A Two-Times Exhibition: Silvia Iorio's Odyssey 2010 | Odisseia 2011

Perhaps some of you remember this post.
It doesn't say much, it is just the Press Release of the first show my colleagues and I curated as part of our  MA in Curating the Contemporary at the London Metropolitan University, which we successfully completed this year. Instead, that simple post - and show, is the start of something unique.
Something that needs to be read through the lines to be caught and understood.


But let's proceed in an orderly fashion.
When we involved artist Silvia Iorio in this show, she conceived an artwork, Odyssey, which was to be further developed in the upcoming year. The challenge presented to her to go beyond a clearly defined site, and pierce the walls of a space, was met with the idea of creating a two-times exhibition.
Odyssey is a panel with 160 coloured switches "that people were invited to activate during the opening night, on the12th of May. No light would go off at the same time, though: the artist decided to stretch this event in Time – and Space – by having the Light travelling through the Universe for One Light Year. An unconceivable distance for a human being, as it is the speed at which the Light travels (...)
Through Silvia Iorio's eyes, the journey of Odyssey’s Light reached even the most remote and unknown points of the Universe. The various stages of the journey would have been impossible to document had it not been for the experiences of the people attached to them. As part of the project, the artist created the conditions for those who participated to Odyssey to re-interact with the artwork: every 12th of the month, for 12 months, they received an email with questions about what they were doing at a precise time, what they were thinking, and if their mind and body were “connected”. How many times are we caught in the middle of doing something, but our mind is elsewhere? Yet, mind and body are closely interconnected, like the switch and the light. Through the answers she received and collected, Silvia Iorio was expanding the concept of dislocation and taking it onto new levels."*

Silvia Iorio, Odyssey, 2010, One hundred and sixty switches, MDF, enamel, aluminium and wood, 224 x 118 cm

Now, what happened after a year, namely this year 2011?
The first thing to say would be that artist and curator, too, were dislocated. The artist was in Berlin, the curator in London. The two of them were disjointed, their dialogue possible only through modern technology. As the dialogue between Odyssey and its twin work Odisseia, everything seemed hard and impossible: how can it be that two different events, happening at a different time and place, are brought together and re-connected in a solo show? Initial ideas were discarded and a more complex outcome took form, the barriers of space and time acting as incentives. It couldn't have been just the same panel, with 160 lamp bulbs bearing the same colour as the switches, and lighting up in the same sequence they were activated one year before. Very predictable.
But Silvia Iorio is an artist of many resources, and surprises, as sometimes Science is. 
Therefore, the Light manifested itself through imaginary Celestial Maps, from where unknown stars, which are lost in the vastness of Universe, shine for real for the eyes of those who can see them. 
They shine for the eyes of those who see the created connections. Light came back to Earth, and earth made its appearance in the gallery space. 21 people among many who activated the switches, one year before, were the most regular contributors in answering Silvia's question about their whereabouts. 
Their coloured experiences materialised in the form of 21 light terminals, and here the circle clicks, and closes.


And to think that everything happened by simply turning on a switch!
On September 22, 2011, the exhibition Silvia Iorio Odyssey 2010 | Odisseia 2011, was successfully concluded.

Silvia Iorio - Odisseia 2011, Installation view

Odisseia 2011 - Celestial Map, detail, dimensions variable 

As I told Silvia, I find her watercolours nearly moving.
To imagine corners of Universe no one will probably ever see, but that she was able to evoke thanks to the inspiration of Light travel and people's experience, is a gift. 
The experience of the casual viewer included, of course, the fact that seeing is believing.


P.S.: I am happy to mention another show that successfully featured the Celestial Maps, which are having a great and well deserved success: Silvia Iorio, Age of Time. Edge of Space, part of the ongoing show series Rendez Vouz Mit Kunst at the Restaurant Diekmann in Berlin. The show, curated by Isabelle Meiffert, was on until the 8th of September. An installation view is below and more pictures can be found here.

_________________
(*) Extract from the catalogue's text. You can read the full version on the Galerie Mario Iannelli's website.

MARCO DAL BOSCO > Scala 1:18

SYBINQ ART PROJECTS, in collaboration with LONDON METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY, is pleased to invite you to:

SCALA 1:18 a performance by  
MARCO DALBOSCO

Presented by sybin > susanna bianchini

TUESDAY 14 DECEMBER 2010

from 6:30 pm

Unit G15

London Metropolitan University

41 Commercial Road

London E1 1LA

RSVP ESSENTIAL at curatingcontemporary@gmail.com

Italian artist Marco Dalbosco presented the performance Scala 1:18 for the first time as a parallel event at Manifesta 7 (Rovereto, Italy 2008). Setting its contents in the factory ambient and analyzing its obsessive and repetitive production process, the performance involves five women, dressed and combed the same, repeating all the same gestures, steps and sequences enhanced by a projected video of machines at work. The entire operation seems to have a liberating aspect that redeems creativity from job alienation; in fact it focuses, at the same time, on the issue of repeating and modulating mechanisms, set behind the creativity myth. The performers look like they are free, whereas they always come back to the starting point; they become metaphor for our own way of thinking, which sometimes may be constructed and constricted.

Following Guy Debord’s idea of society as a spectacle, instead of turning the production system into a show it is the alienation of the individual, the suspension of a thinking being and the unavoidable conformation of the mass that underline Dalbosco’s work. The choreographer Gloria Ploritch and her students, all from the Italian Northern Region of Trentino, have been working all along with Dalbosco to give shape to this performance, never before presented in the UK.

The exhibition is accompanied by a text by the Curator. 

Scala 1:18 is the closing event of SybinQ Art Projects for the year 2010.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE ARTIST:

MARCO DALBOSCO lives and works in London. Selected Events > 2010: Scala 1:18, London Metropolitan University, London (UK) and 26cc Space for Contemporary Art, Rome (IT); Meeting Ring, SybinQ Art Projects, London (IT);Incerti Arredi # Office Sales, Cesare Pietroiusti’s Studio, Rome (IT). 2009: 1h Art Project, London (UK). 2008: Scala 1:18, Manifesta7, Parallel Event, Rovereto (IT). 2008: Incerti Arredi, Paolo Tonin  Contemporary Art, Turin (IT).

GLORIA POTRICH lives and works in Rovereto, Italy, where she teaches Contemporary and African dance at the CDM – Didactic Centre for Music, Theatre and Dance. Her research started from Expressive African Dance passing through Contact and Dance Theatre to arrive to a research-based type of dance characterised with a bond with live music. 

SUSANNA BIANCHINI lives and works in London. By using the pseudonym of sybin, she curated various shows and created SybinQ Art Projects, a nomad space devoted to the promotion of exhibition projects, especially with young artists. This is mainly through the commissions of new artworks and the creation of unusual shows settings, outside the so-called “regular” exhibition’s parameters.

This event is possible thanks to the support of the Provincia Autonoma di Trento (IT), Cultural Association Ordine_Sparso (IT), London Metropolitan University and Levent Bozdere (UK).

More information on www.marcodalbosco.com

The Bay Window Project: Alice Anderson

THE BAY WINDOW PROJECT
Six Artists in a Frame


curated by sybin


NEXT OPENING: Tuesday 9 November at 6:30 pm. The artist will attend.
                                 Until Sunday 5 December.


SybinQ Art Projects
The window on Cleveland Street (between 92 and 96)
London W1T 6DP
T. 07913 717999
E. sybin@inwind.it


The Bay Window Project is a private window turned into a showcase of site-specific works, interrupting and changing the normal social fruition of such space and investigating the perception of art in a public display.


The fifth artist invited to exhibit in The Bay Window is ALICE ANDERSON.
(Born in London, 1976, where she lives and works)


The “obsessive artist” Alice Anderson uses memory and time to tell stories about her childhood, reinventing it as fiction through the language of movies and integrating this process with sculptures and environmental installations made of doll’s red hair. The characters she depicts, the family hierarchy in which the mother has the total power, behave in a cold and distant manner, like robots, obeying the rules of her world. By transforming herself into a doll, Anderson too becomes one of them, either succumbing or managing to free herself from her own plots.


For The Bay Window Project, Alice is presenting Rear Window (50 cm doll made out of silicon and plaster. Courtesy: The Artist and SybinQ Art Projects).


When Alice Anderson’s doll took shape, she was sharing details of her private life that she would have never thought to say to a total stranger. The person working on it listened and modeled her face, and at the end of the process they both looked at the result in awe. Before knowing this story, I remember walking past the doll at one of Alice’s solo shows and almost ignoring her until, out of the corner of my eye, I clearly saw it smiling. In the collective imagination, we already know that a doll is not just a decorative object or a toy, but is fraught with uncanny and sometimes not quite clear feelings. Since she was created, Alice’s doll – or perhaps Alice herself – has always been trapped somewhere, looking at events unfold before her, watching, without being able to act; The Bay Window will be her home for a while and only one thing is certain: she will be watching.


INFORMATION ABOUT THE ARTIST: www.alice-anderson.org


Selected Solo Shows: 2010 The Isolated Child, Cinematheque Francaise, Paris; Mother Web, Royal Opera House, London; Alice Anderson’s Time Reversal, Riflemaker, London; 2009 The Doll’s Day, Artprojx Space, London; Selected Group Shows : 2010 elles@Pompidou, Pompidou Centre, Paris; Living in Evolution, Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan, Korea; 2009 Voo Doo, Riflemaker, London; 2008 Peur et Desir, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Hbox, Tate Modern, London; 2006 Art Unlimited / Art Film, Art Basel, Basel.


The everyday life of Alice Anderson’s Doll will be documented. Stay tuned!

Please follow the MAP below to find her:

SybinQ Art Projects > 13-14 October Events

Click on the images to enlarge them

SybinQ Art Projects is pleased to present a series of exhibitions and events curated by sybin and opening during the Frieze Art Fair week. In addition to this, we are glad to introduce a useful tool to avoid missing all the parallel events in the area: The Fitzrovia Art Map.

Wednesday 13 October 2010: performance

MARCO DALBOSCO > Meeting Ring

Starts at 1:30 pm

63 Whitechapel High Street (corner with Commercial Rd) London E1 7PF

13 October – 3 November 2010: solo show

VALENTINO DIEGO > Alterations

Opening: Wednesday 13 October at 6:30 pm

41 Commercial Road, London E1 1LA

THE BAY WINDOW PROJECT
14 October – 7 November 2010: solo show

SILVIA IORIO > The Viewing Cabinet

Opening: Thursday 14 October at 6:30 pm

The window on Cleveland Street, London W1T 6DP

For the most exciting week of the year in London’s art world, the nomad association SybinQ Art Projects will present three International artists in two different parts of the city.

Starting on Wednesday 13 October in London’s East End, Marco Dalbosco and Valentino Diego will present, respectively, a performance and a show both engaging with the notion of stage and representation in different ways.

Disrupting the normal afternoon passers-by routine, Marco Dalbosco will coordinate the performance Meeting Ring at 1:30 pm: the social gathering will see artists and curators, the two very figures that allow shows to happen, ironically confronting each other in a virtual ring where they will have to pursue their preferred role through suggested actions that may, or may not, enter in conflict with one another. To express the supposed existence of a clash between artists and curators, we can recall Daniel Buren’s critical definition of the curator as being a “super-artist, using artworks as many brushstrokes in a huge painting”. But, the artist wonders, is this really the case? The reason why this artificial antagonism is staged lays in Dalbosco’s aim to explore how this particular social interaction works, transforming the performance in a rehearsal for a proper dialogue and constructive confrontation that is expected to follow afterwards. After all, relationships are built on dialogue, not procedures.

Following the performance, please join us at 6:30 pm to celebrate Valentino Diego’s first solo show in London: Alterations is a site specific installation created for a window in the London Metropolitan University’s premises in the East End. Inspired by the tailor shop windows you may find in residential areas, with owners putting their work on display in order to attract clients, Alterations is a stage prop trying to convince the distracted passer-by of its authenticity. Working on displacement and on the “redemption” of the fake object through a meticulous attention to details, the artist’s response to the window follows the general lines of a “wrong perspective” theme: the gaze builds the perception of a space but, unless the mathematical rules of perspective are applied, its representation may differ from reality. Diego’s representation of a temporary alterations shop offers a wrong perspective in its literal meaning.

Moving to the West End and in conjunction with Frieze’s Art Fair opening on Thursday 14 October, THE BAY WINDOW PROJECT will feature the first solo show in London of its fourth invited artist: Silvia Iorio.

For The Bay Window Project, Silvia is presenting The Viewing Cabinet, 2010 (Two panels, Plotter print, 193 x 80 cm each. Courtesy: The Artist and SybinQ Art Projects)

In line with the previous shows, which explored issues like capturing the gaze and the notion of voyeurism, the artist has created a viewing cabinet of her latest works. The concept of a cabinet of curiosities, a treasured collection normally reserved to a few, is turned inside out, becoming a public display that demands to be seen and, in turn, watches. Reflecting Silvia’s interest in the connection between science and art, the work aims to direct the never-resting gaze to explore this cabinet through a binocular in a sort of voyeuristic game, with the viewer actually standing on a street and using a magnifier tool to look in what would be a private window. This particular collection is almost invisible to the naked eye, its miniature details concealed: only our natural curiosity, which for example allowed Galileo to define the Solar System, will reveal what lies under the starry sky.

Please note that you will need a binocular to see Silvia Iorio’s work. Binoculars will be available at the opening and by appointment.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE ARTISTS:


MARCO DALBOSCO
Born in Rovereto, Italy, 1958. Lives and works in London. Selected Solo Shows: 2010 – 26cc Space for Contemporary Art, Rome (IT); 2008 – Paolo Tonin Contemporary Art Gallery, Turin (IT). Selected Group Shows: 2010 – Michael Landy’s Art Bin, South London Gallery, London (UK); Censorship and Self-censorship, performance with Cesare Pietroiusti, Rome (IT); 2008 – Scala 1:18, Manifesta 7, Trento (IT); 2006 – Mavarte Gallery, Valencia (E). www.marcodalbosco.com


VALENTINO DIEGO
Born in Ciriè, Italy, 1978. Lives and works in London. Selected Solo Shows: 2010 – Race, with Tomas Dzadon, Hunt Kastner Artworks, Prague (CZ); Roomates/Coinquilini, with Pietro Ruffo, MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (IT). Selected Group Shows: 2009 – Usine de reve, 26cc, Rome (IT); 2007 – Versus XIII, VELAN, Turin (IT); Spazi Incorretti, Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Rome (IT); 2006 – Generazioni/Rigenerazioni, CAMeC, La Spezia (IT); 2005 – Italian Camera, San Servolo, Venice (IT).

SILVIA IORIO

Born in Rome, 1978. Lives and works in Berlin. Selected Solo Shows: 2007 – Chromatèma, Silvia Iorio, Artist’s Corner, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, (IT); 2005 - N-Kiloton, Silvia Iorio, The Venice Biennale, 51. International Art Exhibition, Venice, (IT). Selected Group Shows: 2010 – Sorry, We’re Open, London Metropolitan University, London, (UK); 2009 - Galleria Vistamare, Artissima 16, The International Fair of Contemporary Art, Turin, (IT); 2007 - Across Art and Science, MAKRÁČ Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Prague (CZ).

Leaving Frieze Art Fair? Do not miss all the events in Fitzrovia!

Keep yourself on top of what’s going on with the Fitzrovia Art Map, realized by MD in collaboration with SybinQ Art Project. Download and print it here.

Will come next for THE BAY WINDOW PROJECT: Alice Anderson in November

Cadavre Exquis Video, previously in THE BAY WINDOW, showed the work of more than 60 artists. True or false?

Leave your thoughts on the Guestbook post. 

SybinQ Art Projects

T: 07913717999

E: sybin@inwind.it

THE FITZROVIA ART MAP

Click on the images to enlarge and print them!

The Bay Window Project: NEW ENTRIES

Speaking of the Devil...here we are with the Press Release for next event, opening tomorrow:

THE BAY WINDOW PROJECT: New Entries

curated by sybin

SALVATORE MAURO: opens Wednesday 18 August at 6:30 pm.

SybinQ Art Projects

The window on Cleveland Street, London W1T 6DP. MAP here.

(please note that there is no physical address: the window is visible where Cleveland St meets Carburton Street)

Information: 07913717999 - sybin@inwind.it

SybinQ Art Projects is pleased to present NEW ENTRIES, a section of The Bay Window Project dedicated to new talented artists who never had a solo show in London before. The window becomes a place of patronage, discussion and exchange in the project’s aim to promote young artists and the production of new artworks.

The research of young Italian artist Salvatore Mauro (Born in Augusta, Italy 1977. Lives and works in Rome) is centered on the human body and its relationship with the place where one feels more vulnerable or safer: the bathroom. In there we stand naked, lapsing in our own intimate rituals, unprotected and concealed to indiscreet eyes at the same time. Or so we think. As Alfred Hitchcock showed us in the movie “Psycho” (1960), should this intimacy be violated disaster follows.

For The Bay Window Project, Salvatore is presenting Intimate Parallelism, 2010 (193 x 180 cm, Plotter print on window glazing. Courtesy: The Artist).

The female figure mixed with bathroom accessories gives shape to an icon in the conventionally religious sense: this icon is, on one hand, reinforced by its repetition; on the other hand, repetition leads to the loss of meaning, symbolising a path in which the body, exposed to different kind of lights and postures, seems to become even more conscious of its own frailness and uncertainty. The shower hoses, an industrial apparatus sprouting from the young woman's neck, look like prosthetic appendixes, distorting and contaminating the body, accentuating its transient nature. The bathroom is the place of passage where transformation happens, either in a regenerative or destructive way. The street is the public place where private daily changes remain safely unknown behind the curtains. Exposed to the passer-by gaze, who this time is forced to watch, Intimate Parallelism not only questions the boundaries of intimacy and the places where we expect to find it, but also invites the viewer to consider his or her position in the world as a transient being, changing every day in front of the bathroom's mirror.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Salvatore Mauro exhibits widely in Italy since 2000 both in solo and group shows. He is the creator and organiser, together with artist Anna Carè, of BOX Art Festival in Rome. Now at its third edition, the festival was hosted at MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art Rome (Mattatoio) and MLAC Museum Lab of Contemporary Art at the University La Sapienza, Rome. The aim of the event is to promote new artists and projects with a focused attention to experimental language and the use of new technologies. He also works as editor of the on-line magazine NextExit.

Do you like sybin? Say it on Facebook!

Did you see The Bay Window with the video by Luana Perilli and would like to comment?

Leave your thoughts on the Guestbook post.

Will come next: CADAVRE EXQUIS VIDEO, Group Show, in September.

I am very proud of having been able to invite new, fresh artists, and to produce their work. That's what I mean for support: you can write about their art, but nothing is more effective than the actual work seen in a public place like The Bay Window.

Best of luck to Salvatore, who unfortunately won't be able to join us, and hope to see people coming tomorrow.

Sorry We're Open: installation shots

Sorry, We're Open, Unit 2, London Metropolitan University. 
Installation view from the entrance with the video Fremdkorper by Katja Pratschke and Gusztav Hamos (2002, 35 mm, duration 28').

Left: Charlotte Braicegirdle, Nightgown, 2010, paint on photograph.
Right: Nathalie Guinamard, Interior 3 (Doors), 2008, collage.

Sorry, We're Open, Installation shot from the back

Dylan Shipton, Luminal, 2010, timber, damp proof, plasterboard, screws, dimensions variable

Left, from bottom then up and right: Martina Geccelli, 3 Books With Gold, 2008, Digital C-Print, Aluminium board, 50 x 60 cm; 2 Books - 1 Leaning, 2010, Digital C-Print, Aluminium board, 50 x 60 cm; 2 Boxes - Liter, 2004, Digital C-Print, Aluminium board, 50 x 60 cm. Right: view of Nathalie Guinamard's second collage (in detail below)

Nathalie Guinamard, Round Round, 2009, collage.

Sorry, We're Open: Installation shot towards the bottom

Left: Sophie Vent, Dancing on Kekule' (B-End), 2010, video.
Right: Silvia Iorio, Odyssey, 2010, 160 switches, enamel, MDF, aluminium, wood, 224 x 118,4 cm. 

Russel Charter, iwozeree17pf, 2010, window cleaner, glass.

All images: Courtesy Digby Washer, 2010.