Qualcosa è cambiato. Nuovi progetti, vecchie prospettive.

Salve, sono sybin, forse vi ricorderete di me per post come The Kite Flyer, oppure SybinQ Art Projects is Born. Tutta roba che scrivevo mentre ero a Londra, dove ho passato gli ultimi cinque anni.
L'ultimo post che ho scritto risale a Dicembre 2011 e, mentre spazzolo via la polvere virtuale ed elimino le ragnatele dalla rete, faccio il punto della situazione: un anno dopo avrei avuto una figlia (non, ceci n'est pas un mommy blog. Jamais! Jamais!) e ancora sei mesi dopo io e la mia famigliola ci saremmo ri-trasferiti in Italia.

A Bergamo, per la precisione, e non a Roma che è la mia città natale.

Roba che quando racconto questo ad un interlocutore c'è ancora chi mi chiede se sono sana di mente: "Usti! Da Londra a Bergamo? Bel cambiamento, neh?" Eh. Confesso che tale prospettiva non entusiasmava neanche me, che mi occupo di arte contemporanea ed ero scappata a Londra proprio per avere "qualche chance in più." Tuttavia, poi siamo arrivati qui e lo scetticismo iniziale si è trasformato in "umh", un suono onomatopeico a metà tra la riflessione e l'apprezzamento.

Per esempio, ho cambiato punto di vista. Per dire, a Londra, quando aprivo la mia famosa bay window, avevo questo paesaggio:

Paesaggio urbano e poco attraente, si, ma vivevamo a un tiro di schioppo da Oxford Street, quindi, ci stava. Il quartiere di Fitzrovia era la nostra oasi tranquilla nel mezzo del caotico centro di Londra. Però, per dire, adesso apro la finestra della casa a Bergamo, che nel mio giudizio iniziale era La Qualunque cittadina mai frequentata del Nord Italia, ed il paesaggio è il seguente:

Photo Credits: Eco di Bergamo

Quello che ti frega, a Bergamo, per quanto puoi essere prevenuta, sono le colline. La città alta è un gioiellino incastonato dalle mura e tutt'intorno la morbidezza di queste colline, puntinate da chiesette e abitazioni, sembra quasi un comitato di accoglienza.

Ho cambiato prospettiva. Quando arriva una figlia a cambiarti la vita si cerca un luogo che sia a misura di bambino e di famiglia. Ho iniziato perfino a parlare di maternità, in pillole.  Questo però non vuol dire che io sia stata con le mani in mano fino a questo momento: del resto, organizzare mostre e fare il curatore è una specie di mania.

Ecco un progettino a cui ho lavorato l'anno scorso: www.lightingmoodscontest.com
Un parco pubblico. Delle lampade ad energia solare. La sinergia tra arte e nutrimento culturale. Un concorso per artisti emergenti che ha visto vincere la giovane Isabella Mara, che ha avuto l'occasione di lavorare accanto ad altre due artiste storiche come Mariella Bettineschi ed Alice Anderson. L'idea era di trasformare un parco pubblico di periferia in un luogo espositivo, mettendo l'arte alla portata di tutti e ponendo l'accento sull'importanza delle energie rinnovabili.

Un altro bel progetto a cui sto lavorando attualmente è stato annunciato oggi su un altro blog, precisamente Ma Che Davvero di Chiara Cecilia Santamaria, che seguo praticamente dagli esordi. Che emozione! Ecco perché sono qui ad aggiornare in fretta e furia il mio bistrattato blog, nell'attesa che venga trasformato in un funzionalissimo sito web.

E continui a portare avanti gli intenti di SybinQ Art Projects di promuovere l'arte contemporanea attraverso la circolazione delle cultura, la commissione di nuove opere per spazi inconsueti e la creazione di networks internazionali.

Stavolta, per il Book Art Project lo spazio inconsueto è quello di un libro, trasformato in opera d'arte in un progetto unico nel suo genere. Per l'occasione, SybinQ Art Projects ritorna a Roma, al Pastificio Cerere, luogo storico di San Lorenzo, sede di studi di artisti che hanno fatto la storia della pittura Italiana, come ad esempio Giuseppe Gallo, per cui ho avuto il piacere di lavorare prima che la mia avventura Londinese avesse inizio.

La mostra sarà allo Spazio Cerere dal 26 al 30 Novembre 2015, e per me è un po' come tornare a casa, in tutti i sensi. Vi aspetto!

© Chiara Cecilia Santamaria, Ma Che Davvero

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.

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:

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.

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 Stories Behind the Opening

Wednesday morning, 9:30 am at the University.

In Unit 2, Will is squatted on the floor, manoeuvring cables and plugs next to a black hand painted plinth, under Sophie's gaze: the loop of the video Dancing on Kelkule' (B-END) isn't working because of a missing remote, and she's just back from Argos where she bought a new DVD player with a remote; now it's just the case to understand which cable goes in which plug. Meanwhile, Francesca is standing on the ladder, cleaning the dusty and so far neglected surface of the spotlights. We've spent the previous days scraping the floor, then polished by the cleaners, sanding the wall and re-painting it: the long, rectangular gallery looks fresh and new.

All the works are up and ready but three: Habda is gone to Charlotte's studio to collect two and is due to come in at 12-ish. We are adding a new piece, Night Gown, that the artist has just finished, because the left hand side wall next to Dylan's installation looks a bit empty. For a moment, setting up a show looks like furnishing a home. You notice an empty space above the sofa: you buy a mirror or something in a frame. For a great collector, that would be a painting.

The other missing work is THE Odyssey. Not ready yet.

The day before, I had my very first long face when I discovered that the MDF panel was painted at 4.30 pm and was going to take all night to dry up. Moreover, the switches' plates didn't have their gloss yet. That meant finishing the work on Wednesday, the opening day, by 6 pm. Hah.

9:35 am.

My long face and I are at the spray workshop in order to beg Andy, who's swamped with other work, to spray finish the plates, which will dry in two hours (two hours!) We exchange pleasantries, and then Andy makes my morning by saying that he did the job at 8:30 am and we can collect the plates in half an hour or so. I jump back downstairs to meet D.V., who is now officially helping Silvia and has been nominated our guardian angel: a skilled technician, practical and direct person, he will reveal himself to be an essential add. We go in search of a gun...for hot melt glue, not to shoot anyone of course.

11:30 am.

The panel is dried and ready on trestles in the workshop in front of the spray finishing room. Silvia and D.V. are inserting switches in the holes, which click perfectly in place. The gun is not warming up. It takes 10 minutes before realising that the plug isn't working. New plug. The gun works. At 11:46, we have our first test of gluing a plate to a table, to see if it holds. It does. More or less.

12:07 pm.

Back in Unit 2. The video loop works, but there are problems with the plinth crashing the cable and stopping the connection. A big, black, heavy TV sits atop of the plinth and has to be removed every time a new arrangement is made. Nonetheless, Will doesn't loose his high spirit. I get a text from Habda: all well, she is on her way with the works. If we need anything just let her know. Same text from Clementina, who will come in the afternoon. Fran is adjusting the projector's position for Gusztav and Katja's video Transposed Bodies, which in the meantime has been kept playing: although none of us speaks German, I think we now know the lines by heart.

12:33 pm.

I go back to the workshop room, which is 5-7 minutes walk from Unit 2, to see how the plates gluing is going. One line is done. The lines are 21. The switches 160. One line per hour makes...I suddenly realise that the work is proceeding very slowly because of the accuracy Silvia is putting in choosing the right colour combination among the six selected. I make her promise to speed up, then I regret saying that: beautiful things are always slow. From the back of my mind, I hear a voice shrieking: No.Time.For.Cheap.Poetry.Damnit!

2:30 pm.

I bring the guys something to eat and have my sandwich along the way. Two lines done. But, most of the plates have been arranged, it's just a matter of gluing them. 

3:05 pm.

Back in Unit 2. Charlotte's works are up and look amazing, I may make some more considerations in a minute. On D.V.'s suggestion, I am putting the screws in the wall for Odyssey in advance so, if they really finish last minute, at least we will save time on the hanging. Will, who in the end managed to fix the video but isn't quite done yet, and I diligently take all the measurements according to D.V.'s instructions, and mark the four holes for the screws. 

4:16 pm.

I spend at least half an hour to check that the holes are on the same line: not easy when you have a 224 cm long work and a spirit level measuring only one meter.

I need a string. And blue tack. There was plenty of it but I can't find it anymore (I will find it two months later, in the back pocket of my shopping trolley. And I have the suspect it was actually me who put it there). While the others start to clean up the space from tools and additional dust, I go to buy some more tack justincase and to see what the situation is with the work.

4:30 pm.

Still gluing. Some of the plates have started being temperamental and refuse to stick. The three bottom lines are all done. Plus the first two and some other random plates. I receive a phone call from Fran saying if I wanted to go home with her and relax a bit. I thank her and decline.

5:05 pm.

The corridor outside the workshop bears the marks of my pacing back and forth. Inside, the guys are pitching on.

5:23 pm.

I receive a phone call. What.Is.The.Piece.At? I am not surprised by the hint of impatience in his voice. My calm wears off for a second, but I reassure him that we are almost there, the screws are in the wall already, and all we have to do is to pop the work onto...I don't see any screws in the wall, is the answer.

What?

There are no screws in the wall.

Oh, brilliant. After having pulled myself together, I ask to speak to Will, who explains to me that he prefers to see the work before putting screws, just in case it needs to be moved...I give up for a couple of minutes and report to Silvia and D.V. They urge me to put the screws in the wall.

5:31 pm.

I call Will again. Same conversation. I feel like hot metal between two anvils, and about to be squeezed like a lemon. I run for it, back to Unit 2, and can feel my throat drying off. When I get in breathless, I am not even able to speak: Pu...Scr...heh...Wall...No...W! And I also remember to say Pls.

While GoodWill does that, I quickly fix the video camera that has to film everyone activating the switches in place, on an existing ledge above Russel's work. There is just a plastic string holding it in place, plus loads of blue tack. God bless the Blue Tack. Wish me luck.

5:47 pm.

The screws are in the wall. Will and I are on our way to collect the work. As soon as he and D.V. lift it, a couple of plates fall off.

5:51 pm.

People stare and cars honk while a panel with 160 coloured switches floats about, carried by two rather exhausted guys. Silvia and I waddle behind, hoping not to have to grab other fallen plates. We miss the shortcut to Unit 2 and take a parallel street. It seems to take forever.

5:54 pm.

Artwork approaching! I sprint forward, open Unit 2's door wide and declare: "They're here". There are people in the gallery. Thank God it's just the artists. The others wait in front of the work's spot to finally see it. Great expectations are in the air.

5:55 pm.

Odyssey enters Unit 2. Just one last effort and...pop! It perfectly sits on the screws. It's straight. It holds. A spontaneous though slightly exasperated applause bursts out. Fallen plates still to be fixed.

5:57 pm.

Video camera is on and records my panicked face and waving hands as the first thing. I cross the gallery carrying the ladder and bump in a couple of acquaintances who came to see the show...early. I am not dressed nicely, have no make up, and my cheeks are bright red. But I definitely feel relieved.

6:00 pm.

SORRY, WE'RE OPEN.

Broken promises

Hem Hem (embarrassed coughing)
Just to clarify: the fact that yesterday you didn't see a post with an installation shot before the opening, to show you at what time we finished, doesn't mean that the show isn't open...

SORRY, WE'RE OPEN is up and running, more details to come soon!
Bear with us.

I am exhausted, but very happy.