New Art Criticism_04_March 2010

New Art Criticism is no longer on-line, therefore I thought to copy and paste my contributions to the former website here. It is mostly exhibitions reviews and I hope you will enjoy the reading!

BERLIN: PHIL COLLINS AT THE TEMPORÄRE KUNSTHALLE

Some say to have fallen in love with the Berlin at the first sight. 

Personally, the grey sky, the hard icy snow pushed to the side of the broad streets and dotted with dog’s dung, and the strong sense of the actual passage of a devastating war, did make an impression, but it wasn’t love. I might call it sympathy.

It takes two strong legs and a good sense of distance to walk from popular Friederichstraße, passing Check Point Charlie, to the boulevard called Unter den Linden, that links the Brandebourg Gate with Alexander Platz. From the middle of this road, both huge monuments lay small and indistinct at each end. You feel very small in Berlin: it takes a long time to take in the buildings, the geography of the city, to recognize its distinctive European flavour, but to fail in trying to classify it in comparison with the other capitals.

The Temporäre Kunsthalle is in Schlossplatz, close to the so called Museum’s Island: it’s a small, square building that seems to be built out of dark mirrors. It stands on its own, not surrounded by anything else, giving, exactly, this sense of temporariness. When I stepped in I found a library, and two people taking bookings: there was a film program called Auto Kino!, devised by the British artist Phil Collins, and it seemed to be very successful because there were just a few places left. I am told that I had car number five, and at first I thought I misunderstood the language; but no, when I walked in the other room I realized that the huge inside was transformed in an old Drive-In, with second hand cars lined randomly in a semicircle. There was even a Volksvagen van equipped with a pop-corn machine, and I happened to be in it. The number was clearly written on the plate, 005. The comfort of the seat and familiarity of the inside of a vehicle made me temporarily forget why I was there and, with the screen still blank, I almost dozed off when someone else stepped in, on the passenger seat. The situation changed: there was an urge to say something, at least to introduce myself, just to be able to mentally justify being inside a van with a total stranger. But then, the projection begun and I occupied myself with eating caramel popcorn, because, I thought, it was part of the performance.

Drive-Ins were very popular in America during the 50s: a place to run away with your sweetheart and forget about morality for at least a couple of hours. Having one in Berlin, where the weather never did allow that kind of outdoor cinema to spread, was a sort of unique experience. The program run from 5th February to 14th March 2010, and on the 24^th of February I could see Ich Deutsche Behorde (22 mins, 1981), by Ezra Gerhardt and Alf Bohmert, and Die Bewerbung (60 mins, 1997), by Berlin-based filmmaker Harun Farocki. The screening was focused on immigration and job interviews issues: the first movie, a documentary, was about the slight racism underlining the first immigration wave in Germany during the eighties. Foreigners were admitted in an office one by one, their footprints and picture taken, like they were mere criminals. They would leave without any certainty of a Visa. Farocki’s movie twisted the argument and unveiled a behind-the-scene workshop about how to be successful at a job interview. I learned that putting the hands on the interviewer’s desk is invading his space, that fidgeting gives a very bad impression, not to mention staying still. My car companion got bored and left before the end; I took the chance to make myself more comfortable, aware of the fact that Farocki’s movies make you unable to leave just until the end. I also couldn’t help but do some other car-spotting: people were enjoying themselves. As a temporary experience in a Drive-In cinema that never existed, they, like me, were having an afternoon out of the ordinary.

Frieze 2010 in ten minutes

New Blog, new life.

Someone tells me it does look a bit too serious, but I am confident I will expand my blog design knowledge in the forthcoming weeks, and maybe something will be done on this regard. 

However, why shouldn't a curator be serious? 

We've just left Frieze's week behind us and I am slowly switching from the frenzy of organising stuff and meeting people to the act of looking intensely at the computer screen, try to work out what to do next. To put myself together, I am just making up deadlines: I have to finish this post by six this afternoon. 

The video I have put above was filmed and edited by Italian journalist Riccardo Stagliano' with an iPhone, the new frontier of communication. The title reads: "The Art of Selling Art".
The Frieze Art Fair really reins upon anything happening in October: the whole art world revolves around it and, although other galleries and exhibition spaces try to organise parallel events, it is likely they'll end up with just a bunch of visitors who, by the way, came for the fair and just happened to stroll by. Not even the new Sunday Fair, of which I heard very positive comments - especially about the free entrance -, or the much anticipated prints fair Multiplied at Christie's, could claim the same amount of visitors. My approach to the fair is completely different from that of any other visitor or journalist: we can call it the Nerdy Approach. This year, I have set a personal record of time spent visiting the fair: 10 minutes. 

> Popping in at an Art Fair at 5:50 pm thinking that it will definitely close at 7 whereas it definitely closes at 6: Curator's Stuff.

This is nothing of a performative nature, just the grim reality of not being able to go because I am usually working elsewhere: after all, I am part of the lovely art world too. The first time I went to Frieze, in 2005, I had the privilege to go to the private view. All I remember is struggling to see something whilst I was literally dragged towards the drinks area by the crowd. In the opposite direction, a flock of paparazzi was running after George Michael. After a while, I thought I was a bit drunk when I saw a portrait by Julian Opie winking at me. Maximum time spent there: one hour. 

Second time I went, I don't even remember the year. Must have been 2008. First proper visit, I think I have spent at least two hours in there, and the only memory I recall is bumping into Valentino and into a friend of mine: we were interns together for a famous gallery; now she was a gallery director and I was... well, just back to London and starting it all over again. Artworks taken in: zero. 

Last year, I think I made it for at least half an hour: I cycled from work, hung a press pass on my neck and made my triumphal stroll through the aisles. Said hi to a couple of people and exchange glances with others I know but couldn't greet because they were busy talking with clients. Art fairs have a very peculiar language, or code, that once cracked is very interesting to analyse. Artworks taken in: maybe just one; a large tree sprouting out from a wooden board floor. Artist's or gallery's name: uncovered.

Arriving at my ten minutes spent at this year's fair, there isn't much I can say: I literally crossed it running, trying to dodge the invigilators clearing people up and realising with surprise that it didn't seem much different from last year's one. It's like time is stuck, in that place. History repeating. Just the realm of sales, where art shines like tempting jewelry from its shop window, and dealers can't do nothing but pushing out the goods. It's a place where the young outsiders can only wish to understand the mechanisms behind. 

It's 6:02 and I don't think I have finished this post. After having delivered three shows in two days, all on time, for once I am going to be late.

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.

Curator's Stuff - Stockholm

Colder, cosier, and more expensive.

That is how I would describe Stockholm at the first impact, compared to jolly old London. I have just spent five days there, setting foot in Sweden for the first time to accompany a certain Cardiologist to the annual ESC Congress. Work for him, leisure for me: I have discovered that wandering around on your own in a new city is not the end of the world after all*. But it is very, very harmful for your pockets, because you're more inclined to give in to the impulse buy.

Five days are not enough to understand another culture of course, but I could try and sum it up this way:

The Swedish like: 
- Tall and narrow spiral staircases (pictured);
- Walking on the cycling path;
- Keeping bar's customers in line (see below).

The Swedish don't like:
- To give directions;
- To use the word "pineapple" instead of "ananas";
- To apologise when they bump into someone. Unless "grunt" meant "sorry".

Speaking of cycling paths, I must admit that I have started to rate my liking or not of a city based a bit too much on how good the bikes facilities are. This way, poor Rome would occupy the last place on the chart.

In Stockholm there is the same bike scheme just launched in London, with the fundamental difference of being able to keep the bike for free for three hours, rather than just half an hour.

I guess the Stockholmers made this very clever reasoning: "There's no way a tourist will get the names of our streets straight: we must allow plenty of time for them to get lost, find their bearings, and try again." I would like to thank them for having thought of me. On two wheels, the whole city is at hand: the paths along the canals, with highways running right above your head, are very enjoyable, and even the worst sense of orientation has a chance of redemption.

Another thing I very much liked about Stockholm: I didn't get a Huh? as a reply when I said that I am a Curator.

For my visit, the main targets were, of course, museums and galleries. Let me say that the end of August is not really the best time for this, because most of the places are closed and busy preparing for the autumn season, like for example Magasin 3: THIS FALL A GREAT STORY BEGINS a lot of banners shouted around town. Shame I will only be able to follow their promising next show through the Internet.

Luckily, not only the Moderna Museet was open, but it had on the Ed Ruscha retrospective that I had missed when it was at the Hayward Gallery here in London. That's what made me think of the "Curator's Stuff": sometimes, on Facebook and in my language, I see some square messages appearing as links on people's status. For example: "Being happy about having put the eyeliner perfectly on one eye, forgetting that the same thing should happen on the other: Women's Stuff". Or another one, more specific for working roles: "To separate form from content: Designer's Stuff". And so on and so forth. There are the most embarrassing (and truthful!) features for Psychologists, Architects, Teachers, Singles, Students, Art Historians...but no Curators.

I can give you one now, the first of a long series in this blog:

> Missing a traveling exhibition in your hometown and going to see it in another country: Curator's Stuff.

The Moderna Museet knew its golden age in 1960 with the curator Pontus Hulten, who managed to create a bridge between Europe and America by hosting shows of young American painters, among which were Jasper Jones and Robert Rauschenberg. Later, in the 90s, he started to emphasise the direct participation of the audience to the shows by proposing broader themes like poetry or utopian societies.

> Spending four hours in a Museum, making sure you have read all the labels: Curator's Stuff.

The permanent collection has some real flagships, divided in chronological periods: for example, the Cow Wallpaper by Andy Warhol, in which the museum was wrapped up in 1968, Martha Rosler's Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975 (embedded below: I found it illuminating) and a Surrealist woman I didn't know anything of: Dorothea Tanning.

> Getting annoyed because you have confused Eva Hesse with a relatively unknown Swedish artist: Curator's Stuff.

The day after was a Monday, vacation day for most of the exhibition spaces. The only arty place open was the Thielska Galleriet, at the far end of Djurgarden. No bike station was available down there, so my unfortunate travel companion (another lonely doctor's wife) and I parked the penny-farthing and embarked in what we thought was a 20 minutes walk to reach the spot. After 45 minutes, a rain shower, countryside landscapes and some moaning, we arrived at this lovely house from the beginning of XX century, owned by the banker Thiel, art patron of his times. The collection comprises remarkable examples of Nordic art from late XIX and beginning of XX century, not to mention the outstanding furniture and the poignant, decadent atmosphere of the place.

> Walking 4 kilometers to get to a remote public gallery just to see Edvard Munch's paintings in the flesh: Curator's Stuff.

* I am Italian: compulsive sociability is deeply rooted in my genes. We hate eating on our own, traveling on our own, and even talking on our own.

Message in a bottle

"Walked out this morning, don't believe what I saw / Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore / Seems I'm not alone in being alone / 
Hundred billion castaways, looking for a home." 


Trafalgar Square on a cloudy Sunday afternoon is a place bursting with people: Londoners, tourist competing to have a picture on the lions at the base of Nelson's column, families with children running around freely, skating teens. I have a very nice memory of an hot afternoon back in 1993 when I had my first school trip to London to learn English: people were bathing in the two fountains, with children even wearing bath suits. Of course, although I was fully dressed, I joined them. Not even in your most forbidden dreams would you do it in Bernini's fountain in Piazza Navona, Rome: you'll get arrested on the spot, no questions asked.

At that time, I didn't noticed the empty plinth. 

It sparked my interest when I learned, several years later, that it was being used to commission temporary site specific artworks: from Rachel Whiteread to Marc Quinn, the plinth joined his equals to host contemporary art which exquisitely mixed up with the eldest in the monumental square.

Now, under the corner stare of neighbor George IV, the Fourth Plinth hosts Yinka Shonibare's Nelson's Ship in a Bottle. You would say it is overshadowing from the pictures and the various reportage on TV; instead, at that height the bottle seems contained, almost disappearing compared to the imposing plinth. A little monument for a big square, directly linked to the historical victory of Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar at the beginning of 1800, which freed the seas allowing England to get in touch with different cultures, and to become the cosmopolitan country we live in today. The colored patterned sails, made out of Shonibare's trademark African textiles, refer exactly to this: the British colonialism legacy.


The so skilfully realised ship, rich in details, is enclosed in a giant bottle, like the tiny traditional handicraft work; this seems to make the concept behind its creation small and contained, almost silenced. Shonibare is not an artist who leaves anything to chance, therefore even the fact that you can’t really make out the ship’s details nor the sails patterns by looking at it from the bottom of the tall plinth means something.

It’s the first time that the empty plinth hosts a work so directly linked not only to the history of the square, but also to the city of London in particular. The multiculturalism and immigration Shonibare is talking about is all there, making London the seaport she wanted to be: people arrive and leave all the time. Maybe they'll leave traces of their passage, maybe they won't. Strangers are so many in this city you can hardly make out the features. Multiplicity often leads to confusion, and then tolerance steps in: polite smiles, shifts to one side to make some more room, just a tiny bit. London’s social and cultural structure is indeed a very colorful and patterned fabric like the one in Shonibare’s ship, but every community is an island, trying to look at one another from too much a distance to figure out the details.

An updated version of this post is going to be published as an article on the magazine Arte e Critica n.64

Wicked. A nostalgic bohemian feeling

Yesterday, Hackney Wick opened its doors, and artist's studios doors, to the other side of the world for a three-days art festival. 

For a non-English mother-tongue obsessed with grasping every nuance of words' meaning, the name of the festival is a delightful and clever language game, swinging between "cool" and "bad": wicked. Very appropriate, if you consider that, as soon as you get off the overground, in normal days you would find yourself in the middle of nothing. Instead, the industrial and unattractive buildings (which, in fact, I find fab) are studios and homes for a large community of artists.

It feels like landing in another world, which you have to explore just with the aid of the - few - tools in your possession (a map of the area highlighting the main events' location) and a good dose of interpersonal skills, especially in  matter of orientation. The territory is not hostile of course, but you do feel like an outsider and start following the other +people, who know exactly where to go, like a stalker.

The many events were just unfolding around us, we could hear some music and percussion coming from the train station exit, and we had just missed our place at the dinner/performance organised by the curatorial collective Cosmicmegabrain. I just had the time to see one of the curators rushing to the terrace in Oslo House, wearing a shiny yellow foil hat with some flowers and cherries sprouting out of it. This is what I call landing on the job. After having bumped with pleasure in the only artist I know in the area (Martin Weswood, ndr), Habda and I ventured to see the studios and some art in the making. That was when I had the bohemian attack.

Known also as the Late Bohemian Sindrome, this rare and unlikely illness strikes subjects who are particularly sensitive to large, loft-like spaces, possibly with mezzanines, where art, great second-hand furnishings and private life are equally mixed. The first symptom is that the mind starts to wonder, imagining night parties like sin and a continuous, often stimulating confront with your neighboring peers. The attack carries on with drooling, a good dose of envy, loads of mental notes like the-day-I-will-have-my-own-house-I-must-remember-this-arrangement and, finally, it quickly fades away with the very down-to-earth thought: "But there is a common loo. No shower." The bohemian feeling lingers, though. The idea of something going on which maybe won't lead to the next generation of star artists to be born, but it will certainly be a tale to remember and tell: When I was twenty, I had a studio in Hackney Wick which I transformed into a living unit. I was painting everyday and partying every night - or the other way round -, we would talk a lot about art with the others and sometimes young critics and curators would join us. We organised shows and events, made things happen and... All right, I'll come off it.  It just made me think that all the famous artists and curators we know must have started like this: with a beer, a romantic kennel and a good chat. That's what they must still be doing, actually.

Moving on, we managed not to miss Roberto Ekholm's performance The Magnetic Man inside the show La Perruque: inspired by Michel De Certeau's writings around cultural practices and relationships, the show tries to manipulate commonplaces and make them habitable, which is to say, to use your own creativity space into the rigid and framed working society.

The evening was concluded with a quick - rainy - shower and my venturing up an emergency iron ladder to go to one of the building's roof and have a glance at the city landscape. On the other side of the river, the Olympic Village is taking shape and I couldn't help but wonder what will it be of these guys once this is turned into a fashionable residential area. Below, lights were glowing from the opened spaces, with people milling around, commenting the latest works. Looking down, De Certeau sprung to mind again for his most famous writing about the practice of everyday life (1984): the city seen from above is the result of the institutionalised bodies, who organise it in a grid and try to direct the experience and gaze of the person traveling in it. Below, people continued to get lost or get rid of the map, following their instinct instead, enjoying the dérive.

The Visit

On Wednesday, we went to meet a very important person and contemporary art collector here in London. The encounter took place in the outstanding Winfield House, in Regents Park, where the American flag waves.

This might just give the right tip about whom we had the privilege to shake hands with: Ambassador Marjorie Susman. Skipping over the details about how in the world we ended up drinking tea and eating brownies with her, our visit was focused on the exploration of the house and the art collection, which the Ambassador graciously opened to the public. The house's interiors, those of an historical residence where many other Ambassadors lived, are enriched by a contained Neoclassical taste with matching furnishings, in some cases hosting sculptures by, for example Claes Oldenburg or the contemporary David Smith. To keep company with the traditional portrait of President Washington there is la crème de la crème of American Art from the 50s, when Abstract Painting arose. The Rothko up there is just a small example, then we found a red Ad Reinhardt's canvas perfectly at ease in a room with green, flowery wallpaper on the walls, or a Lichtenstein's mirror in a yellow room. The deep equilibrium of that was disconcerting, as you'd normally see such painting in a white cube, with the proper light and the proper aura.

It was nice to look at each other's faces while we were been taken around, dumbfounded. Not only were we taking in the grandness of the place, and the meaning of an Ambassador's role, which after all includes the transmission of a Country's culture; we were seeing landmark artworks in their natural context, that they were created for: a private home.

And how differently they looked, what a warm welcome they gave us, not from behind a protective plexiglass but within reach, illuminated by natural light, off the pedestals, human again.

The Ambassador also told us about her role as patron of the MCA - Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago: a one-year long Curatorial Fellowship, which bears her name, is available; an opportunity to work closely with the museum's collection, with emphasis on the aspects of art history and research.

Now, this has nothing to do with the show, but it has to with the course we are part of. I think seeing private collections is an important experience, because it makes you perceive the artwork differently.

Thank you to the Whitechapel Gallery for this opportunity.