Naima Morelli

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June, 2013 Monthly archive

howto2

I just came back from my 32nd interview for my reportage in Australia, so I finally feel like I can tell my opinion about how to interview an artist.

The first thing you have to do is obviously contact the artist and you usually do that through her/his mail on her/his personal website.
The first mail has to be a quite formal style, without exaggerating though.
You have to be short and clear, explaining the artist why you want to interview her/ him and what aspects of her/his work are you interested in.
If your interview is part of a bigger project, like a reportage, spend a few words to inform the artist about it.
Don’t forget to explain her/him if this is your own project or if you are working for a magazine.
In this last case it would be nice to put a link to the website of your magazine, so the artist can have a look.
Put also your own website or blog in the signature, along with your personal page on a web magazine that hosts your work, if you have one.
That would give you credibility and would also give the artist the possibility to take a peek at your style and at the kind of articles you usually write.
The next mails would probably me more informal. At this point you can get rid of all the links in your signature, the “best” and “regards” and sign with just your given name.

In your second mail you can suggest the artist a place where you can have the interview.
The most common places are the artist’s studio, a nice and quite café, the space where the artist has currently a show or the gallery that represents him.
Give options to the artist. To meet her/him in his studio would be ideal – you can guess much more from the artist’s natural habitat than from outcomes of a simple conversation.
Of course, you can suggest to meet in the studio, but not all the artists have one and not everyone is happy to let a suspicious journalist or art critic in. If the artist tells you that his studio is empty or messy at moment, just don’t bother. Above all don’t insist.

If you are doing the interview in your own city, you probably would know the most quiet and suitable cafe for an interview. If you are abroad don’t be shy, just ask the artist if he knows a nice cafe to meet.
The choice would probably tell you something about the artist lifestyle and tastes.
In any case discover new places in a new city is always exciting.

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3

Productivity and Bohemia are concepts which are seldom associated.
You have to admit though that having grown up reading Sartre and Simone the Beauvoir – or at least having seen the pictures – you are not immune to the charms of café.

Every city has is own aesthetic when comes to cafés.
Not everyone is snob enough to live in Paris and go to the Café De Flore – whom has turned into an established place for loaded folks anyways.
What it is left to us is send to hell the Café De Flore, and create our own, well… café mythology.

If you live in Rome you certainly know the cafés Canova and Rosati in Piazza del Popolo.
During the sixties these two cafés gathered the so called “artists from Piazza del Popolo”, but now Canova and Rosati are the equivalent of the ultrachic cafés in Saint Germain, Paris.
Sure, it is always cool to pass by Piazza del Popolo and say hi to the Italian dandy artist Ontani– last time I checked he had a permanent permit to be parked at Canova – yet these cafés are too posh for us.
Same things with the cafés in Via Veneto, once Antonioni, Mastroianni and Fellini’s reign.

You have to consider as well that in Italy there is this tradition of kicking you out if you take too long to sip your coffee.
If you are in Rome and you are a writer looking for a place to read and write quietly, you will be likely accepted in some cosy and shabby-chic looking cafés in Via Giulia, Pigneto or San Lorenzo.
You can start to create your own café mythology from there.

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big_game_hero

When you visit a museum in Australia, you have to consider the snake danger.
According to the Australian mentality, which is close to Hinduism in this sense, you shouldn’t kill any snake – after all a snake is still part of the wildlife and you have to respect it.
Anyways, being aware of the snake danger, I decided to go to the Heide Museum equipped with my Crocodile Dundee hat.
I hoped that my Indonesian boyfriend Lucas would have bring with him a kris and my Japanese friend Minako a katana but, alas, they didn’t.
“What about you? Didn’t you bring a mandolino with you?” Lucas asked me referring to my Neapolitan origins.
“How you supposed to kill a snake with a mandolino, genius?”
“Unless…” I mumbled making my way through the lianas separating us from the museum “you charm the snake playing  Torna a Surriento or something like that.”
Walking carefully, we finally arrived at the door of the Heide Museum without being bitten, which was good.
The current show was titled “Fiona Hall: Big game hunting”
Coming into the exhibition I took off my hat and I rapidly switched my attitude from adventurer to art critic.

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formica5

Che cos’è il Popolo?
Ci sono solo due modi possibili per rispondere a questa domanda, o chiamare in causa studi antropologici del tipo Fabio Dei, Cirese, De Martino, oppure argomentare con l’arte.
L’una comprensione è intellettuale (vi parleranno di società dei consumi, snaturalizzazione bisogni, egemonizzazione e compagnia), l’altra parla direttamente ad un sentire.
Il lavoro di Angelo Formica, che ho avuto modo di beccare alla fiera Rome Contemporary, va esattamente in quella direzione.

Con un’operazione surrealisticamente a supportare un significato, anzi un’identità, quella popolare più precisamente, Formica gioca con i simboli della tradizione.
Il suo background siciliano (è originario di Milazzo) l’ha immerso fin da bambino in un humus culturale che è riuscito a rielaborare solo una volta trasferitosi a Milano, recuperando quel necessario distacco.
Un po’ come Jorge Amado, grandissimo scrittore del Popolo, il quale riusciva a narrare del suo natio Brasile solo quando si trovava a Parigi.

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dailey

The Italian web magazine Art a Part of Cult(ure) just published the interview I had in Perth with the artist Peter Dailey. The interview is part of my reportage about the Perth art scene.

Here you are the link to the interview

Here you are my pictures of the artist’s studio

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duff0
Words are for explaining, but at the same time words are also for hiding.
In the moment you want to tell something, you’re making a choice. Saying something means not saying something else. It’s the feature of the language, you can’t help it. But if you’re an artist you can play with it.

Arthur Duff is one who is not scared of juggling on the edge of language’s ambiguities, indeed he enjoys himself exploring the multiple layers of semantics.
He’s an American Italian-based artist living in Venice (fortunate guy), and recent winner of the MACRO 2% prize.
Actually, the artist is not distanced himself a lot from MACRO, the main contemporary art museum of Rome. As you can see the Oredaria Arti Contemporanee Gallery, hosting his exhibition, is just nearby.

Duff’s solo show is called “Syntax Parallax”. As you came into the subterranean gallery, you’re suddenly greeted by two light installations. The yellow neons, forming words, seem to melt on to the floor.

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Koes-Artbook-Modern-Indonesian-Art-1st-ed

In these days I’m preparing the bibliography for my book about Indonesian Contemporary Art.
In the last year I have tried to read every single publication, magazine, website, brochure, article, blog post about art in Indonesia and, of course, try to speak to many people involved as possible.
These are some interesting books and catalogues that were important for me to start orientate in this world:

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MA_TI_website

Quando si dice Marco Tirelli, mani in alto!
Un artista di tutto rispetto, a Roma specialmente; non per niente il Macro, quello di Testaccio, ha deciso di dedicargli i suoi due prestigiosi padiglioni, uno in cui erano sistemate le sue ultime tele, tutte di grandi dimensioni, l’altro dove era comunque sistemate le sue tele ma, attenzione, in un’istallazione ambientale.

Comunque, nonostante i tempi piuttosto dilatati dell’autobus numero 3, quello che porta a Testaccio, alle ore 9 in punto ero lì per l’inaugurazione.
C’è da dire che, con tutto il rispetto che nutro per l’artista Tirelli, in realtà la sua poetica è molto distante dalla mia sensibilità, dunque ho pensato di portarmi appresso qualcuno scevro di pregiudizi che mi aiutasse a capire con occhio obiettivo ciò che ha mosso e continua a muovere Marco nelle sue intenzioni creative.
La mia scelta è quindi caduta su di un amico australiano alloggiato in una palazzina fascista proprio di strada per l’autobus 3.
Si tratta di un grafico interessato all’arte ma sostanzialmente ignorante sull’argomento “Marco Tirelli” e che di San Lorenzo invece conosce giusto il cinema nella piazzetta. Mai sentito parlare della cosiddetta “Scuola di San Lorenzo” di cui Tirelli fece parte negli anni ‘70.
Grande fan di Rothko e di Mondrian però, mi informa durante il tragitto. Ahan. Beh, non è esattamente la stessa cosa ma… vedrai amico mio, vedrai.

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1

During my researche on the contemporary art scene in Melbourne, I had the chance to visit the studio of the artist Alasdair McLuckie at Gertrude Contemporary, in Fitzroy.
The artist moved in recently, in January, and he is very happy to have plenty of space to work.
Alasdair’s first inspiration is primitive art and cultures, an interest that he had inherited from his father. Recently he has re-discovered modernism, that had itself a very close relation with tribal art.
Looking Alasdair’s beads works, you can tell that he is very concerned with the formal aspect of art, and his artworks are accurates in every detail.
There is also storyteller aspect in his work. Some of his collages, prints and drawings are infact collected in notebooks made to be browsed.
Coming into the studio, you can see the artist’s favourite palette everywhere: deep blue, orange, saffron yellow, pink, pale violet, grey, black and mustard green.
The interview is coming soon, in the meantime here you are some pictures from my studio visit.

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sheetswetwithsweat

In one of his poems Baudelaire said that there is no beauty without a little bit of sadness.
This artwork, from my personal collection of contemporary art, is both beautiful and painful to me.
Lucas Leo Catalano realized it for the first exhibition of the art/poetry collective Poetry Experience in which I partecipate as well.
This work has been exhibited in The Room Gallery in Rome and at Museo del Viaggio in Positano.

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Flaming Flamingo 2011 (lr) copy

Melbourne. I consider the afternoons devoted to see art exhibitions like a sort of cultural safari.
You need a friend to enjoy it and a location where it is likely to meet dangerous, exotic or fascinating artworks.
In Melbourne some good locations for exhibition safaris are Fitzroy, the CBD and South Yarra.

So a couple of days ago I was in South Yarra with a friend and we had the chance to see the wonderful exhibition of Louise Saxton called “Sanctuary too” at Gould galleries.
No other show could be more suitable for an art safari: the subjects were in fact animals, insects and birds after vintage illustrations from natural history books and colonial painters.
The particularity was that all these artworks were realized in needlework, which means lace and nylon tulle arranged to form the images of animals.
All the pieces of this sort of collage were ties together by needles. Only coming closer to the artworks you can notice the needles, as well as the real nature of the different tulle.
That way the animals look stabbed, and at the same time the illusion of shape formed by the colourful patches is revealed.
My friend was fascinated by this coexistence of beauty and cruelness as well.

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1

I interviewed the artist Tania Ferrier some days ago at her apartment in the grooviest side St.Kilda, Melbourne.
This versatile artist was born in Perth but travelled a lot during her life.
It was a very interesting chat for me, not only because she was able to compare the two art scenes that I’m investigating at the moment (Perth and Melbourne). The most interesting thing was indeed to see how her adventurous life is strictly connected to her artistic practice.
Waiting for her interview to be published, I want to share an aspect of her early production: the “Angry Underwear”.

The story around the Angry Underwear seems to be out a Frank Miller graphic novel.
In the seventies Tania was working as clothed bartender in a Go Go Strip Club in New York.
In that period she started to make outfits for the strippers, motivated by one particular incident.

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