The Conformist

Helen Bullock, Window installation.

Set in the very central Belmacz space, The Conformist is truly an unusual show, linking modern to contemporary artists, as well as art itself to fashion and jewellery design. Main theme of the exhibition is the question on conformity/deviance, and its declination through the passing of time. The twenty-one artists included share a reflection on the moral and aesthetic codes of Western society. Their works are the result of this creative thinking, and they can be of the most different register, from serious to playful, form ironic to melanchonic, from sharp to mellow. Here’s just a taste of what you will find if you go to visit it.

Helen Bullock, coming from textile design, has created a window installation characterised by strong colours, as well as a floor decoration for the lower ground. Her vivid contribution, featuring red brush strokes on the window, torn textile with a floreal (or phallic?) allusion, handmade bracelets and a long knotted cloth hanging from the ceiling is instrumental in driving the viewer inside the exhibition space.

The curator and artist Paul Kindersley has chosen two main sites of inspiration: the first is In Youth is Pleasure (1945), a novel by Denton Welch, a worn copy of which is available to flicker through, dealing with the sensual fantasies and erotic experiences of an obsessive teenager during a non-specified summertime. The second is the flamoboyant figure of Lady Emma Hamilton (1765-1815), well-known for her extravagance and a symbol of Romantic love because of her wretched love affair with Lord Nelson (1758-1805). Her presence is announced to be the red thread of the exhibition since entering the gallery: She enigmatically beams from an etching (copy of a painting by the portraitis George Romney), her head covered with a pure-white veil. Exactly in front of her, Helen Chadwick’s Ruin (1986) parallels an interest in the body as main agent of conformation or not to the mainstream of aesthetics. The late artist’s naked body, in contrast with Emma’s covered attire, twists in an unconfortable yet intriguing pose, while with her left hand she covers her face from direct eye-contact with the viewer, and rests the right hand on a skull, probably referencing Shakespeare. Behind her, a still-image of  fruit decomposition completes the work, where the artist is both photographer and photographed, maker and object, in a game of attraction-repulsion with the viewer that challenges the Platonic conception of beauty as positive attribute.

Two video installations, one by Kindersley himself (Lady Hamilton’s Attitudes, 2014), one by Julie Verhoeven (Phlegm & Fluff, 2015), make use of the body too in addressing, in different ways, questions of genre, sex, perversity, grotesque. I found that watching each of them with the relevant soundtrack, while the other was in silent mode, would give a completely different atmosphere to the entire exhibition. Interesting how different music enables diverse emotional responses to the same space.

Works by David Parkinson.

The exhibition also features some charming pieces of jewelry, like the sophisticated gold string with charms by Julia Muggenburg recalling again Lady Emma in its ancient style. Roman coins, red coral, black pearls and citrine drops, as suggested by James Cahill in his introduction to the exhibition, recall different aspects of Lady Emma’s personality, while the string itself let us face an ambiguity – chastity belt or erotic ankle necklace?

I find The Conformist an interesting experiment of mixing fields. It is imaginative and witty. I won’t steal the pleasure of surprise by giving away too much of it! If you are looking for a fresh, nonconformist show, visit The Conformist at Belmacz show room, until 16th April 2016. Entry is free.

Useful links: http://www.belmacz.com/gallery/

All pictures credits: http://www.belmacz.com/gallery/current

Paul Housley, Head of an English Iconoclast, 2016, glazed painted clay, 8x14x20cm.

Rotterdam, or of a great surprise

The Boijmans’ backgarden.

I am usually based in London and I am “Londonholic” too. However, I have recently been wandering somewhere else, having decided to take a holiday from the rain with my brother, Lorenzo.
This lead us (quite unpredictably, since the weather is even worse), to the Netherlands, and I must say I fell in love with Rotterdam.

The newly-built Markthal, Rotterdam.

Rotterdam is everything but a ordinary place. Completely destroyed during WW2, as many people know after the war it has undergone a massive reconstruction; the latter, however, didn’t follow the lines of traditional northern Europe architecture, rather the one of post-war avant-garde.
Thus Rotterdam is the most interesting place in terms of architectural innovations, and you can see many buildings here displaying an interest in aesthetics, the game between form and light, the laws of physics – an interest which sometimes overcomes functionality issues. The resulting skyline is extremely particular and you can bet every corner you turn in Rotterdam, you’ll find something to surprise your eye!

Kubuswonig (cubic houses), Rotterdam. By Piet Blom, 1984.

Notwithstanding some examples which I personally found quite distasteful, the city is generally very well constructed and I must say all the new additions (there are always men at work!) perfectly fit the context.
The Museumpark is an example of this equilibrium. As its name tells you, here you will find a conglomeration of different museums, all around a very nice park full of perfumed flowers, which must be lovely for a pic-nic (no sun at all when I visited it though!). I must definitely recommend both the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and the Kunsthal, where I spent delightful hours.
The Boijmans is a traditional fine art museum that also includes a huge library and as a special wing for temporary exhibitions. I made my way through the permanent collection, which is displayed in a chronological order, from religious art of the XIV c. to the most contemporary installations. Every room is arranged around some certain theme and the general explicative panels always give some historical reference to fit the artists in both their regional and European context. I particularly appreciated the way the curators emphasized the links between Italian and transalpine artists, whose works and techniques influenced each other.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Tower of Babel, circa 1565. oil on panel.

Moreover, a comparison with the famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam shows how the latter is more intended to be a shrine for Dutch masters, while the Boijmans collection looks more to Europe in general, even if of course the Dutch masters are heavily present. Nevertheless, I praise the effort put in showing artists coming from different parts of our continent, from Italy to Spain to Germany. The Boijmans holds some true jewels of Flemish and Dutch art, such as the famous Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Staring at this painting is a very strong experience; the canvas itself is not even that huge, but the tower, still unfinished, touches the clouds above and makes the natural world around it look like a miniature – not to talk of the tiny, almost invisible human figures who, like busy ants, struggle to complete this absurd task. The sense of humility which this scene instills in the viewer makes you recognise that The Tower of Babel truly is a masterpiece.
In the rooms concerning the XVII c. Dutch genre you will find some Rembrandts, including a very intimate portrait of the painter’s son, entitled Titus at his desk, which actually doesn’t fit the moralistic tone usually found in pictures coming from that period.

In the following rooms at some point you will be surprised to see the head of a man popping out the floor to stare at the paintings with curiosity and a bit of insolence. This is in fact a piece by Maurizio Cattelan, Untitled (Manhole). While I don’t find many of his jokes so funny, this one is not only ironic but also engages me in questions regarding contemporary art as the loss of beauty, and the position of contemporary artists in relation to the Old Masters.

Maurizio Cattelan, Untitled (Manhole), 2001, painted wax, hair and fabric.

Medardo rosso, Femme à la voilette, 1895 (cast 1919-1923), wax over plaster.

The Dutch poet Ingmar Heytze (Utrecht, 1970) wrote this lines taking inspiration from Medardo Rosso’s sculpture at the Boijmans. The two artworks are now on display next to each other.

I would also like to mention the room of Impressionism, where among a copy of Degas’s Little dancer of fourteen years and some other important representatives, you can take a look at some of Van Gogh’s earlier works, and admire Medardo Rosso’s enchanting Woman with a Veil, flanked by a touching poem inspired by it.
At any rate, the most interesting works are displayed in the rooms dealing with Expressionism and Surrealism. It must be said the museum has a stunning collection of paintings and sculptures by Oskar Kokoschka, Paul Signac, René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst and Giorgio de Chirico. As the panels explained the relationship between the British connoisseur Edward James and both Magritte and Dalí, I particularly enjoyed Magritte’s enigmatic portrait of James sitting in front of a mirror in his house in London.

René Magritte, La reproduction interdite, 1937, oil on canvas.

While this first visit was more meditative, the one I had to the Kunsthal was actually physically enjoyable. Scattered through different levels, there are various temporary exhibitions, but the place was undergoing a reorganization I suppose, because some were out of the visitor’s reach. I experienced the most different installations of the exhibition Do it! in which the underlying theory is that people must enjoy and be part of an artwork, and the curators wanted to encourage this by putting on display an idea by the artist that must be carried out by the audience. The funniest was an installation with two armchairs where you can book a breakfast with an artist – for the reasonable price of 35€. The exhibition overall was a very entertaining experience, in which maybe I didn’t think as much as I did in the Bojimans, but indeed I had a good time.
And that’s what’s all about, in the end.

Ben Kinmont, The possibilities of trust as a sculpture and the question of value for each partecipant, 1997. (Wake Up In It, Breakfast in Art)

Don’t miss these beautiful temples of art if you get the chance to go to Rotterdam! The city itself was a very pleasant discovery.

The London Open 2015 @ Whitechapel Gallery

Jane Bustin, from left to right: Tabitha’s Cape, 2014, Nijinksy’s Window, 2015, Nijinksy I, 2014, various materials.

There is currently an exceptional open submission exhibition held at Whitechapel Gallery, which is worth seeing for at least three reasons.

First, the variety of the art displayed. The London Open 2015 is in fact a collection of artworks created by contemporary artists based in London, selected by important names of the artworld such as artist Angela de la Cruz, collector Nicoletta Fiorucci, art critic Ben Luke and gallerist Jake Miller. The selection, made from nothing less than 2133 applicants, picks 48 contemporary artists who give their contribution using many different medias and styles. The result is a fresh dive into the variegated world of contemporary art, passing through installations and sculptures made with the most different materials, to reach to the extremes of video art, live performance and painting. The works are grouped together by themes, affinity and contrast. You may not enjoy every piece that you will encounter in this trip through the galleries, but at least you will definetely appreciate the melting pot of creativity that surrounds you.

Alexander Duncan, Cove, 2007-2015, polyurethane, polystyrene.

Dominic Watson, Are you not Entertained?, 2013, HD video.

Second, the focus on London. The aim of the exhibition is to give voice and international resonance to the living artists who make up the vibrating London art scene. The only requirement to be selected was to be over 26 and to be dwelling in the London boroughs. It is incredible to think of the great response given by the artists, with thousands of submissions from which the curators chose twentyfive female artists, tewntytwo male artists and one collective. The artists themselves, as most of the people livingin London, are from everywhere in the world, their nationalities spanning across the UK, Canada, Egypt, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Peru, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, USA. The London Open really gives you the feeling of London as one of the most important centres of contemporary art in the world, a place where conventional and unconventional ways of creating cohexist in a thrilling dynamism.

Ben Cove, Dissenter, 2015, acrylic on panel.
Ben Cove, Head Construct (2), 2013, oil and acrylic on panel.

Last but not least! The London Open 2015 is not the first open submission exhibition hosted by the Whitechapel Gallery: Back in 1932, the East End Academy (later Whitechapel Open) was hosting the work of all artists living in the area of Aldgate. Later on, the space developed to include artists from all London areas, Whitechapel Gallery becoming a renowned spot where young, promising artists can show their work to a wider audience. This gallery is surely a mecca for whoever may be interested in contemporary art, and especially this exhibition, in line with the gallery’s historical position, displays what we can call the avant-guard of all art based in London. A very useful catalogue by curator Daniel Herrmann and assitant curator Poppy Bowers accompanies and explains both the works and the artists.

An enchanting exhibition, certainly an enriching experience! Don’t miss it.

Zehra Arslan, Obstacle #1, 2015, acrylic, wallpaper paste, photographic paper, plastic on canvas.

The London Open 2015 is on from 15th July to 6th September 2015, in Galleries 1, 8, Victor Petitgas Gallery (Gallery 9) and Gallery 2 at Whitechapel Gallery, 77 – 82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX (Tube: Aldgate East). Opening times: Tuesday – Sunday, 11am – 6pm, Thursdays, 11am – 9pm. Ow, and yes, the admission is free.

Useful links:

The London Open 2015 overview: http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/coming-soon-london-open/

Serpentine Pavilion 2015 by selgascano

Today I caught the rare opportunity of a sunny day off and I enjoyed Hyde Park’s perfumes and shadows.
As I walked in Kensington Gardens, close to the Serpentine Gallery, I noticed this colourful installation emerging from the green…

It’s sort of a tunnel that you can access through different entrances. The material of which it is made looks like a kind of plastic, and in some bits it reflects the light in the same way of the pearl you can find in a shell. The colors used are very strong and vivid, mainly red, yellow, green and pink. You can see inside the tunnel from outside and viceversa, so that the vision you get is permeated with different colors.
The overall impression is of playfulness, like a chaotic maze-game where you don’t win – you just enjoy.

The installation has been commissioned by the Serpentine Gallery within a program called “Serpentine Pavilion”: Since 2000, every Summer a different architect is commissioned an installation which hosts a café in the daytime and turns into a cultural space at night.
The installation that you can visit this summer was created by selgascano studio, a Spanish team founded by the architects José Selgas and Lucía Cano in 1998.
The main idea was to introduce architecture to a broader public through the basic elements of this discipline, i.e. light, shapes and colour. That is why selgascano used a florine-based polymer as the main material, in order to catch light and its variations during different time of the day.
The sensorial experience gets you into this kaleidoscopic tunnel only to make you feel thirsty when you find yourself in front of the posh café place inside it… But that’s part of the game, I guess.

Useful links:
CNN article on the 2015 Serpentine Pavilion: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/26/travel/serpentine-pavilion-2015/index.html
Serpentine Galleries official website: http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/