The exhibition at X-Initiative which coincides with the publication In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists since 1955 is definitely worth checking out!  The exhibit is curated really well, which is very hard to do when materials are meant to be touched, held, and flipped through.  Each periodical was given its own display case, and each display case contained enough issues to give you a sense of both the content and cover design.  I discovered some new periodicals like The Balloon Newspaper and Control Magazine, and also stumbled upon many favorites like the comical mail art periodical by Buster Cleveland: Art For Um, Maurizio Cattelan’s Permanent Food, and Eleanor Antin’s 100 Boots postcard series, etc.  The exhibit also has a large timeline display painted on the wall of the gallery showing the length of each periodical’s run.  It’s interesting to see how long these periodicals were in existence, which ones overlapped, and the time periods they spanned.  I got a chance to briefly flip through the pages of In Numbers and I can’t wait to buy a copy for myself.

The Balloon Newspaper

Control Magazine

Art For Um

I also went to the Ooga Booga Reading Room at the Swiss Institute.  The room was furnished like a living room and full of wonderful books about art, artists books, and periodicals. Visitors were relaxing on the comfortable sofa, making themselves a free shot of espresso and reading.  I’ve never felt so cozy and relaxed in a gallery space.  I am hoping I get the chance to visit again and spend more time there during the day.

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A friendly talk between Alex Baciu, Maria Popistasu and I, brought up Maurizio Cattelan’s “The Ninth Hour” from 1999. The powerful instalation representing Pope John Paul II smashed by a meteorite created a huge scandal in 2001 when it was presented at Zacheta Gallery, in Poland.

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Martin Kippenberger. Zuerst die Füße. Museion. Blamed and accused of blasphemy, the German artist depicted a decadent lost world in opposition with Perfection. Watch carefully and see beyond the frog. Or the cross.

Presenting an Excellent work of art by artist Maurizio Cattelan, as installed at The Rubell Family Collection opening, Art Basel Miami Beach. 9:57 p.m., December 1, 2009. Image by an anonymous, soon-to-be-revealed, Excellent People correspondent.

An Excellent work of art by Maurizio Cattelan as installed at The Rubell Family Collection opening during the lead up to Art Basel Miami Beach, 2009.

]]> http://villatelesio.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/indagini-di-un-cane/ Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:15:01 +0000 ilprimissimo http://villatelesio.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/indagini-di-un-cane/

Indagini di un cane, fino al prossimo 7 febbraio alla Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo di Torino.

La Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo è uno dei soci fondatori di  FACE, insieme alla  Fondazione DESTE di Atene (Grecia), la Fondazione Ellipse di Cascais (Portogallo), La Maison Rouge di Parigi (Francia) e il Magasin 3 di Stoccolma (Svezia). Queste cinque prestigiose istituzioni no-profit, nate su iniziativa di collezionisti privati, si sono così alleate creando una solida rete internazionale per realizzare ambiziosi progetti comuni. Tra questi la mostra collettiva Indagini di un cane che, curata da tutte e cinque le istituzioni, da febbraio verrà esposta in successione anche nelle altre quattro sedi.

Gli artisti coinvolti sono accomunati dall’uso sovversivo dei linguaggi artistici contemporanei, dall’elaborazione di un sistema di comunicazione non convenzionale, ma in grado di portare avanti l’indagine e l’analisi critica del proprio tempo aprendola alla collettività. Il fatto di interrogarsi, esprimere un interesse per la società e la situazione storico-politica, attraverso una ricerca artistica molto personale, per certi versi isolata, ricorda un racconto di Kafka, intitolato appunto Indagini di un cane, in cui un cane per cercare di comprendere il senso della sua della sua appartenenza alla comunità canina, si trova lentamente costretto alla solitudine. Il titolo della mostra riprende così il paradossale principio per cui assumendo una posizione di distacco e adottando linguaggi che si diversificano da quelli della maggioranza si può esprimere un grande e costruttivo interesse per la comunità.

info: Teknemedia

The December issue of Vanity Fair includes a teaser about the nasty divorce I posted about last May (below). Equally unsurprising as Mario Testino’s portfolio of Seymour’s smashing figure (which has long been fully disclosed), is the reported assumption that neither of them seem to be fighting over this Maurizio Cattelan sculpture:

Forget the largely dour results of the pulverized sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s major auctions this week and last (they will eventually rebound perhaps more quickly than we suspect), the contemporary art auction season has been dealt a more mortal blow. Gone is the promise of watching a stallion-like Stephanie Seymour stride up the center aisle of Christie’s saleroom in some seductive getup to find her seat beside hubby Peter Brant, publisher of Art in America and Interview, polo and interview extraordinaire, and infamous Gagosian comrade. Just as the opening of the Brant Foundation Art Study Center is providing a peek at some of the 1,000 artworks that Brant has collected over the years, the 14-year marriage between Seymour and Brant (whose duo involvement with Interview as of late has been a bit disconcerting) is dissolving into Page Six reports detailing their bitter divorce and putting a final nail in the coffin of a decadent art collecting era. There are lots of questions here beyond whether Seymour is drugging and boozing and whether Brant’s ownership of a Maurizio Cattelan sculpture of Seymour (see above) that looks like it belongs in a hunting lodge qualifies as exhibiting “hostile, threatening and intimidating behavior.” The implications for contemporary art (at least some 1,000 works) is just beginning.

So that is the costume pretty much made. Just need to get some red shorts and black tights and white gloves and yellow shoes. But thats’ll be EASY.

Was reminded of a piece by Maurizio Cattelan, who is brill, and he knew Ettore Sottsass!!! Who is a boma of mine

Its this piece by him called “inside Picasso’s head” he wanders around getting his photo taken with members of the public like in disneyland. I think its quite similar to my art ideas, but its maybe to do with the artist more than the art. My work is to do with the art being the celebrity that people want to meet.

There is also a piece by him who i quite like as well where the pope is hit by a meteorite.

Don’t know what it means but I don’t mind, and maybe dont even want to know.

So long farewell auf wiedresein goodbye

O artista italiano Maurizio Cattelan é conhecido por seu estilo subversivo e por suas esculturas hiper-realistas, incluindo representações do Papa João Paulo II sendo atingido por um meteorito, um Hitler pequeno ajoelhado em oração e um esquilo suicida.

Para a edição deste mês da W Magazine (intitulada de “Art Issue”) ele concebeu um trabalho fotográfico com a supermodel Linda Evangelista explorando a interessante dualidade entre o sagrado e o profano ”Ela é uma atriz ainda“, diz Cattelan sobre Evangelista. “No final, ela estava tão afinada que tudo o que ela precisava era um par de palavras e ela sabia o que queria.”, concluiu.

Abaixo estão postadas algumas das imagens feitas por Cattelan para a W e entre os vídeos aqui do blog está um com o making off do trabalho do artista com a top Linda Evangelista narrado por Dennis Freedman.

 Linda + Godard?

Errotin Le Vrai Lapin, 1994

Errotin Le Vrai Lapin
La Nona Ora, 1999

Frank And Jamie, 2002

I really like Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, he’s best known for his subversive, hyper-realistic sculptures—including depictions of Pope John Paul II being hit by a meteorite, a child-size Hitler kneeling in prayer and a horse suspended from a ceiling. Above is a sampling of his work for the current issue of W Magazine.

W’s november ‘art issue’.
///
directed by italian artist maurizio cattelan. photographed by pierpaolo ferrari.
///

full series here

All dressed up and nowhere to go? You’re not alone.

You’ve got the 4 models in the Victor Skrebneski produced fashion feature in the 27th anniversary issue of Today’s Chicago Woman to keep you company.  Spread on the floor, each in a 2 page spread,  in various stages of orgasmic exhibitionism which every couture clad professional gal surely finds herself now and again and again, the first model appears to be using her bejeweled bangled hand to pocket pool herself and, when she reappears at the end, she’s using her entire forearm to anally….WTF?

“Success stories don’t get much better than this” proclaims the cover. Really? Yes, the caption does, in all fairness, refer to the real estate agent on the cover but who cares about her and her success when Skrebneski locates the multiple listing service in your G spot?

In stark contrast, and  as conceived by Maurizio Cattelan and  photographed by Pierpaolo Ferrari, the cover of the November issue of W magazine is  part of what the editors describe as a “politically and religiously charged portfolio” starring Linda Evangelista.

I can’t guarantee that what you’ll find inside the pages of the 4th annual “art issue” has any more or less artistic merit than what you find inside Today’s Chicago Woman, but  I am sure that the cover photo has a  politically charged urgency that taps into the global zeitgeist and that stops you dead in your tracks as it sets your mind racing.

Here’s the surreal juxtaposition of Linda”I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day” Evangelista, the most cinematic of the 80’s “greed is good” supermodels, a good deal more rotund  than current standards allow but no less the superb “still actress” she always was, holding a cardboard sign that declares “IT MUST BE SOMEBODY’S FAULT.”

As obvious as the cardboard sign is to read (and agree with if it refers to the global economic meltdown), what it means depends on how you read it. For starters, where in that sentence is the correct inflection? (Fans of the masterful film writer and director John Sayles will recall the “I didn’t ask for the anal probe” scene from Passion Fish.)

And how does one read that sign given the rest of the images in the photo?

She’s is, after all, wearing an Oscar de la Renta dress and $1,699,000.00 in De Beer’s diamond jewelry including a double cross. She’s perfectly manicured, coiffed and made up but the expression on her face is alarmingly vacant.  What, if anything, is really bothering, bewildering and bewitching her? An American flag can be seen  clearly affixed to a building behind her. The gaze of the suited black male is ambiguously affixed to her? To us? To the studly white uniformed male intruding in the right foreground?

Who is she? Victim? Perpetrator? Prophet? Judge? Jury? Grand Inquisitor?  Who are the men and who are they to her?

And what is IT? The spectacular fall of the supermodel? The divulsion of the unregulated derivative/Bernie Madoff ponzi economy?  The inability of Miley Cyrus to, like,  construct a proper sentence in, like, English ? The collapse of the luxury goods market? Is she sympathetic or pathetic?

Life imitated art Thursday night, making the timing of the politically and religiously charged portfolio even more prescient, at a town hall meeting in New Orleans where President Obama was asked by Tyren Scott, a  4th-grader, “Why do people hate you? And why, aren’t they supposed to love you, if God is love?”

The President came up with an unfortunately  simplistic and patronizing answer, as if to prove that you can graduate from Harvard and teach at the University of Chicago, but you’re still not smarter than a 4th grader. When Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd have lost any semblance of faith in your competence, you’re just stroking your own oversize ego when you declare:

“First of all, I did get elected president, so not everybody hates me; I got a whole lot of votes. A lot of it is what’s called politics, where once one party wins, the other party feels like they’ve got to poke you a little bit to keep you on your toes. So you shouldn’t take it too seriously.”

Seriously, Tyren, IT MUST BE SOMEBODY’S FAULT. And after 9 months of on the job ineptitude on foreclosure reform, health care reform, banking reform, immigration reform. ‘don’t ask don’t tell” reform and evisceration of every campaign promise by special interest politics, the fault lies squarely with Barck Obama. Location, location, location.

Good art sometimes thrives on ambiguity and even derives its meaning from it. Political leadership does not.

TheBestDressedList.com

tomkolovos.com

 Supermodel Linda Evangelista poses for Maurizio Cattelan in his portfolio shoot for W Magazine. The set of pictures which were shot by PierPaolo Ferrari are very art based rather than fashion; Maurizo and Paolo play with religious and political connotations to create this charged shoot, more pics from the set below: 

Loving the shoots, its very artistic and I’m glad that they used Linda for it, its great that a lot of the “Super 6″ are getting work again; like they say fashion goes round in circles, I bet the resurgence of 90s trends on the catwalk has helped the resurgence of their modelling careers.

Photography By: PierPaolo Ferrari

Styling By: by Camilla Nickerson

IMG|SOURCE: Wmagazine

• At Rhizome, Greg J. Smith gives us a primer on everything DEVO.
• At Jacket Copy, Carolyn Kellogg on the paintings of Ray Bradbury.
• At New York Magazine, Jerry Saltz lists twenty-five new galleries you should visit, as well as giving us another entertaining video supplement.
• At The Economist, the strange case of Maurizio Cattelan making money while the rest of the art world seems to struggle.
• At NYT, Nicolai Ouroussoff discusses the plans for the new Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.
• At the Guardian, Tom Waits is interviewed, and, as always, entertains.
• At the Sydney Morning Herald, Michael Epis recounts the memoir by Proust’s maid, as well as his unhealthy late-life drinking habits.
• At Like Anna Karina’s Sweater, Filmbrain provides us with the unoffical soundtrack/mixtape to the 2009 NYFF.
• At his official blog, Roger Ebert spills the beans on his love of books. Boy, can I relate.
• At Slate, Keith Phipps runs down the history of destroying landmarks on film.
• At Print, Geeta Dayal on the album covers of Brian Eno. It’s also worth checking out her newly released book on Another Green World, which looks excellent.
• At Moving Image Source, Joshua Land on the female christ figures in the films of Lars Von Trier.

(Attilio Maranzano, Maurizio Cattelan, fotografia ai sali d’argento BN, 40X51 cm, stampata nel 2005, firma e
data al retro Copyright C Attilio Maranzano, courtesy Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia)

Milano – dal 23 settembre 2009 al 31 gennaio 2010

Dal 24 settembre 2009 al 31 gennaio 2010, alla Fondazione Stelline di Milano si terrà la mostra UNITED ARTISTS OF ITALY.

L’esposizione, nata da un’idea di Massimo Minini, è organizzata e prodotta dalla Fondazione Stelline, in collaborazione con 24Ore Motta Cultura, col patrocinio della Regione Lombardia, del Comune di Milano, della Provincia di Milano, e presenterà 200 immagini scattate da 22 tra i più importanti fotografi italiani, attivi a partire dagli anni ‘60 – da Gabriele Basilico a Gianni Berengo Gardin, da Luigi Ghirri a Mario Giacomelli, da Mimmo Jodice a Ugo Mulas a Ferdinando Scianna e molti altri – che ritraggono i volti dei più significativi artisti contemporanei, italiani e internazionali.

Il percorso espositivo non è una semplice raccolta cronologica di immagini, ma un vero e proprio racconto, in cui lo stesso artista – osservato, letto e interpretato da diversi fotografi – mostra differenti sfaccettature della propria identità creativa e umana, del proprio destino.

Il desiderio di scrivere una originale storia dell’arte contemporanea – non attraverso le opere ma mostrando i volti, i modi, gli atteggiamenti dei suoi protagonisti – è alla base del progetto, che si è sviluppato grazie al contatto diretto e al profondo coinvolgimento con i fotografi, rivelandosi un viaggio all’interno della fotografia italiana.

Scrive Massimo Minini: “Se il contemporaneo è un’attitudine, un modo di porsi dell’opera nel suo tempo ed in comunione con i grandi temi del momento, il massimo di tensione sul contemporaneo lo si raggiunge non con il corpo dell’opera, ma con quello dell’autore, che vive nel proprio tempo, lo interpreta, gli dà voce, lo fonda, definendone i contorni spaziali e temporali”.

Se in principio l’idea prevedeva di selezionare esclusivamente ritratti di artisti italiani – per la maggior parte colti al lavoro, nel loro studio o nei momenti liberi – con il tempo, l’attenzione si è estesa anche a personalità internazionali quali Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Sol LeWitt, che hanno mantenuto un legame molto forte con l’Italia, ad alcuni tra i più importanti galleristi come Lucio Amelio e Leo Castelli, e a scrittori quali Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italo Calvino, Alberto Moravia.

Sempre Massimo Minini, riguardo alla sua collezione, racconta che: “è diventata un’occasione per mescolare le carte e creare castelli intercambiabili, strade che si biforcano, specchi che rimandano, come un domino che sfugge, crescendo di qua e di là, attorno ad una idea principale non costrittiva. Così facendo mi sono ritrovato in una stanza delle meraviglie, un panorama di straordinarie immagini, con volti noti d’artista e grandi professionalità di scatto e di stampa”.

La mostra, ideata come progetto espositivo internazionale per musei ed istituzioni, giunge in Italia per la prima volta, dopo essere stata ospitata dal Musée d’Art Moderne di Saint-Etienne Metropole (7 maggio – 21 settembre 2008) e dal Palais des Beaux Arts di Bruxelles (20 marzo – 17 maggio 2009).

L’edizione italiana è arricchita da una sezione inedita che raccoglie 11 fotoritratti eseguiti dalla giovane fotografa siciliana Michela Forte (Erice 1980) dedicati agli artisti – Mario Airò, Massimo Bartolini, Carlo Bernardini, Loris Cecchini, Ofri Cnaani, Madame Duplok, Chiara Dynys, Lara Favaretto, Maik e Dirk Löbbert, Marzia Migliora, Ottonella Mocellin e Nicola Pellegrini – selezionati attraverso un concorso internazionale per partecipare al progetto “TWISTER. Rete Musei Lombardia per l’Arte Contemporanea” (03/10/09 – 31/01/2010; www.twisterartecontemporanea.com), a cui aderisce la Fondazione Stelline e che inaugura, sempre alle Stelline, il 3 ottobre 2009.

FONDAZIONE STELLINE – PALAZZO DELLE STELLINE
Corso Magenta 61 (20123)
+39 0245462111 , +39 0245462403 (fax)
fondazione@stelline.it
www.stelline.it

orario: martedì – domenica, 10 – 20 (chiuso il lunedì)
(possono variare, verificare sempre via telefono)
biglietti: intero € 8; ridotto € 6; scuole € 3
vernissage: 23 settembre 2009. ore 18.30
ufficio stampa: CLP, MOTTA ARTE, GIULIA ZANICHELLI
autori: Gabriele Basilico, Gianni Berengo Gardin, Luigi Ghirri, Mario Giacomelli, Mimmo Jodice, Ugo Mulas, Ferdinando Scianna
patrocini: Regione Lombardia, del Comune di Milano, della Provincia di Milano,
note: la mostra è organizzata e prodotta dalla Fondazione Stelline, in collaborazione con 24Ore Motta Cultura
email: press@stelline.it

“the grabbing hands grab all they can“

.josette day and the walls of arms in the 1946 film la belle et la bête (beauty and the beast) directed by jean cocteau.

.catherine deneuve and the hall of arms in the 1965 film repulsion directed by roman polanski.

.cover art for the 1981 ultravox single the thin wall from the album rage in eden.

.lori cardille and the wall of arms in the 1985 film day of the dead directed by george a. romero.

.jennifer connelly and the helping hands in the 1986 film labyrinth directed by jim henson.

.ave maria circa 2007 by maurizio cattelan.

.hand in the wall at madame tussauds wax museum.

Found this on Art:21 (http://blog.art21.org) and just loved it. We already love everything that Triple Candy is doing and kudos to Daniel Fuller for doing such a good job of reviewing the show and its relation to the space’s modus operandi. It is my first encounter with Art:21 and it certainly looks like a really great blog for anyone interested in art to follow. Herewith an extract from the full review by Fuller:

Final resting place. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Fuller.

This is Maurizio Cattelan is Dead: Life and Work, 1960 – 2009. And if this were any other gallery, you would be scrambling for a newspaper, or more likely ArtForum, wondering how you could have missed the news of Cattelan’s death. Much in line with Triple Candie’s classic 2006 show, ‘David Hammons: The Unauthorized Retrospective’, this is a conceptual curatorial game and skeptical critics will assume the artist was on board or maybe even contributed to it–but not in this case.

The founders of Triple Candie, Shelly Bancroft and Peter Nesbett, are up to their old brilliant tricks. They’ve created an extensive biographical timeline that loops around the entire gallery. Of course, there is no “real” artwork, but the sheer amount of hours they logged acquiring Cattelan’s bibliography for use on the wall labels equals the research efforts of curators of traditional shows. Triple Candie maintains that their texts are entirely factual, which may be true. (Or may be another scam). Tied in are elements of commentary with, at times, tremendous bite. The opening text identifies Cattelan as “a con artist and populist philosopher whose art embraced what might be called comic existentialism…” and goes on to state he “built [his] career through a mix of savvy resourcefulness and puckish deceit.” The greatest speculation in the timeline’s reference to the loss of the artist: “Was his death of his own doing, the result of exhaustion or over-exposure?”

Please read the whole review at Art: 21 (http://blog.art21.org) by clicking HERE

You don’t need a lot of things if you just choose the few right things.

The xx – “Basic Space”

Maurizio Cattelan

Grant Hamilton (via A Time to Get)

: : : : : : : :

Qualche mese fa il direttore della Bur, Ottavio Di Brizzi, un uomo dagli occhi mobili e dai modi pratici, ha radunato un gruppo di persone nella redazione della rivista Abitare e ha messo in comune una visione editoriale piuttosto inconsueta.

Una visione nata per festeggiare i sessant’anni della celebre collana di tascabili Rizzoli. L’idea era: prendere un manipolo di classici della letteratura o del pensiero e amplificarli, remixarli, sottoporli a dinamiche trasformative fisiche. L’idea era chiedere ad artisti, designer e architetti conosciuti di pensare un guscio che rimettesse al mondo quei titoli sotto nuove spoglie, libri che non sono più del tutto libri, libri che potrebbero essere qualcosa di diverso eppure rimangono libri, libri che amano nascondersi sotto le rose o dentro scatole di meraviglia.

Così è nato il progetto “Bur Design”, che ho curato insieme a Stefano Boeri, per conto di Abitare, e allo stesso Ottavio Di Brizzi.

Gli accoppiamenti sono stati giudiziosi: a Enzo Mari è toccata La vita istruzioni per l’uso di Georges Perec, che è diventato un puzzle; a Luigi Serafini Le storie naturali di Jules Renard, trasformate in un erbario con tasche ribollenti di foglie; Peter Saville, il responsabile della grafica dei Joy Division e di tante altre avventure successive, doterà di una confezione di pelle morbida e artificiosa Justine del Marchese De Sade. Maurizio Cattelan ha deciso di partecipare al progetto solo a patto che non si facesse un’edizione da collezionisti, ma una vera e propria tiratura di massa.

L’idea di Cattelan, sviluppata insieme a Massimiliano Gioni con l’aiuto di Flavio Del Monte, è di far copiare a mano da un fantomatico amanuense cinese Guerra e pace, ma imitando proprio il carattere a stampa, in modo che il lettore possa trovarsi in mano allo stesso tempo un’opera concettuale, un tascabile del tutto leggibile e una produzione artigianale estrema: la Storia, e la Letteratura, con tutta la loro umana, calligrafica umidità (le sbavature d’inchiostro).

I quattro libri saranno disponibili in libreria (in edizione limitata, tranne il Tolstoj di Cattelan) uno dopo l’altro da giugno a dicembre 2009.

Fonte: www.wired.it

Ave Maria” heißt dieses Cattelan-Werk. Oder was soll uns das sagen?

Es wird wider einmal die Interpretationen gefordert, die das freie denken noch zulässt im Gegensatz zu der freien Meinungsfreiheit die heute arg beschnitten ist, obwohl es Staatlich garantiert währe. Die Kulturen des Künstlers lassen alles offen. Die Menschen hatten schon immer Angst oder anders ausgedrückt Respekt von okkultem oder Symbolen. Doch viele tragen sie um den Hals, die Kreuze, die Ketten, die Amulette, der Thor, die Schwarze Sonne,  alles hat etwas zu bedeuten oder verbindet eine Gemeinschaf. Oder eher eine Erkennung? Währe der angebliche Jesus vor 20 Jahren zu Tode verurteilt worden, hätten alle Christen einen Elektrischen Stuhl um den Hals, ist eben Zeitlich bedingt.