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.

The Underground Diaries: Possessions

"Please remember to keep your belongings with you at all times. Any unattended item may be removed or destroyed." I think I could easily cry my eyes out if someone destroyed my bag.

There's all your life in a bag, especially if you are a woman.

Circle Line, London - She loves London

Hammersmith & City Line, London

The Underground Diaries: Sucked In

The blissful unawareness of some great moments. Visually speaking.

Central Line, London

The Underground Diaries: Generation Next

Full score plunder for the Underground Diaries today.
I have to say I don't really look for images, rather, they just appear to be under my nose and I can't help but press the...oh, I wish there was a normal side button to press on the iPhone! My lumpish attempts to keep the thin, black, rectangular thing still with two hands while trying to press the camera icon with a nail - or my nose, for crying out loud - would be worthy material for a documentary.

Central Line, London - Kidz

On the wake of this article by Tom De Castella about the iPod making us all antisocial, I got some inspiration for images.

All images Metropolitan Line, London

Generation next.
But I don't believe the end is near, as you are always free to press the off button and listen to the polite silence around you. Aren't you?

Finally, I caught two people on the same car reading a book that I absolutely loved: "One Day", by David Nicholls. Same book, different editions. I could even tell what point of the story they were at.

Circle Line, London

New Art Criticism_04_March 2010

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

BERLIN: PHIL COLLINS AT THE TEMPORÄRE KUNSTHALLE

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

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

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

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

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

New Art Critcism_03_August 2009

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

WATCHING THE FALL

I was surprised when I red on the Guardian Week End an article by Oliver Burkeman, claiming that nowadays we should need “a revival of the artistic genre known as memento mori ” which was, in short, the continuous presence of a skull and a still life to remind us that our time on Earth is precious because we all shall return to ashes, one day or another.

In fact, contemporary art seems to be all about it now, everyone can confirm: from Damien Hirst’s skulls to Rachel Whiteread casts’ of time’s traces, from Polly Morgan’s taxidermy sculptures to Andy Warhol’s own pop skull to culminate in Chinese artist Zahng Huan wearing a meat suit. There is a continuous referral to the inevitability of death and decay by a long list of other living artists.

I won’t be saying that the subject is starting to bore a bit, especially in the hands of a talented young artist as Amelia Whitelaw. A graduated from Chelsea College of Art and Design, Whitelaw is certainly bringing Process Art back to its old glory, with a sprinkle of the old beloved vanitas we seem to always be so much in need of. In Whitelaw’s sculptures, art is not a finite product to sell like too many around at this time, but a creative process, a displayed page on which several different paragraphs can be written.

This is about the first time I saw Amelia Whitelaw’s performance: The Courtauld Institute of Art, February this year, a group show called, incidentally, Time and Time Again. Whitelaw was commissioned an installation for the five-storey stairwell and produced one of her now renowned dough sculptures. The images show 200 kg of dough starting a descent from the ceiling into four different sized nets, which limited and conditioned its vital movement. The dough was captivating; its fleshy-like, slow movements seemed to belong to an organic being trapped by unanimated structures built by men. At the beginning, its advancing through the first net was nearly imperceptible. Only tiny bits were lost, falling into the second net like a sketch of a left trace. And I found myself mesmerized by that moment, holding breath at each falling. I felt part of it, I saw time unfolding, and I saw the beauty of a simple yet powerful symbolic thing as the dough. Flour, water and salt, equally proportioned. Nourishment and matter. Effort. Effort to reach its goal, the last net, guided by the force of gravity and, why not, Fate.

After a couple of hours, the dough freed itself into a stalactite-like shape, longing for its next stop, while other bits of it were already reaching the end of the journey. But time was too short for it, water evaporated, mixing with people’s breath, and the dough dried out.

Dust to dust. 

End note: Amelia - Newton - Whitelaw's recent show reviewed on Dazed Digital.

New Art Criticism_02_March 2009

New Art Criticism is no longer on-line, therefore I thought to copy and paste my contributions to the former website here.                  
I thought things on the Internet would last forever, but even the Revolving Writer website is gone. This is what the project was all about.

INTRODUCING CHARLIE BYRNES AND REVOLVING WRITER: BLUE CREATIVE STREAKS AND MORE

Let’s start from the beginning: someone just wet the bed. Her name is Aisha, she speaks about herself like a sort of unwanted being, seems to be obsessed with “the history behind names”, is a Virgoan and her story has no beginning and no end. This was edition #1 of Revolving Writer. Basically a website, but in primis an international collaborative project started in 2006: writers, artists, musicians and architects had the prompt, or rather the initial commission, like when a site specific artwork is being produced. Then, a selection of characters identified by a Polaroid shot, and finally, their imagination and creativity. Two months as the elaborating time with the received material, about 60 days to think about why, as the contributions went on, this Aisha seems to suffer from split personality, what is going to happen with her life, who is she going to meet next…and interact not only with one, but many stories.

We now are at #18 and, during the precedent editions, the novel evolved with new and unpredictable characters, erased passages, deliberate editing, the insertion of videos, the recovering of the disregarded passages and someone who actually decided to become one of the characters and have a love affair with Aisha. Who knows what is going to happen next. “By now”, says the mind behind the name Charlie Byrnes, “we have a mysterious Mr. Pebbles to deal with.”

The project has been very successful so far, but what she really wants to talk about is what lies ahead: “Revolving Writer apes a democratic society and aims to be as cohesive as possible”, she explains, “but I realized the novel might be just the beginning of other projects. We started using writing as a media and created something site specific. A site. Well, website. The novel is not being very sociable at the moment, because interacting with a given text can be a pretty solitary job. I now would like to work with the same material but different media: art for artists, not artists “acting” as writers; architecture for architects, etc. In short, I’d like to work with many sites.”

The website’s home has an announcement reading: “Major Developments from Summer 2009”. Does it mean that we will maybe see the characters coming to life or something like that? “Not really far from truth.” Charlie grins: “We want people to get really involved with the novel, like it happened when Revolving Writer participated to the High Tide Festival in May 2007. We had a performance with some Revolving Writers writing the story on computers, and the audience, through projected images, could see the computer’s screen and the story being written. Then, we asked them questions about the characters and, even thought they had no idea about the whole plot, we received the nicest contributions. We made them squeeze their brain.”

That sounds interesting, but isn’t there the risk of getting things a bit out of control? “Yes. That’s why, in the future, anyone who would like to contribute will be invited to discuss each passage with me and the other collaborators before proceeding. May it be exhibitions, photographs, acting, film, writing, performances, flyer distributions, we would like to hear from you.” And will all of this converge onto the website? “No, because the website is just one of many sites. Do you see what I mean? We are going to push everything out of cyberspace and organize, say, events around the world, still “Aisha related”. For example, we are thinking about a photographic campaign to get more Polaroid pictures for the characters: 3 different cities around the world, photographers in action at the same time, stopping the people, taking the picture, and asking them one particular question. Then, thanks to the modern technologies, we will map the areas the photographers worked into according to the concentration of people, like popular/not popular, and create 3D charts from that which describe the city from a psycho geographic point of view.”

And who are those revolving writers? “So far, I can mention among all gallery director Hannah Barry, Naomi Wood, artists Clayton Smith and Noon Day Demons, Nick Fleetwood, Architect Simon Fujiwara and the Independent Critic and Novelist Jay Merrick.”

Watch out for www.revolvingwriter.com then. A new stage of the project is about to begin, and it might need someone just like you. Are you ready to meet Aisha and add more colored dust to the Mandala?

End note: even though the above link is no longer active, I have decided to keep it anyway, like a memorial stone. Ugh, melancholia is here?