windows 2009 - first pics

here's a few pics from the project windows 2009. they were taken the day before the show as some artists were installing their works...
the day of the opening everything was too hectic and I could not take more photos, but I promise I will ...in the very next days! in the meantime you can see some of the works here.
click on the pics to see them bigger and to read the artist's name and the title of the work.
I really enjoyed the experience and I think all the works were really brilliant. Every artist did something completely different, but in all cases really coherent with their previous works. I got some really good comments that night and I really hope the project will be seen from a lot of people.

new project by moi - Windows 2009

this is the last project I've been working on.

when I was asked to think about a visual art project what came to my mind was that I was really interested in the dutch architecture and in the peculiar use of windows here.

we approached local people living in a specific neighbourhood and asked them to "offer" one window from their houses to artists, to let them realize site specific works for it.

stay tuned for some pictures of the event!!!!

blog - linking

today I give you the link to the blog of a talented italian photographer.
You can find portraits of people he met around the globe as well as random (interesting) pictures.

check it!
http://inpezzi.blogspot.com/

(and check ME!)

teresa iannotta interviews annegien van doorn

I was asked by the italian website spruzz to interview one artist - my choice - for their new monthly entry about young curators.
I could choose and artist and ask him/her two questions, plus a small presentation, and I also had to answer one question myself.

It's been a really nice experience especially because I chose an artist that I love to work with! her name is annegien van doorn and she is a young dutch artist based in amsterdam. we've been collaborating in the past months and I already invited her for some new project I've been working on.

this is the link to read the interview: http://www.spruzz.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=86:15-annegien-van-doorn-di-teresa-iannotta&catid=35:artista&Itemid=53


scroll scroll scroll down for the english version!
and of course, check annegien's website: http://www.annegienvandoorn.com

cruel beauty

the work that probably touched me most in Skopje was located in Cifte Amam, an amazing museum in the old city, in a small square with a fountain and a Mosque. the location was itself already spectacular but one of the works really attracted my attention.
it's the installation by german artist Nicolas Manenti, called "Angenageld". you can check some pics on the page dedicated to him in the BJCEM skopje website:

http://www.bjcem.org/dettagli_artista.asp?id_artista=1329&edition=28

three real plants were pinned to the wall with white paper pins, leaf by leaf with a methodical and yet cruel attention. the beauty was astonishing and so it was the artificial aspect of the installation. It was as if their beauty and life was frozen there for ever. What can human hands make in terms of artfacts and modifications of what's already existing? How far can we push things to what we want them to become? I could spend hours in front of such works, they are able to talk to me more than many others (for sure more than all the other works in the room and in that location). This artwork was turning the natural state of things into something dreamy and cruel at the same time. I loved it.

http://nicolasmanenti.blogspot.com/

BJCEM 2009 - Skopje - 3/12 sept 2009

I came back yesterday night from a trip to Skopje as member of a delegation for the BJCEM biennal.

The experience itself has been disappointing in some cases - the organization was not always brilliant and the exhibition spaces were spread out in the city so that it became pretty hard in some moments to see the works AND participate to shows/performances/lectures.

Apart from this, I will use the next days to talk about some specific aspects of the biennal itself.

I especially wish to talk about some artists and the spaces used for the biennal.

so stay tuned!!!

Sketch Matinée

last week end I was invited to join Stefano Calligaro in his trip to Duesseldorf for the first appointment of Sketch Matinée, a series of artists' presentations in the (amazing) space of Friederike Mainka's atelier.
the experience was definetly nice! you can see the blog of Sketch Matinée following this link, with some pictures of the works from Stefano Calligaro

the next presented artists will be:

Joung-En Huh - 19 july
Jeroen Kuster - 2 august
Maarten Janssen - 16 august
Burchhard Garlichs - 6 september
Friederike Mainka - 20 september
Irene van de Mheen - 4 october
Sonja Meyer - 18 october
Nicola Schrudde - 8 november
Dré Wapenar - 22 november
Petra Albrand - 6 december

you can find all the links and information on the blog.
I loved it because there was a very good atmosphere and finally everyone was taking their time to talk and discuss and this is not so common. The attention and curiosity of people were really amazing. And it's such a good way to spend a monday morning!
Good job!!
enjoy!!!

BEyond Pictures

here's a link to the website Trendbeheer with some images of the show!

http://trendbeheer.com/2009/03/28/22506/

enjoy :)

BEyond - my latest project in Rotterdam!!!

BEyond:

Sabrina Basten,

Stefano Calligaro,

Friederike Mainka,

Esmé Valk,

Irene van de Mheen,

Annegien van Doorn,

Sjoerd Westbroek,

a project by teresa iannotta

opening 26th march 2009, 19.00 hourDuende,tamboerstraat 9, Rotterdam

“As all the techniques have been discovered and all their combinationshave been experienced there's no border to define what exactly is asculpure, a performance, a video or a photograph. There's sculpturesthat would love to be drawings, drawings that would love to be videosand sometimes videos that would love to be paintings. In this sort of cracks I find the most interesting meanings of works, as if there wassome kind of unsatisfied tension in them, something that forces thespectator to look beyond. Works that need to be watched always oncemore to be understood a little bit, that underline with their physicalpresence the struggle between different techniquesand shapes.”

BEyond is supported by the italian funding program Movin' Up

Memory and Memories

I was so incredibly impressed by the site specific installation by Anish Kapoor in Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin called Memory. It took me a while to think about it and this again and again and this is usually a clear signal to me that an artwork somehow works for me.

First I loved tha way the title tells everything about the work: you will never get to see the entire piece, you only can use your memory to somehow put it back all together.

Second, I loved that for once I payed the ticked NOT to enter the museum. I loved to look at the texture of the surface of the piece, I love the total black in it and the silence you could hear standing in front of it (it's such a pity they decided to place the window to look in it right beside the bar but anyway...)

I loved it so much that when I heard people (yes, they were italian) complaining because they payed 3€ to see it I was almost going to shout at them. :)

I know - it's only rock and roll but I like it

I know I was supposed to use this space for visual art experiences. But what if something impresses me visually even though it's not visual arts? well, I suppose I should write about it anyway.

So, this is what happened to me yesterday night with the show "Underwork" from a young-brilliant-talented company from italy (verona): Babilonia Teatri (you'll find the link below as usual)

First of all I LOVED their physical presence. retro clothes in the same colors of italian flags and three clever faces.

They have a bitter bitter sense of humor, something you would usually describe with "I do not know if I should cry or laugh"

Both of them, I suppose. The reason why I laughed is because of their funny and clever jokes in the use of italian language. The reason why I should probably cry it's because they touched something in my inner deep pride. I just moved from italy because of my job and I still feel really strange about it.

So, what to say, I guess they deserve every single success on their way and wish them more and more.

At least because of them (well, with a few other reasons) i would say I AM HAPPY TO BE BACK TO ITALY this week :)

http://www.babiloniateatri.it/

I'm back - and Santa is free!!!

I was not the only one being relocated in Rotterdam this month :) Paul McCarthy's Santa Claus found a new home as well.

The sculpture was at the center of a debate from a few years and appearently could not find its own proper position in the city. Until one day a group of shop owners, the Binnenweg Association, asked to adopt him and gave him a new place to stay in Eendrachtsplein, right in center of the city.

The statue, a six-meters-tall hybrid between Santa Claus and a garden gnome, who holds in his hands a bell and a giant buttplug/christmas tree, is meant to represent american's consumerism and commercial success. This huge kind of "devotional image" had its celebration day on November 28th, with a whole afternoon of events dedicated to "him".

The program included a more "formal" part: the screening of Paul McCarthy's "Painter" in the early afternoon and a lecture by Ton Bevers (Professor in Cultural Sociology at Rotterdam’s Erasmus University) on the history of the sculpture.

Then, the celebration became some kind of folk event: a parade with children and music followed the sculpture on its way to Eendrachtsplein. Of course SinterKlaas and Father Christmas were attending the event as well.

It was incredible to see how a controversial based on a contemporary art piece could become a social event bringing together many different kinds of people, mostly not connected to the artworld at all. The celebration went on and on with music, free food and champagne and some screenings of Paul McCarthy's videos much longer after the final installation of Santa Claus in the square.

Will we ever see something similar in Italy?

playlist list :)

so, I LOVED the playlist event on thursday night and really had a lot of fun.
the title for my playlist was "homage to" and I chose a series of videoclips, videoart, movies and cartoons that represented any kind of homage to our visual heritage.

this is the list (soon it will available and clickable on Neoncampobase.blogspot.com)


Douglas Gordon 24hours Psycho
Be Kind Rewind
Beastie Boys – Sabotage
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Can't Stop
The Smashing Pumpkins – Tonight Tonight
Luca Lumaca – Set the world on fire
Vanessa Beecroft – VB61 in Venice
Gus Van Sant's vs Hitchcock Psycho
The Simpsons + The White Stripes
Weezer – Buddy Holly
Baustelle – Charlie Fa Surf
Matthew Barney Cremaster 3
Johnny Depp vs Charlie Chaplin
Tim Burton – Ed Wood
Quentin Tarantino – Death Proof
Frida Kahlo Movie
Foo Fighters – Big Me
Across the Universe – Hey Jude
Sofia Coppola – Marie Antoinette
Pop goes my heart!
Blur – The Universal

I hope everyone in the gallery enjoyed it and had fun :)

PLAYLIST @neon>campobase - thursday, october 23 from 7.30 p.m.

I was invited to take part to an super interesting project called PLAYLIST which will take place on thursday night @neon>campobase in Bologna. I have the possibility to choose my own visual playlist and I have to tell it's a really chalenging and funny project (at least for me). I decided not to choose videoart only, but instead to mix popular culture and high culture...so for those of you who might come I hope will be a nice surprise...and for those of you who are too far to come, stay tuned and I'll post my playlist on friday!!!!!!

wishlist

I wish the young curator was a REAL JOB in italy

one more work I love

I saw this work last winter and I LOVED it. it's the kind of picture that tells everything without need of explanation. and so, I won't tell anything more about it. I like it when a work speaks for itself and I had the feeling that these pics know very well how to speak.
Suzanne Opton, Soldier portraits.

I know I know...

This was supposed to be a daily practice but it's not at all.
Luckily, a few things are happening and my schedule is a little packed sometimes.
And this one will not exactly be a news, but it's something that caught my attention anyway.
I was in Milan for START last week and had the chance to see a really interesting place called Brown Project Space, which is born from an online magazine that later became a physical space. The Project Space will not only be the office to work on the magazine, but will host an exhibition program, revealing itself as a new way to think about curatorial practices today.
Artists-run-spaces are not that popular in Italy, and this is why I feel the choice of artists Luigi Presicce and Luca Francesconi was so interesting.
They probably have to face lots of troubles that other similar places in europe do not have to, but anyway they are doing a really good job.
The place itself is really interesting, as it is an underground, almost hidden couple of rooms.
The space opened with a double-solo-show from artists Jacopo Miliani (ita, 1979) and Richard Clements (uk, 1983) and the two exhibition work so well together as they play on echoes of shapes and colors.
They both play very well with the space, creating a sort of stage and playing with the interaction with the spectator (Miliani) and reflecting on shape, colors and materials (Clements).
Brown represents a breath of fresh air to the local and national scene and I can't wait to see what's next.

70.545.100

This is the amount of £ that were payed yesterday for the first day of auctions at Sotheby's for Damien Hirtst's pieces. Some of them were sold for three times the expected prices of the quotations. And this is already considered a historic event, even more if you think that there's still many pieces that are going to be sold tonight.
Not bad if you consider that even TG5 (italian people know what I am talking about) was talking about it today :)

blurring edges

I already told how much I love art in which there's no clear definition between one technique and the other. I was doing a research yesterday and got to see some amazing pictures of Jenny Holzer's installation at Neue Nationalgalerie in 2001.

One could say it's a visual art installation but I really cannot help thinking it as architecture. And I find amazing how the lights reflect on the glass of the windows and look like as if they were continuing in the sky. This is just perfection and it's so hard to decide WHICH kind of art it is.

More Notes on Manifesta7 - favourite works

One of the best works shown in the exhibition was Omer Fast's piece Looking pretty for God. His video is a sort of documentary about small funeral houses held by families from several generations in the US as a business which is fast disappearing.
The definition of boundaries in Fast's work is definetly useless: his video are not exactly documentaries but not exactly fictional either.
The borders in his works finish to melt and blur as it's really hard to give a definition of them.
Different points of view and voices join and confuse themselves in this work, which talks about death without showing it, and instead chooses images of childhood, make-up and emptiness.
This creates a much stronger effect even though it's not showing anything about death, working on a sense of anxiety which is very subtle and slight.
There's a cultural gap in the way we see death, and this underlined so many aspects we do not consider in our society about dead bodies.
The video reflects on the difficult passage from the painful private dimension of death to the public one, which has to look more pretty and -possibly- healthy.
It's really moving, in some points, to see how normal this job is for people who do it, and how hard it is for the one who have to relate to them.
The choice of using children with lipsync from the interviews is incredibly delicate and lyrical.