Where Is My Mind

I have been away.
And I don't mean away from town, or the country. Well, of course I had been pretty busy in the last two months, with the end of the MA Curating, the last co-curated show, the last bits, the last moment of blissful ignorance of the aftermath, when you have to ask yourself: "And now what?"

My mind has been kidnapped by old dreams that I thought were forgotten.
Well, more than forgotten, I would say archived. Transformed. Grown into grown-up dreams. But no.
In your head, you always have this idea of "growing up".
What it really means, still is a mystery to me. A friend who lately passed away once advised me not to wallow in fantasy, but keep my feet on the ground. This was because, if you'd known me a good fifteen years ago, you could tell my head was up in the clouds. Way up.
They called it the Peter Pan Syndrome.
They called me the eternal child and casted me aside, sometimes.
Because a child can't really think straight: he - or she - is all instincts. It's all black or all white, everything is beautiful or the whole thing is ugly.
A child loves or hates completely; sees the world, the beauty in it, with different eyes.
I have never understood why people force you to forget that kind of beauty by advising you to keep it real.

Well, after a sort of daydreaming I am not entirely sure I have awoken from, I think I know.
Dreams can seduce you and take you away. And when you're there, it can happen that you don't want to come back. It can happen that, by pursuing that beauty, you touch the bottom of this longing, and forget what is really around you.
Your dreams can consume you, especially if you don't dream of cars, homes or the perfect family.
These things are feasible, with a little luck.
Other dreams are different. Coming back to the real world, I would call them ideas.
Like when you say, for example, 'I want to be a pop star'. You know it's not going to happen. Well, someone succeeds of course, but only a few. And then it is not what it seemed.
So, you decide on principle that you will never become a pop star, but that idea is always there, teasing you. A dismissed dream.
All you can do is dancing in front of the mirror when you're home alone. Right?

Now, this is not my case (although I did want to become a pop star at some point. Ouch), but if there was something that I ever wanted to do, is writing. Although I have never been constant at it.
It is not like the fire of art, making people filling up entire painting books, canvases, or walls to quench their thirst. I write when I feel like it, otherwise I don't.
And now I have discovered English, this amazing language. A whole world enclosed in just one sentence. An unexplored potential laying before me, despite the limits of not being a native.
There are stories in my head, embryonic characters shouting at me to let them come to life.
So forceful they are, I am almost afraid they are going to destroy me. Will they make me loose my way, my other purposes?
Shall I answer their call, or let them float in the limbo for another good fifteen years, before I find the courage to, at least, try?

Courage. That's all it takes. Courage of one's ideas.
Why don't you listen to your dreams?
I thought I had plenty of courage, but I was wrong.

My friend, I think your advice of keeping the feet on the ground was good...but you, yourself, didn't buy it.

Designers, Artists and a touch of Red Sea

London's Design Festival 2010 is upon us. This sounds like a daunting sentence, but in fact it's just that there will be so many events scattered around town that you won't even know where to turn. Yesterday I gave it a start by going to an exhibition mixing together artists and designers in a former factory listed for demolition. In this difficult economic climate, pop-up shows in abandoned or empty spaces are thriving, giving creativity the chance to fill in the void and reinvigorating the old concept of philantrophy. I must confess that I am very fond of such spaces: their roughness, the mouldy walls, uneven floors and gigantic windows give a different flavor to exhibitions, dragging them closer to the viewer, lowering down the "sacrality" of the space to a much more relaxed experience. Of course the artworks are still for sale, but it won't be only about that.

Sure enough, when I popped into the huge room all I find is groups of friends, beer in hand, chatting among each other. The works occupied the space evenly, from objects like customizable squared ceramic vases or an interesting table lamp that is actually a lamp-table to a large size picture on the wall and a sculpture made of wood bark appearing behind a mirror. The boundary between design and art object in this show is indiscernible, because none of the design objects seem to aim at being functional. I guess the only difference is the interaction: you normally can't touch an artwork, whereas you'll definitely want to touch, for example, Alison Dunlop's corner mirror made of many leather gusset that you can open or close as you please, creating different patterns on the interactive surface.

I. Loved. It. Why? Because it becomes your playground, and your mark will be upon it until the next person decides to change it. It's democratic, ever-changing and not functional, as the reflecting surface doesn't really do the job. It's an artwork that you can touch and change.

Next door to all of this glittering and clattering, another show was there to be discovered, announced just by a timid red candle.

Inside: myself, two artists, and another guy. In terms of affluence, it reminded me of my openings. Maybe attracted by the empathy, one of the artist immediately approached me. She was elegantly wrapped in a white cloth which had the same consistency of sails and wears dizzy high black heels, her hair tied up and hanging down scruffily, making her look like an underwater mangrove:

"How did you hear about this show?"
"Er...I am coming from the opening next door..." No offence, we both are foreigners who go straight to the point. The Importance of Not Being Earnest rule doesn't apply here.

She handed over some literature with scatter sentences about the need to "invest physically" and "relating clothing to circumstances / creating history / sharing its process". I learned that the artist Arunas Survila "has gotten involved", but the girl's name was nowhere to be seen and I soon forget it.

She informed me that there will be a performance, later, and showed me some clothes, hanging from ropes, that were left soaking in the Red Sea. The process was filmed and the fabric felt heavy and rough under my fingertips.
That had the power of a Proustian madeleine: suddenly, the long gone days at sea in a summer that unfairly lasted too short came back to me, the salt flavour in my mouth, the thickness of the sea water permeating and beating my days.

Some other clothes had a less nice fate: they were filled in with raw meat and left to be tore by stray dogs: "There are a lot of stray dogs in Russia, you see?" she told me. Well, I think, I guess they had the time of their lives thanks to her. So why she did that? "To create patterns on the clothes", is the answer. Also, she wasn't very happy about the result because the holes are in far too precise points, they seem almost industrial. She described the whole process as "very hard and disgusting', then gave a good sniff right on the dried blood: "You can still feel it."

But I still don't get it.
Don't get me wrong, Mangrove, I did like your installations and think they had some potential. Some thoughts and sensations are still stirring if I think about it. But honestly, next time, just find yourself a curator. As I should find myself a PR.

Mario (a post for connoisseurs)

22 July 2010.

The Bay Window is officially turned into a light projection box. Meaning: if you happen to stroll by Cleveland street, you will bump into Luana Perilli's magnificent video.


No picture can give it justice (especially if made by me and my antediluvian camera), therefore you will need to wait that my confidence in using Final Cut increases just that tiny little bit in order to edit another video, possibly in a better way than this.

The second Bay Window Project taught me a couple of important things that other budding curators might find useful:

The first: if you are projecting a video outdoor, in London, in the month of July, check the sunset's precise time before sending the press release out. This will avoid you panicking because at 7:30 pm you can't see anything and start hoping, wishing and praying that people will arrive the usual late. Which, in fact, for once doesn't happen.

The second: no matter how big the problem is, there is always a Plan B concealed as an ingenious idea. In our case, a little monitor with the video on in the lower part of the window solved the trouble of the poor visibility and became quite performative.

Finally, the third is Mario.
Mario is the famous art critic you must know and have to have at your openings. As reserved and uncatchable as Charles Saatchi, this eminent intellectual rounds on exhibitions undisturbed and has the power to launch or demolish whoever at glance. From where his words will fall upon you, is not for you to know. If he reviews a show, no one who attended is really sure they have seen him there. Most of all, Mario is so ineffable and so incredibly famous at the same time, that there is the tendency to forget his name.

A - You know, I know that famous art critic...
B - Do you?
A - Yes, you know...he's a very famous one...you must know him! Oh God, what was his name again?
B - (encouraging) Mario?

That's it! Mario.
Mario is everywhere, and there is always a Mario for every opening. In the end, aren't we all waiting for Mario?

I would like to thank the artist, G2, my G, curator Francesca Cavallo from cosmicmegabrain, Alessia, Tati and all the others who attended the opening, making it a very nice and funny evening.

How about some advice?

I have read with great amusement this recommendations to a budding curator by the self confessed newspaper man Augustine Zenakos, who in turn was suggested to us by the curator Tom Morton. I couldn't resist but leaving some personal comments.

Read a lot of post-structuralism, preferably in the form of quotations you can find in catalogue essays. Quote them in turn, profusely, making sure their relationship to any actual artwork remains obscure.

Whenever I see the word "post-structuralism", I just turn the page over.

No studying anything before the 1960s is allowed. Learn all your history through contemporary art theory.

I tried that, but my heart belongs with the idea that history, all history, is necessary to do a good job.

Never say you are anything more than a facilitator for artists. If inadvertently you do, and you momentarily appear like having anything remotely resembling a vision or, worse, an agenda, cover it up quickly with a phrase like “curators have to stand firm against the voracity of the market”.

Yes, Master.

Be as immaterial as possible, be a ghost. Support everything anti-spectacular and insubstantial. When asked to describe it, use words like interventional, process-based, archaeological, investigative. If challenged with something like the inability of others to see the point, call them antiquated and formalist and declare the work of art to be changing.

You forgot to include "taxonomy" in your list, Master.

Praise the local, but in abstract terms. Make sure that you choose a local thing that does not require any local knowledge to be understood. If you can’t find something suitably local where you are, pick a Mexican or a Lithuanian one. When faced with a situation that is truly local, dismiss it as nationalist, and continue.

But this will cut any potential fund out, Master.

Be against state-run cultural policies, as well as private enterprise. Declare your support for small autonomous zones of collaboration. When asked about their funding, don’t dwell too much: this is not about money.

And the fact that it is never about money makes the curator zone off limits for those who can't afford it, which is a shame.

Be for independent organizations, but when faced with one, call it cliquey and turn away. There is nothing there for the taking, anyway.

Er...Yes, Master.

Always acknowledge the public. Say that all this is being done for their benefit, because contemporary art is for everyone. Then, blame lack of funding, public support, etc. If someone appears to be practical about these things, call them a behind-the-scenes-mover-and-shaker and state that you are not interested in authoritarian structure.

Wow, I never thought to actually be such a complicated thing. I just thought I was practical.

You’ll do fine.

Thank you, Master.

And now, let's close the little distraction-from-the-more-important-task-of-writing-the-damn-catalogue-text-for-our-show-post and go back to work.