Destabilizing visual codes with logical outcome: interview with Franco Costalonga on his kinetic art at GR Gallery, New York
“Revolution”, running until 17 July 2016, is the solo show of Italian Kinetic artist Franco Costalonga at New York’s GR Gallery, a commercial space focused on Kinetic and Optical Art. Detecting a recent comeback of these two movements on the art market—from this year’s edition of Miart 2016 exhibiting a large body of work by Alberto Biasi, to museum exhibitions across the US presenting masterpieces by Bridget...
Iris blue flooding: interview with artist Davide D’Elia on time and environmental painting
Rome-based artist Davide D’Elia’s work relies on environmental installations and a thoughtful use of colors. His research on the notion and impact of time over places and individuals has become recognizable thanks to the use of the iris blue antifouling painting flooding the exhibition spaces. Where’s Art catches up with Davide D’Elia to know more about the use of such an unusual medium, his background as a...
Henrik Olai Kaarstein’s “Well received lies” at T293 – interview
“Well received lies”, the exhibition of Norwegian artist Henrik Olai Kaarstein presents multifaceted artworks in the new premises of T293 in Rome. Black and white images, colour intensifying subjectivity and installation lead viewers to explore love as well as political relationships, activating a reflection on their own condition. Are these all well received lies? Fortunately a human being can comprehend only a certain...
Islam and spiritualism in Maïmouna Guerresi’s “Talwin” on view at Matèria Gallery
Italian photographer, sculptor, and video and installation artist Maïmouna Guerresi talks to Where’s Art about her current solo exhibition at Rome-based Matèria Gallery. She presents her photographic research by focusing on her interest in Islam and its spiritual dimension alongside the hot topic of woman empowerment in our today’s society. Starting from your current exhibition “Talwin” at Matèria Gallery,...
Exstatic tensions in the work of Hilla Ben Ari and Alice Cattaneo – interview
Where’s Art talks to Israeli artist Hilla Ben Ari and Italian Alice Cattaneo about their collaboration project “Tensioni Estatiche” (Ex-static Tensions) presented at Galleria Marie-Laure Fleisch in Rome. Both the two artists share the interest in the notion of body and investigate the way it appears phisically and metaphorically as, simultaneously, a content and a container. The element of the body is very present in...
ifa gallery at the Beirut Art Fair 2015 – interview with director Alexis Kouzmine-Karavaïeff
Continuing the exploration of the artistic scene in the MENASA region, Where’s Art proposes a series of interviews with a selection of participating galleries in this year’s edition of the Beirut Art Fair that will take place from 17 to 20 September 2015. Where’s Art talks to director Alexis Kouzmine-Karavaïeff of the Brussels and Shanghai-based ifa gallery about his understanding of the Asian market and his...
Galerie Mark Hachem at the Beirut Art Fair 2015 – interview with art dealer Mark Hachem
Continuing the exploration of the artistic scene in the MENASA region, Where’s Art proposes a series of interviews with a selection of participating galleries in this year’s edition of the Beirut Art Fair that will take place from 17 to 20 September 2015. Where’s Art’s cycle of conversations continues with art dealer Mark Hachem about the specificities and guidelines of his New York, Paris and...
Director Jennifer Norback about her participation in the Beirut Art Fair 2015
Continuing the exploration of the artistic scene in the MENASA region, Where’s Art proposes a selection of interviews with directors from participating galleries in this year’s edition of the Beirut Art Fair. This first conversation is with gallerist Jennifer Norback, owner of the eponymous Chicago-based commercial space. How would you describe the contemporary art scene in Beirut? And why do you think is a commercially...
“Reciprocal Score” at Roman space Indipendenza – interview with Tauba Auerbach
Repetition, symmetry and an abundant use of patterns are the main features of New York-based artist Tauba Auerbach‘s work. Influenced by Op Art paintings from the Sixties and the Seventies, her production shows a great command over the perception of space that she fills out with stripe-based printing or weaving on canvas, and creating kinetic effects of distortion and pointillism. Where’s Art talks to Tauba Auerbach on the...
Minna Kantonen, Dafna Talmor, Emma Wieslander in conversation about “On Landscape #2”
London based artists Minna Kantonen, Dafna Talmor and Emma Wieslander talk to Where’s Art about their recent project On Landscape #2 presented at the new born Matèria Gallery in Rome, while introducing their own photographic research on the notion of landscape as a multi-faceted narrative where nature, history and culture merge to shape our present urban environment. “In vain, great-hearted Kublai, shall I attempt to...
Interview with Russian artist Alexey Luka on his exhibition “Being Here” at Wunderkammern
From large-scale interventions in the urban space to sculptures and paintings, Russian artist Alexey Luka’s collages are deeply imbued by his motherland’s avant-garde movements. In particular, the graphic composition, the use of geometric forms and the juxtaposition of paint and newspapers’ cut-outs recall El Lissitzky’s manifestos of the early XIX Russian propaganda. Where’s Art talks to painter, sculptor and...
Interview with Italian artist Francesco Ardini about mythology and sculpture in his solo show “Stige”
The carnal element of body and its deterioration alongside the way one can physically perceive anxiety are very present in the project Stige as well as in the research of Italian artist Francesco Ardini. Where’s Art digs into the artist’s background and practice that brought to the recent project “Stige” on view at Federica Schiavo Gallery in Rome. I would like to start this conversation from the title of your...
A journey through observation – interview with Italian artist Michela de Mattei
Where’s Art interviews Italian artist Michela de Mattei about her solo show “Vogliate Perdonare Quel Poco di Disturbo Che Reco” at gallery Ex Elettrofonica, where an old, baffling photo of a cheetah triggers a journey in space, time, vision and the relation than binds them all. So what does fascinate me in the animal? […] If I try to vaguely count, what shocks me in an animal, the first thing that fascinated me, is that...
Davide Monaldi on his solo show “Monaldi” at Studio SALES di Norberto Ruggeri – interview
Italian artist Davide Monaldi’s solo exhibition at Roman commercial space Studio SALES di Norberto Ruggeri is a delicate yet gloomy self portrait scattered across the space and depicting the artist’s emotional state and professional life through a variety of glazed ceramic objects. Where’s Art talks to Rome-based artist to know more about his research, future plans and cultural influences in his work. To the ones who...
Rome-based artist Stanislao Di Giugno recounting his experience in painting – studio visit
Rome-based artist Stanislao Di Giugno works on the boundary between painting and sculpture. His research revolves around the element of stratification in order for the artist to explore the landscape of images that surrounds him. A schizophrenic melting pot of visual stimuli that Di Giugno embodies in his collages and mixed media canvases. Where’s Art talks to Stanislao Di Giugno about his creative process and experimentation...
Astrid Nippoldt speaks about the project “Oakwood” presented at Rome-based The Gallery Apart
Berlin-based artist Astrid Nippodt talks to Where’s Art about her fascination for inanimate landscapes as well as for the notion of enclosure. Departing from her recent exhibition project Oakwood at The Gallery Apart in Rome, the artist recognizes as leitmotif in her research, the great interest of her in the immediacy of perception. Projects you have developed hitherto share the same medium – photography and video...
Revamping feminism: interview with French collective Claire Fontaine
Where’s Art talks to Paris-based collective Claire Fontaine about their exhibition “Pretend To Be Dead” at the Roman premises of T293 gallery, while exploring delicate and still very present issues related to the woman’s condition in our contemporary society. “Woman’s difference is her millennial absence from history. Let us profit from this difference; […] Equality is what is offered as legal rights to...
Interview with Bangladeshi resident artist Paul James Gomes at The British School at Rome
Paul James Gomes is an independent producer and director based in Edinburgh, Scotland. With a background in documentary filmmaking, Gomes recently expanded his practice to include video art. Having moved from Bangladesh to the UK, the main focus of his current work is migration and the understanding of home. On the occasion of his residency at the British School at Rome, the artist created two video installations: Prego Selfie (2015)...
Iranian literature and monochromes in Avish Khebrehzadeh’s solo show “Red, White and not Blue” at Studio SALES in Rome
Monochromes, sentences collected over the years and hints from Iranian literature are just a few features of Washington D.C. and Rome-based artist Avish Khebrehzadeh’s work presented in her exhibition Red, White and not Blue at Roman gallery Studio SALES di Norberto Ruggeri. “And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is...
Belgium-based artists Kasper Bosmans and Raffaella Crispino in correspondence
Where’s Art talks to Belgian artist Kasper Bosmans and Brussels-based Italian artist Raffaella Crispino about their collaborative exhibition c/o An Alternate Correspondence at 1/9unosunove gallery in Rome, until 11 April 2015. “I believe that a work of art, like metaphors in language, can ask the most serious, difficult questions in a way which really makes the readers answer for themselves; that the work of art far more...
Interview with Danish artist Peter Linde Busk about his fascination for the uncanny
Where’s Art interviews Danish painter Peter Linde Busk about the meaning of eerie figurations in his solo exhibition Gentlemen at Roman gallery Monitor. “Soon after my arrival in the hovel I discovered some papers in the pocket of the dress which I had taken from your laboratory. […] It was your journal of the four months that preceded my creation. You minutely described in these papers every step you took in the progress...
Pattern and totemic painting in the work of German artist Clara Brörmann – interview
Where’s Art talks to Berlin-based artist Clara Brörmann about painting and aesthetic influences from sculpture and Avantgarde movements in her work alongside her recent solo exhibition “Obenauf” at art dealer Federica Schiavo’s commercial space in Rome. “Abstraction is real, probably more than nature.” – Josef Albers 3 adjectives to describe your exhibition at Federica Schiavo Gallery. Diverse,...
German artist Felix Kiessling interviewed on his “Vavilov” site specific project
Berlin-based artist Felix Kiessling’s research focuses on scale, distance and vastness, notions which are beyond man’s control and difficult to reach and measure. Where’s Art talks to Kiessling about “Vavilov”, his site specific project exhibited at Roman Galleria Mario Iannelli. “To the Suprematist the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is...
Studio visit and interview with London conceptual artist Thomas Hutton
A life between London, Berlin and New York to eventually land in Rome. Where’s Art talks to British conceptual artist Thomas Hutton about his research and latest projects, digging into his choice to live in the Roman art scene and his relationship with the city. “Reality is a very subjective affair. I can only define it as a kind of gradual accumulation of information; and as specialization. If we take a lily, for...
Argentinian Italian artist Mariana Ferratto interviewed on the issues of identity and the other
“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known.” is among the famous quotations from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Invisible Monsters. Whether one agrees or not, we are the result of an ongoing exchange with the other, and perceive ourselves as same or different as someone else. Where’s Art talks to Rome-based Italian artist Mariana Ferratto about her practice focused on the...
Activism, history and art: interview with Mexican artist Joaquin Segura
Where’s Art interviews Mexican artist Joaquin Segura on the occasion of his participation to the group show Edra. Connecting landscapes at the two venues of the Embassy of Mexico and Polish Institute in Rome. A founding member and board advisor of SOMA, Mexico City, the artist talks about his practice and the relation between art and politics, while reflecting more broadly on history and our present international occurrences....
Assembling realities: interview with Danish artist Asger Carlsen
The magic in Asger Carlsen’s work lies in the post-production phase, “the wrong element” shows up right when assembling images and juxtaposing materials and surfaces in the photographs. The result is a déjà vu of sorts: standing before the framed pictures, one believes to recognize subject(s) and be familiar with events and the composition represented; everything looks perfect but a little great detail that drags the...
Pure love, morbid beauty and death: interview with Italian artist Gabriele Porta
Where’s Art talks to Italian artist Gabriele Porta about his research on human condition as well as his recent photographic and video projects exploring love, presented in the exhibition “Pure Love” at Rome-based Federica Schiavo Gallery. The Unjustly Punished Child The child screams in his room. Rage heats his head. He is going through changes like metal under deep pressure at high temperatures. When he cools off and...
Nomadism and relation in the work of Mexican artist Calixto Ramírez – interview
Calixto Ramírez’s research seems to perfectly embody the archetypes of artistic nomadism and the complete coincidence between life and creative process. After spending several years traveling between America and Europe, thus producing works that could fit in a luggage, Ramírez decided to settle in Rome for a while. In a conversation with the artist, Where’s Art explores the latest developments in his practice, investigating his...
London-based artist Ludovica Gioscia on contemporary visual language in “Èdra. Connecting landscapes” at the American Academy in Rome
Fascinated by the psychological mechanisms underlying marketing strategies, London-based Italian artist Ludovica Gioscia reworks materials and seemingly unrelated objects to create 3D collages. The environmental scale of these works seems to reference Freudian mechanisms of projection, transforming our own most intimate compulsions in totemic sculptures, rather than paranoia into objects. Where’s Art interviews the artist on the...
The British School resident artist and designer Adam Nathaniel Furman on today’s visual abundance – interview
Adam Nathaniel Furman (London, 1982) is an architect, a designer, an artist; he loves poetry, narration, writing, and sharing ideas. Color, joy, abundance, and a multimedia approach mix with a very critical and rational stance on design production, social interaction, and society evolution. The ancient glorious past as well as the newest high technologies melt in his practice that spans from 3D-printed objects to interiors and prose....
What you see is what you get: David Prytz on his solo show “Literal” at Galleria Mario Iannelli
Danish Norwegian Berlin-based artist David Prytz’s installation conceived for his solo exhibition “Literal” in the space of Roman Galleria Mario Iannelli is overwhelming. A series of fragile mechanisms hanging from the ceiling and the walls give the viewer the impression of crossing a jungle-like eco-system. However material used for repair such as copper wire, acrylic glass, mirror foil and tape are here adopted to...
Amy Yao on her collaboration project “Two Weeks” with Carissa Rodriguez at Indipendenza – interview
For the first time in Rome, Carissa Rodriguez and Amy Yao’s two-people show Two Weeks at Indipendenza has featured a new body of work which was conceived and produced during a residency in the city. Where’s Art talks to Amy Yao about the research she carried out in Rome, reflecting on the city’s layerings and dynamics, as well as, on a wider extent, the history of Italian contemporary art. Tell me you stones, O speak, you...
Diaspora and migration in the work of British artist Jebila Okongwu – studio visit
African culture is an immediately recognizable feature in the work of Rome-based English artist Jebila Okongwu (London, 1975). His studio hosts mainly sculptures and large scale collages – though the artist has also approached video production and performance -, all of them inspired by bright colorful Nigerian textiles, and motifs and patterns of traditional votive statues. Okongwu’s research is more than just a revamped contemporary...
Italian artist Alessandro Dandini de Sylva on his show about landscape at Operativa Arte Contemporanea – interview
Italian photographer Alessandro Dandini de Sylva’s first solo show at Rome-based gallery Operativa Arte Contemporanea features an ongoing series of manipulated Polaroids, alongside other experimental projects pivoting around the representation of landscape. “Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment.” – Ansel Adams The exhibition “Paesaggi 2008 –...
On stratification and painting – interview with Maria Morganti
Dialoguing with the short essay “I diari di via dell’Oca e via della Penna” , Venetian artist Maria Morganti presents her investigation on color and painting inspired by the words of Italian writer Matteo Nucci. Where’s Art talks to Maria Morganti about her recent participation in the project A Work in Five Parts Inside and Outside of Four Windows, promoted by OTTO ZOO, Milan in collaboration with the Hotel Locarno,...
Short talk with Chicago-based artist B. Ingrid Olson about her solo show at cura. basement
Where’s Art talks to Chicago-based artist B. Ingrid Olson about abstracting figures in her solo show “The vases my monitors their frames” at Roman space cura. basement. “There are images that are stuck one onto the other, their materiality does not seem to be denied – they always retain, or so it seemd for an effect or such a mediated relation with a work, a materiality, a grain, and weight. Sometimes...
There is no place like home – interview the artists
The location chosen for the project There Is No Place Like Home is a construction site in a remote part of Rome. All the possible references to the idea of ‘home’ are emphasized by Judy Garland in a state of trance repeating as an automaton the sentence “There is no place like home” in English and Spanish, thus leaving a few doubts on the message of the exhibition: The house is a metaphor for art in general, not just for...