bodies appear almost sculptural, like the paintings of Lucian Freud or Jenny Saville. The use of benign classical subjects and postures neutralizes the pornographic images and allows for a revised interpretation of the imagery.

All theoretical writing on the sublime is deeply rooted in the experience of nature in its raw, awe inspiring state. It is in the awe of nature that philosophers such as Kant and Burke believe that
spirituality, or God, can be experienced. Adam Cvijanovic’s 75-foot murals depicting breathtaking sunbleached landscapes, made monolithic to the viewer, are equally invested in the sublime. The artist’s use of scale, through depictions of waterfalls and glaciers, as well as multiple vanishing points and extremes in perspective, engulfs the viewer and creates a sense of heightened spatial awareness. The work recalls a sense of the transcendental pantheism that the German Romanticist, Caspar David Friedrich, alluded to in works such as Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818). Drawing on a tradition of landscape and mural painting where scale is used to incite the magnanimity of nature, Cvijanovic offers an additional resonance in chaos. Just as Burke referred to Astonishment as a suspended degree of horror, Cvijanovic paints natural disasters, meant to have metaphoric and symbolic parallels, where homes are suspended in tornado-like explosions. Cvijanovic, who is completely self-taught, uses a variety of acrylic and latex household paints on Tyvek (the DuPont material used in FedEx envelopes). By adhering the painted paper directly to the wall, his vast images become transportable frescoes, or giant architectural interventions.

Francesco Simeti’s work operates under the assumption that the relationship between the spectator and the artwork is something that the artist can only hypothesize. Central to his practice, derived from a rich archive of imagery, is the role of juxtaposed images and patterns and their ability to create subtle tensions. Here is where the viewer takes on the role of witness and the artist as subtle instigator. Humanity is central to the discourse and hence reverberates back to the broader theme of life and experience throughout the wallpapers and sculptures in this exhibition.

All aspects of life influence Luca Trevisani; his childhood and experiences, his research and findings, are all part of a reinterpretation and transmutation that the artist deftly envisages in sculptures, videos, and installations. Trevisani’s keen sense of materials allows for an organic interpretation of the works and subsequent hypotheses derived from his sources reveal curious and oftentimes exquisite findings.

The seven artists chosen to participate in this exhibition are at pivotal moments in their careers. They are all moving steadfast in their practice and have received substantial recognition. At this crossroad we can see an exciting opportunity for them to come together and make work inspired by the themes of life and the human body.