Coffee and TV: the next Bay Window Project

Tuesday 20 July.

Italian artist Luana Perilli (pictured) is in London for the first time for her solo show in The Bay Window Project. She's been traveling a lot lately between Rome, Milan and Naples, where she is having a residency at the PAN Museum.

We talk a lot about Naples' ill famed Spanish Areas, where she is actually living: after 9 pm there is a sort of curfew and you see no one around. After a shameless questioning (who are you, what you are doing here, how long are you staying for, who do you know), the owner of the bar where she goes everyday for a coffee decided that she is "not bothering anyone. Yet."

She likes London. The first impression is what it counts: I warn her that you may love it or hate it, it seems to be a very immediate reaction for every European. Black or white, no halfway house.

Before throwing ourselves into the setting up of the next Bay Window Project, I take her around the area to do some very essential tasks: grocery shopping. Very intellectual, but my opinion is: to learn something about a new country, you must start from the food. Then, after having made sure that we weren't going to starve in the following days, we go gallery spotting, straight into London's evening life.

Our Habda is opening a show at Medcalf: Alex Heaton, with Abyssal Worpeltinger. 

After a two-weeks break from the art world, it's nice to find the soft hubbub of an opening again, seasoned with smelling-good hamburgers that are being cooked outside. We exchange impressions on the show and are quite impressed by the huge paintings representing imaginary mountain landscapes covered in snow.

Back home, we wait for our men to arrive: they have the same name, and they both are late. My G. went to a congress and the following drinks, Luana's G2 is arriving from Heathrow: "I still have 18 stops ahead!" an SMS she receives complain. We try the video on the window: tracing paper is stuck on the glass, the size adjusted, the decision to blacken the lower part of the window and to project just on the upper part made. Si Dolce e' il Tormento, the tune that accompanies and gives the title to the video, fills the room in loop. So sweet is the torment, but I would listen to it over and over again (and so will the public on the opening day, because we are leaving the sound on just for that night!) The moving objects reflect themselves in the windows of the building in front of us. Luana peeks at it from behind the tracing paper, and is happy about the effect.

People already have started to look up from the street, intrigued.

Something MAXXI is happening in Rome

Rome.

That's where I come from. I have been living in London for a long time now, and I really love it. I always think I do not miss Rome until I spend some days there, then things become embarrassing.

Like, for example, taking the car and throwing myself in the much dreaded road that goes alongside the river Tiber, the one I know it's always two hours traffic jam. Why? Just to say hello to some places. Just to see the beauty of my city once again, the magic of the Lungotevere, although I know it like the palm of my hand.

The little gothic church that is completely unmatched with its surroundings is still there. 

So is that bump on the road. 

Oh, look, there are more maintenance works for the third underground line, will they ever manage to finish it? 
Ah, here it comes Castel Sant'Angelo...

Oh, this is the place where I was with my friends on that evening when...

And so on.

Well I am not completely crazy, my journey of that day was aimed to a destination: the new museum for architecture and contemporary art that has just opened in Rome last May. It's called Museum of the Arts of the XXI century. In a word: MAXXI. How clever is this? We romans waited something like 10 years to see this museum finally completed. 

Ten. Years. 

I will save you the details on politics that would explain you why-on-earth did it take so long.

I went there with two friends: an artist and an architect. 

From outside, the concrete structure devised by Zaha Hadid seems to challenge the laws of standing buildings: from top to bottom, some parts entwine one in the other like a living geometric snake, with a section at the top culminating in a gigantic window facing the city. Inside, industrial stairs climb to the top in a net of patterns to follow, making the visitor unable to really orientate and therefore enhancing his or her curiosity. 

Not an easy space to put up shows (but which one is, nowadays?). After having enjoyed the beautiful solo show of Gino De Dominicis, in good company with Kutlung Ataman and the works from the Museum's Collection, I have asked my friends what they thought about it. The architect said that in his opinion the building, which should just contain art, was taking over a bit. The artist didn't really reply: she was completely mesmerized by De Dominicis' work, as we can see below.

I was really disappointed to hear that many of my fellow citizens criticised the fact that the project was given to a foreign architect rather than to an Italian: there was a context, and the best project won, that's all. Sometimes we seem to have this patriotic sparks only in the most inappropriate contexts.

I am proud that this Museum finally saw the light, and really liked the complex, not-white-cube-like space where art has to stand out in order not to be sucked in. When you reach the last level, where the big glass window is, you literally have to climb up the floor, which is slightly steep. All around the main hall, an installation by Maurizio Mochetti tries to draw in the the air with red tubes, interacting with the rest. On the middle level, a video by Studio Azzurro slowly scrolls about.

People were there. Not just arty people: families, tourists, youngsters, oldies, you name it. They sold 3500 tickets just on the first day and there was a queue as long as one for Madonna's concert.

Being Rome the capital of classic and ancient art, it has always been difficult for contemporary art to really find some public space. We have the MACRO Museum, and now there is also the MAXXI, but the attention was never great. Could we say that this might be a good start for the big leap forward everyone is waiting for?


Before leaving for some holidays*, in which I will go to the beach everyday and be exactly like the picture here on the right, a special mention to this picture, on the MAXXI's website. That really gives the idea of great team work.

Well done!



*this post was meant to be published on 07/07. I have now finished my holidays and came back to London, where the second appointment with The Bay Window Project is on.

A goodbye and a rehearsal

In the picture: SITE GALLERY, Centre for Contemporary Art, Sheffield

Call me an hopeless romantic.

Call me even pathetic, but when a show ends, a show you worked on with enthusiasm and dedication, you do feel a bit sad. 

Yesterday, Martin Westwood's Flat-field went down from The Bay Window and the curtains were replaced, making it an ordinary window again. 

The project is not finished of course.

More artists will come, in fact one per month until December, and right during these days, just before the holidays, I am working on the next project and press release, which you will soon find published on this blog.

We had a glorious rehearsal moment yesterday. 

OK, I am disclosing just one thing about the next project: it's a video.

How do you project on a window? By using normal tracing paper. This allows the image to be seen from the other side, too. Well, this was just in theory, and yesterday it was the moment of truth (I must confess I was a bit concerned).

I would have liked someone taking pictures of us staring at the window from the other side of the street, dumbfounded. Not only it works, it's mesmerising.

Can't wait for the opening. Hope you are curious, too.

THE GUESTBOOK

When you put up art projects with no physical place, is very difficult to keep track of feedbacks. And it's the feedback that allows a project to evolve, to grow. Without people's opinion, we risk to fall in sterile self-contemplation.

In short, we would like to hear from you.

Did you see Sorry, We're Open, spotted some interesting things and would like to speak your mind? 

Have you just bumped into The Bay Window or missed the opening in which there was an actual notebook to sign? 

This post is for you.

Please leave a comment.

Posted by sybin

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.

The (late) Events

All is left of the show is the orange vinyl on the door, that we forgot to remove. 

Russel Charter's installation next to it, that was blocking the view from outside, is gone too, leaving place to an exceptionally shiny window. Dylan Shipton's structure was dismantled piece by piece, several of which were just thrown away. All the other framed works, including the huge Odyssey panel, are bubble-wrapped and awaiting collection.

The plinths we recycled from the room in the basement came back to their place, one painted black, another pierced in various points with a drill in order to let some cables passing through. 

Dust, screws, plaster and a hammer.

Fresh white paint on the walls and on some tape, to try and conceal the drilled holes on the plinth.

After the hard work, nothing remains but pictures, and some mention here and there. For example, let's remember the Events before the memory fades away (musica, Maestro!)

First of all, a big thank you to Digby Washer for having taken these glorious pictures.

Digby likes to construct the picture by assembling different frames, creating elements of surprise and displacement. In this picure, Cesare Pietroiusti was just starting his talk about The Artist and the Given Space. He told us about his different experiences, as an artist, of trying to go beyond the wall, like for example when he worked for three hours to demolish a wall in a cellar during an art event in Rome. 

He though he would have found a passage to go to a garden on the other side and ended up in a private loo, instead. Behind the wall, there stood another one. Back to the talk, people interacted with him (which, in fact, is one of the points of his practice) making questions, and everyone seemed to have had a good time. We were very pleased to see, among the public, Whitechapel Gallery's director Iwona Blazwick and Documenta's curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. 

The cream of the crop was, in the end, to finally see the performance Dancing on Kelkulè devised by artist Sophie Vent. 

Sophie was introduced to the show by Will and Clementina gave a description of her work in the handouts: "Dancing on Kelkulè is a live performance of the B-Endorphin molecule translated through dance. The translation derives from the chemical structure of the molecule; the skeletal diagram is re-built and represented as a physical form, translating the language and symbols of the diagram into a new system of interpretation. Vent worked alongside choreographer Jummy Bolanji & Child of Zion dance group for a new language growing up from the molecular shapes, physical properties and Kekulè's Laws."

Art and Science. Again.

So, how does a molecule behave then? It jumps, up and down. It changes direction quite suddenly, it tries to mingle with the other ones without succeeding. It wears quite a serious face, it knows what its job is and can't get distracted. What does it transmits? Energy. Pure energy.

To conclude with Thank Yous, hail to the participating dancers and their coreographer: Arinthia, Jummy Bolaji, Ta’Shanh Clarke, Jaigh Ejakpovi, Davida John, Abraham Kanu, Santhy Sivananthan.

Coming Soon...

The academic year at University is now finished.
The first term passed as fast as light, I think we are realising it now after the rush, struggle, and of course concentration into finishing our assignments.

I am now working on something opening in two days.

It's a show of course, but with different parameters: it's called The Bay Window Project.



It's time to use this blog again!