A Post Summer Update

If I had followers, I would write that I am an atypical blogger.

Posts are becoming fewer and fewer, and my will to write is in constant negotiation with the doubt of doing it properly in another language. Not to mention that I have no comments whatsoever.

Then I happen to see the stats and it says that I had 7541 page views since starting this blog. And the most visited one is The Guestbook, with FIVE VIEWS and absolutely no comment. Not even SPAM.
The internet is taking the piss.

However, summer has passed. September is here, and the longing for the warmth of that sun, and the taste of the sea on the skin, is still lingering. I went around and about. In the previous post, Berlin. Then Paris.

Paris that sometimes looks evil and distant in her everlasting charm and little snobbery. 

Cecì n'èst pas la place pour toi.

Finally, our little beloved village in Southern Italy, Porto Cesareo. And the black notebook following me everywhere, gathering ideas, shears of dialogues, random pieces of a story. Yes, I am writing.

 

Some new projects were developed over the summer, and some other are coming.
All I can tell you is, bear with me. I'll stretch my legs and start running again.

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.

E Allora Ditelo.

Sono stata ottimista.
Ho pensato che cercando su Google "Marco Columbro" mi sarebbe apparsa una foto della sua celebre espressione basita, quando nei gloriosi anni '90 lancio' l'indimenticabile tormentone del E allora ditelo!
Ovviamente tale foto manca, ma in compenso mi dovrebbero spiegare perché, invece, mi compaiono immagini di ragazze in tanga. Misteri della rete.

Da quando mi sono trasferita in Inghilterra, ho riscoperto la potenza di questa dimenticata espressione idiomatica, di cui penso non esista la traduzione in Inglese. Non esiste per un motivo particolare: non e' una risposta contemplabile, e ora vado a spiegarvi il motivo di cotanto animato post.

Situazione tipo: stai organizzando una mostra con altre quattro persone.
Non poteva esserci altra situazione tipo visto che il Blog si basa interamente su questo, barcamenandosi tra Inglese, Italiano, pochissimo tempo per scrivere e una necessaria autocensura.
Tornando alla mostra, va scritto il comunicato stampa e trovato un titolo definitivo: si fa la riunione. Oh, c'e' una persona che non può venire, ma che promette di appoggiare qualsiasi scelta sarà fatta. Benissimo!
Si opta per un titolo, si sottopone al supervisore che puntualmente lo rigetta. Inizia un tete-a-tete via email con il suddetto supervisore per trovare qualcosa di più appropriato. Fatta la proposta, la sottoscritta (che si e' presa l'oneroso incarico delle PR), manda email ai colleghi con il nuovo titolo che ha già riscontrato l'approvazione del supervisore.
"Fatemi sapere che cosa ne pensate, please", perché ovviamente vige la libera opinione, la democrazia e tutti quei buoni propositi la'. Due settimane di silenzio, arriva il giorno della spedizione del comunicato stampa. Si fa un'altra riunione ed ecco come se ne esce la stessa persona che l'ultima volta era assente: "Non mi ricordo di aver approvato questo titolo. Possiamo sceglierne un altro?" Al che io guardo gli altri tre con gli occhi di fuori e, chi più e chi meno, timidamente la appoggiano:
"Beh, si, in effetti non e' che questo titolo abbia molto senso..."
"Eh, lo penso anch'io."
"In effetti cambiamolo!"
"Eh, ragazzi..." faccio io "...sapete come funziona coi comunicati: o partono due settimane prima o non se ne fa niente..." Prendo un grosso respiro e aggiungo: "Inoltre, non ve ne potevate uscire due settimane fa, quando ho mandato la mail chiedendo cosa ne pensavate?" Che tradotto sarebbe: E ALLORA DITELO! No?

L'Inglese DOC a questo punto già ti guarda male.
Si, perche' qui e' maleducazione dire a qualcuno che una cosa non ti piace o non ha senso, pero' ha più senso fermare un'intera "campagna di marketing" (metto fra virgolette perché in finale siamo cinque studenti sfigati che studiano per diventare curatori) perché alla fine il modo si trova. Più subdolamente.
Certo e' che, dopo tre anni, avrei dovuto imparare che il "silenzio stampa" da parte dei tuoi colleghi non presagisce nulla di buono.
Avrei dovuto capire che "it's not too bad" in realtà' vuol dire "fa davvero schifo."
Anche un aggiornamento sulle moderne imprecazioni in lingua Inglese non sarebbe stato troppo sbagliato.

Ogni volta la stessa storia e, ogni volta, ho visioni della faccia esasperata di Columbro, circondato da giovani ragazze in fiore che ballano in bikini, che pronuncia la fatidica frase con i coretti di sottofondo.

That is the question

Hello, my invisible readers.

It's been a while and yes, I am pretty busy, but this absence also bears some speculations that I am going to share with you right before February ends and there will be no post to read under this month.

Ups, February has ended, I am just re-opening this post today and it will now be published under March. Whatever.

The point is, it is not very exciting to have a blog if you don't have an interacting community. I know I have made some mistakes: I write in English, but it's not my mother tongue, so the few blessed souls that bump in this rantings must have some serious difficulty. I have discovered lately, while writing a proposal for a show, that sometimes my sentences don't really make any sense.
The reason being that of the phrase construction, which is still unfortunately set on Italian.

At the same time, writing in English excludes all the lazy Italian community, people who usually love to interact but make darn sure not to in another language. In conclusion, I speak about something not everyone is interested in and that is taken very, too seriously to be joked about: curating. Organising shows. Basically, I am in no man's land.

A decision is needed, and I must admit that I miss writing in my own language, con il quale ho molte piu' possibilita' espressive nonostante la mancanza delle lettere accentate sulle tastiere Inglesi. Apprezzate la fluidita'. Testate lo scorrere del linguaggio, senza intoppi da momentanea ricerca del termine giusto sul vocabolario. Aaaah, mi sento come se mi stessi sgranchendo le gambe (sgranchire! Ma come si dira' in Inglese...), o stirando le membra (stretching my limbs? Sounds poetic...)

I don't want to get rid of the English of course: I love writing like this, despite the fact that I am unable to totally grasp every nuance of this language. Let me tell you that I am inaugurating a new section of the blog, "In Italiano".
Qui troverete dei post scritti nella mia lingua natia che pero' non avro' il tempo di tradurre in Inglese...anche perche' potrebbero esserci lamentele varie verso il paese ospitante.

Che forse e' pure ora.

The Eighth Labours of Hercules

Imagine you are writing a text for a catalogue, something of academic nature, developing one aspect of a potential show.

Imagine the selection of the books to prepare your dissertation, starting with database research and meticulous investigation of the footnotes, to find further references.

Imagine a thorough reading of all the sources, including books you never dreamed of approaching like Hal Foster, The Return of the Real. Fabulous, but your brain asked for mercy and your neurones went to the gym to potentiate their evidently weak connections. You still are not sure about what you've actually read.

Imagine to sit in front of the computer, staring at the screen, because the paragraphs you took two days to organise don't really make any sense and you know that.

Imagine to continue reading the books over and over again, desperately trying to find the connections you are seeking.

Imagine to finish writing at 10 pm of the night before Consignment Day: your eyes are as big as a satellite dish and the curve of your back has increased of at least another couple of inches.

Now, imagine to do all of this in another language.


> Washing the Christmas tablecloth at the end of January? Curator's Stuff

The Viewing Cabinet: Silvia Iorio strikes again

Oh yes, she does.

Perhaps you remember this post and all its implication of difficulties in the organisation of The Bay Window Project's sixth show. I'd like to throw myself in the account of what can be rechristen as The Chronicles of Silvia, but I have just realised that this whole blog is all about the organisational part of being a curator, whereas I want now to delve more into art theory...OK, maybe just one bit or two, because I think I can see you rolling your eyes in front of the screen.

Let me just tell you, then, that the pictures you see below were taken at the opening (by Fabio-God-Bless-Him-Lattanzi Antinori) and the artist arrived from Berlin, by bus, on the morning of the very same day (she doesn't fly. Even if she had a solo show in New York, she would go there by boat). Want to know what happened the day before? After having successfully delivered the work for The Bay Window, whose great impact and delightful humour I am going to describe in a minute, poor Silvia had to cross Berlin in all its length to get the essential UV lamp because I, the undersigned, was way too busy with another show to search for it in London and, moreover, couldn't find any in the few electrical shops I managed to go to.

SMS exchange on 13 October around 3 pm, with Silvia's Bus scheduled at 6:30 pm:

Si: My friend lost the dog,I had to take bus,no ticket,escaped the fine,have to prepare suitcase,retrieve my work from gallery and return house keys.CAN'T DO LAMP!

sy: Really Sorry.Can't do lamp either.They don't have it here! :( YOU HAVE to get it. No lamp,no party.

> Learning to say NO: Curator's Stuff

Against all odds, Silvia and the lamp were on the bus on time and the day after she triumphantly assembled everything in the window with the help of good Maddalena, transforming it in a glowing cabinet of modern prints.

As her subjects, she has chosen Museums: the place where most of the artists aspire to enter, sooner or later. The institution, the place that recognizes someone's efforts and, as she puts it, sanctions his or her contribution to the History of Art.

"Are you really interested in making history?" I once asked her.

"Indeed", was the reply.

Every building's picture was turned into an etching, in a dialogue between past and contemporary techniques of reproduction. I was mystified by the quantity (and shapes!) of Museums she managed to track down from all over the world. Some are pretty recognisable, some others...aren't. This prompted us to think about organising a competition on Facebook, coming soon.

Guess the Museum in Silvia Iorio's Viewing Cabinet: name and location.

After all, being familiar with most of the institutions around the world it's not only curator's, but also artist's, stuff.

Silvia Iorio entered every single Museum, virtually speaking, and stares at the viewer through a binocular. The viewer, in turn, needs the binocular to look at the installation properly, otherwise, what would be perceived as an effort to make something private public, is turned into private again. As the background for each museum, she chose the universe, a space nebula with stars and cloudy explosions of molecular mass, in her undying homage to Chaos and Chance. The UV lamp makes the whites glow, transporting everything in a surreal dimension; there is, indeed, much of the Surrealism inheritance in this work: Magritte immediately jumps to mind but, at the same time, you do realise that the way in which Silvia Iorio works is totally original, her own, and unexplored.

This work is an invitation to explore. The Universe of art, why not, but in the first place to explore a private window offering a cabinet of prints, curiosities, where the display itself almost institutionalises everything, transforming the space in a sort of Museum.

As you already know, not many people come to The Bay Window openings: we are not a gallery, we do not offer alcohol, we don't have an indoor space and this compels people to stand outside in the - now - cold evenings. English people very rarely come. Nonetheless, I was very pleased to see the small group who came to see this one: artists, curators and press editors.

All friends, all Italians. It was like being home for a while.

You haven't learned anything

> Organising decent shows with the lowest budget possible: Curator's Stuff

So far, The Bay Window Project relied on a generous lender for a projector. But when the lender takes the projector back and says "that's it", all you have to do is thank him very much and find another -cheap- solution. Having discarded the possibility of other projector lenders (because the item always has to go back at a certain point, not to mention the consumption of the expensive lamp), the most plausible solution is only one: buy it.

And, seen the budget issue, you already know where: eBay.
This virtual auction website doesn't really need any further introduction: a receptacle of hidden treasures and desirable junk, it can really save your finances in the hour of need. But you need to be prepared: like you, hundreds of other buyers are glued to the computer screen, waiting silently to place the best bid and get the item they want. Perusing eBay can be turned from a pleasant and even funny experience to pure war, furiously fought through the beat of mouse clicks.

Let's get an example. There is this am-az-ing projector, right? Brand new, new lamp, thousands of ansi lumen, everything. Nine people are bidding for it but the price is still reasonable. No problem: with a grin on your face, you place the unbeatable bid, thinking no one will have the time to beat it at the last minute. In actual auction rooms, where real and expensive artworks are for sale to the best offer, there is what is recognised as the "aggressive" bidder: he or she who keeps the paddle up all the time, to show the others that the artwork already has an owner. Same attitude applies on-line, in the virtual world of html codes and numbers.

Very well, the end of the projector auction is approaching and of course you are in front of the computer, looking smug, because your bidding trick always worked before. You also have a fresher to impress: your husband never bid on eBay before and is still confused about how it works and, moreover, about your questionable plan.
15 seconds left and the figure doesn't increase.
10 seconds left: overexcited, you start the countdown, like it was New Years Eve.
4...3...2...1...and... you don't win the projector.

O_O"

Wait a minute. How come you didn't win the projector? What happened? What the...
Let's rewind, shall we? While you were acting like an idiot, the bidders on the other side of the screen just overcame your offer, and that happened in the space of three seconds, making a counter-bid humanly impossible.
They knew how to do it. The aggressive bidder got distracted: game over. Your husband looks at your gutted face shaking his head and offers to help.

The research continues, this time on Gumtree, because you just can't take all this pressure (nor another shameful defeat) and your husband insists it is "safer": you start to be surprised about the quantity of people who wants to get rid of a projector. You make contact with a guy, an appointment is set the day after at 3.30 pm to see the item. The guy lives light years away from you, but nonetheless you make the journey. When you call him to know where exactly his flat is, reminding him that you are coming for the projector, the answer is: "Sorry, it's sold." WHAT??

Then, you remember. It's 3.27 pm and you are in London, the native land of the first-come-first-served basis with the addition of I-don't-have-to-give-you-any-explanation-nor-send-you-any-text-to-let-you-know. You have been living here for two years now.
You haven't learned anything.

And, sadly, you still don't have a projector.
Back on eBay, where you were monitoring some more of them, you find another suitable candidate... and win it this time! Although there was no count-down and your fingers were ready on the keyboard with an higher offer, you were the only bidder (hum...)
Collection: successful.
Computer connection: after a few curses and a pathetic phone call to the previous owner, successful.
Then you remember something about the ansi lumens, and discover that this projector has a brand new lamp bulb, yes, but it has less than half of the power of the previous one.

Perfect in a dark room, a bit poor with street lights on. Doh.

> Not knowing a rat's ass about technology: Curator's Stuff.

Performance Anxiety

Wednesday the 18th. Opening day.

I must confess I use the old trick of "No Great Expectations" to survive the evening, which is also called common sense: if you have just started an exhibition project in a city that is not your birthplace, which is to say where you don't know a huge amount of people, then if five souls show up at your openings you may consider it a success.

It's 6:30 sharp. I am in Cleveland Street, opposite The Bay Window, leaning on my own on the iron fence. The work by Salvatore Mauro is in place and looks great: a series of different photographs, arranged in repeating patterns, of a girl holding some shower hoses behind her neck. Gossip detail: I have asked the artist to remove the bit in which a glimpse of the girl's breasts appeared. I didn't want to have any "moral order" problems with neighbors, passers-by or parents: in the end, The Bay Window is not a private gallery, it's a sort of public space. Moreover, its function is not hundred-per-cent clear: I bet some people must think that who lives in that flat has a very strange taste for fancy curtains.

I am holding a bunch of home made flyers, the latest idea in matter of promotion. Word document, printed and cut in half. I am going to hand them to people strolling by and just try to inform them about what is going on under their noses. Normally, I wouldn't have any problem in approaching total strangers on their way home to harass them about an art project: my latest cheeky deed was smiling at Noel Gallagher like he was an old friend of mine while we crossed paths on the street for the second time. He nodded back, bless him.

Well, back to the flyers, at the beginning I just can't do it. It's very different when you have to face people concerning a project of yours: there is no distance from it to save you, you're just too much involved. I think we can call it "performance anxiety" and it comprises several factors, including still being on my own on a street at 6:42 pm on an August Wednesday evening. OK, everyone shows up late at the openings (Ah, really?), but what if no one comes this time? I lift a flyer, looking hopefully at a man in a suit approaching. He snatches it absentmindedly and mutters a thankyou.
"No no, thank YOU", I hurriedly say. I start observing people's behavior, the unmistakeable don't-nag-me signs: a girl leaves the pavement and walks on the road to put the maximum distance possible between me and her. Come on, darling, it's just a flyer... it doesn't bite! Other people just say NO and walk away. It's normal, I would probably do the same, but frustration starts to arise. Flyers apart, no one has really noticed the window.
For a split second, this is what I think: Why the hell did I do that? I just want to go home. 

That's when people start to arrive. One in particular is my hero: my G., who is my partner in crime and supporter for this project, handles the flyers much better than me (and he claims to be a shy person). The people coming to see the window are all acquaintances of mine, and what pleases me is seeing new faces in addition to those who can be called the regulars (two, in fact). Chattering and explanations begin, with other people briefly stopping. A smiling lady approaches us from the restaurant on the other side of the road to ask what this is all about. She grabs a flyer, looses it to the wind and goes fetching it again.
Among the small public there are three curators and two artists, the ones with whom you can have a serious talk later on at the pub.

Artists always speak their minds, which is much appreciated: one in particular, after my explanation about the meaning of the presented work, says that in his opinion the work fails to convey such message and that maybe this time the choice isn't exactly appropriate for the window (I knew! I knew the images were too small! I knew...). Habda, who is there too, asks him in what way and I know she won't let go until she has a straightforward, satisfying answer. I like her way of digging into things. After a good deal of "er" and "hum", the artist replies: "I don't really know..."

Salvatore Mauro, Intimate Parallelism, 2010
Plotter print, 4 panels on window glazing, dimensions variable.

Courtesy The Artist and SybinQ Art Project

Before going home at 9:30ish, G. and I are approached by P., restaurant owner and participant observer of The Bay Window Project since they are one below the other.
P. is a very very nice man, and he tells us that, while we were at the pub, a bloke showed up to see the window and was quite frustrated not to find anyone; he also complained to P. about the difficulty of finding the place. In short, he was disappointed.

I am wondering who this is, or, perhaps, if he was Mario.

There must be a reason

With every preparation of a show, here comes the moment every young curator dreads the most: sending the Press Release.

If you don't have the luck (or funds) of having a proper Press Office doing it for you, then be prepared for a good deal of stress which will probably end up in calling the computer every name under the sun or, more politely, putting your hands in your hair not exactly to pull them out, but to prevent them from falling off.

Too melodramatic? In the end it's not a big deal, is it? It's just about sending some emails... well, there must be a reason why people study hard to become Press Officers.

First of all, dealing with the press means tight deadlines, well in advance of the event, which can't be ignored; therefore you need to squeeze your brain out and get the press release done before that date. If you have the writer's block or suffer from chronic perfectionism, you're screwed.

Once everything is nicely ready, the image is in place in the email's body, the writings make sense - not too boring, not too long - and the timing is right, you suddenly realise that you can't send it at once to all your contacts. Most of the on-line email servers now have anti-spam filters activating themselves as soon as you try to go over, say, two-hundred emails per day - Two Hundred! Wow, you have a hell of a mailing list! - OK, people don't like spam and that's a fact, but there is a difference between selling Viagra and informing about an upcoming show... I am sure these spam filters, which must have been devised from the CIA's greatest geeks, are aware of the email's content.

How do you solve this? By splitting your contacts in not too large groups. Ype, but this takes half of your day. Moreover, you can be the most organised and precise person in the world... there will always be a skipped, forgotten or even added twice contact ending up in the wrong group. Like That Gallery Director getting, together with the show invitation, a personal message saying: "Hello dude! Hope to see ya there!" Face it: you're not Superman.

After having tried to pull your eyes, that have started twitching, together, you are ready to press the 'Send' button. Read it again.
Adjust that double space.
Add something.
Delete something.
Wait! Don't forget to add the Bcc otherwise every contact will see everyone else's email and they are going to hate you.
Ah! Add the disclaimer, too. Explain to people why they are getting this email, that you are blah blah, rules about privacy, blah blah blah and that, if they don't want to receive such information anymore, they can unsubscribe.
Put your email in the "To" field, so you can monitor everything.
Done. Take a breath... Send.

Aaaaah, first batch gone, you start to relax and even to feel smug. Piece of cake! You receive the email that you have just sent to yourself and...instead of the image, there is a nice blue square with a question mark in it. What the hell? Simple: the image has jumped. That's when you start to loose it because you just have informed a group of people of a show about a work that they can't see. And it's not just any group, like "Friends" who will definitely understand: it's "Press". This doesn't really help.

To avoid repeating the embarrassing mistake, you start all over again, create a new fresh email, re-add the image, and avoid the "Forward" button like the plague. This, for five or six times minimum, depending on how many "Groups" you have. In the mean time, is 1.59 am and you have been at it all day. Well, at least it's done. Life is beautiful!

The day after, you open your email account to finish sending the invite to the rest of your contacts - you were clever enough to keep the ones not subject to deadlines for the day after because the spam filters have indeed blocked you. - Among the many "Out of Office" auto-reply and failure notices because you typed 'hitmail' instead of 'hotmail', what do you find?
A couple of "Unsubscribe". Like this. No reason given.

Well now, after all you have been through!

SybinQ Art Projects is born

Martin Westwood, Flat-field, 2010
Laminated print on window glazing
4 panels, dimensions variable.

Courtesy: The Artist and SybinQ Art Project

I wanted to write a post about exhibiting in a window.

The exhibition finishes in two days and I have been feeling that weird sensation of melancholy for the whole week. Being a curator can't really get so personal, but I guess it's normal: you always work on temporary projects, the shows, which are set up and then dismantled. If you do a good job, they will be remembered, mentioned, and inspire people for... ever? 

Well, at least for a very long time.

I'd like to talk plainly about The Bay Window Project now, beyond the academism of the press release. First of all, the idea was inspired by my Mum. She is not that into art, but likes to gaze-peep into other people's windows at night, when the curtains are slightly open and you can catch a glimpse of what's going on in a house different from yours. Something unavoidable, that is, curiosity. An invading tool, that makes you call yourself a voyeur with all the wrong connotations this term implies. 

But, in fact, minding people's business is licit if done through the media: the Big Brother on TV, all sorts of video on You Tube, not to mention that I am living in the most surveyed country in the world, a nation under CCTVs. The present show at Tate Modern, Exposed, is just about this. It is interesting to see what happens, instead, when the gaze is free to wonder in an urban environment. Usually the mind is blinded by personal thoughts, which make it difficult to actually register disruptions in the ordinary layout of buildings, shops, advertising signs, and so on.

This is where The Bay Window places itself, attempting to attract the passer-by gaze.
Documenting curiosity, in this case, becomes difficult. I have been observing people strolling along the street and hardly anyone is aware of their surroundings. Moreover, of the very few ones who might have raised their chin, spotted the window, and understood that they weren't looking at blinds, I know nothing of their thoughts. I would really like to hear opinions, to have crits. From "interesting" to "why would this interest me?" Art breeds on discussion, and I feel that this project, still at its embryonal state, needs some feedback.

The opening saw thirty people coming and it was nice chatting with them and hearing their impressions. I had a black notebook for the purpose, which collected, in total, two comments: one was raising an health and safety issue, the other was, simply, "Amazing project. You inspire people."

I shall add, at the end, that a new peculiar exhibition space is born: SybinQ Art Projects.
For now, it's in the Bay Window. But being not a gallery space, it can change place.

Note to the picture: since I do not have a camera with the wide angle lens, this is the result of sticking two pictures together. And yes, I took the inspiration from Digby's work, to whom I apologise for the poor result.

What's going on

Ouch.
No posts since more than ten days!
Well, it's a bit difficult when you have to:

1. Follow up a show;
2. Finish your assignments;
3. Open the events day and close the show the day after;
4. Organise another small project;
5. Remember you had a social life.

We even have amazing pictures to post, so please bear with us.

You won't be disappointed again!

It's Wednesday already and I am not.

If you're thinking that this title sentence doesn't make any sense, you're probably right.

It is inspired to the title of a book by Italian writer Alessandro Bergonzoni, who just wanted to say, in a very philosophical way, that he wasn't ready for something. His whole being wasn't ready.

Tomorrow's the big day.

We have worked hard, the artists have worked hard, nonetheless some big issues still need to be sorted out; I know is normal when you deal with organising a big event as such with, literally, your bare hands and your personal - limited - knowledge of practical stuff.

The curator, this essential and yet undefined figure, is here divided in two parts: from one side, the intellectual one, the one who devises the show and all its cultural implications, who makes the connections between the works and makes people see the message. 

From the other, the practical one. Someone who can build a frame, screw nails without screwing up things, hang stuff from the ceiling if needed and has a very, very deep knowledge of any material, from the reactions of paint to fingers touch to how to bend metal and make a projector cage out of it.

As for our little team, I can proudly say that we include both curators type. Half and half, evenly split.

Anyway, like it happens when you play Monopoly, unforeseen events happen.

Tomorrow we open at 6 pm.

I promise to put a post up as soon as the setting up is finished, just to be able to look at it in a while, maybe a week later, and see what the time was, when it was posted.

(art) Community Matters

 It's frustrating.

When you are on a very expensive Master, you have to keep a job to carry on; and, if that job is art-related and you do like it, things get even more complicated for your studies.

In short: when I am at work I can't be around to help for the show, and so are some other curators. Fran and Will, our handy ones, are doing their best to get everything ready for the two days installation next week (and I will definitely keep you posted on that), but the truth is that there aren't enough technicians around to build, saw, glue, cut, staple, etc. because they are all busy for the upcoming show the Fine Arts students will have at the end of the academic year, meaning June. When you are organising a show, you feel like you're the only one on earth doing so. In this case, waking up and DIY are essential.

Well, I guess we were in trouble. Silvia's work was due to be ready yesterday, with the panel glued and ready to be sprayed together with onehundredandsixty switches. Instead, we're running a little late on schedule, which never is a good thing because I am dead sure we'll have more issues during installation. Then, what? 

Ah, let me tell you about the small art world: a willing extra hand is always there. 

Yesterday, Silvia and I were having this conversation:

Si - We would really need an extra hand...

sy - I know... Actually, a friend of mine sent me an email the other day recommending someone who just moved to London...

Si - Oh, yeah?

sy - And I made contact with him: he was very kind and said to call him if we ever needed an hand.

Si - Ah, maybe we can try... Otherwise, a friend of mine, too, wanted to introduce me to a friend of his who can be of help here... His name was... can't remember. What's your guy's name?

sy - D.V.

Si - (stares)

sy - What??

Si - (laughs hysterically) That's him!

sy - No way!

Si - Yes!

They say London is a big, alienating metropoli. I don't quite agree.

It is actually difficult to see friends unless you make an early appointment but, in the end, you can just bump into people by chance. The strong network in the often-neglected-by-the-system art world has always amazed me, there always is a friend of a friend knowing another friend who has met a friend who knows a friend of yours. And it is nice to get someone helping and solving problems because of that.

Thank you, D.V.!

Carmen Queasy

When you are not a native speaker, language misunderstandings happen. 

For example, I wanted to start this post with some lyrics from the song Carmen Queasy from Skunk Anansie + Maxim because I thought the words were: Money making this wonderful things. Having not completely understood the lyrics, I have imagined that Skin was listing some nice things you can have because of money, but in a rather pillory way. Quite the opposite, as the correct phrase is: Money making is a wonderful thing. 

I smiled to myself when I thought that it is exactly what doesn't happen to the dark side of the Art World, the side behind the scenes, that of the curators. 

The show is going rather well. We have even written our texts for the catalogue, that, after long consideration, will be a nice constantine (constantine?!? You mean concertina...) instead of a booklet, because the latter was too expensive. We are bringing in some artists from abroad, and this weights considerably on the budget, so we had to cut out a bit on the catalogue. A necessary sacrifice? Who knows, I guess we'll only discovery it after the opening. The concept of the space is finally developed, and each artist's work that we selected seem to get well with it. 

But. 

At this very moment, I think about myself as calm and queasy. Yes, call me Carmen. 

Some of you may remember this post and our encounter with lovely Silvia Iorio. Her interesting work, based on the entanglement theory, is turning out to be rather complicated to do for this particular contest of an MA curating student show. I would say that money is the main problem, but someone would surely retort that you can indeed organize a great show with very little budget.

I would like to reply then thinking about the words of Hans Ulrich Obrist: in this job, mistakes happen, and they are very welcome. I take it this is it, but I am still hoping we can run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. In short: we really want Silvia in the show, but still need to understand how.

I think I have got a twitching eye...

The elusivity of this post is deliberated, as the complete technical description of Silvia Iorio's new work cannot be divulgated. Yet.