New Genres: October 2022

"Labyrinths", an exhibition on their historical importance at Fundación Proa

October 25, 2022 | nadiaevangelina

Fundación Proa, the space located in the heart of the city of La Boca, Buenos Aires, inaugurated the exhibition "Labyrinths" curated by Cecilia Jaime and Mayra Zolezzi. Throughout four thematic cores, the proposal goes through examples of history, literature, cinema, and plastic arts. "Labyrinths" seeks to reflect on the construction of labyrinths that, according to Jorge Luis Borges: "It is curious that man builds a space to get lost".

Cardboard Labyrinth by Michelangelo Pistoletto

"Whirligig", installation by Dan Graham

The first core introduces us to a 360-degree video installation, which shows the origin of the labyrinth in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Later it was considered a religious symbol until it reached the present day, which technically expands to the Internet labyrinth, considered the largest in the world.

The second core, call the city as a labyrinth, exhibits engravings of the mythical Jericho present in manuscripts. Then we move through the prisons of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, arriving at works by contemporary artists with intricate cities, real or imaginary, such as the plans of Leon Ferrari, the pinwheel of Dan Graham, or the watercolors of Xul Solar.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi

León Ferrari

Xul Solar

In literature, the labyrinth is the third thematic axis that presents texts by Jorge Luis Borges, Umberto Eco, Julio Cortázar, and Manuel Mujica Láinez. Labyrinths are sacred and pagan, they represent the path to perdition or salvation and can provoke. As Borges points out in an interview, labyrinths are fear but also hope; fear because we are lost, hope because there is a center, a plane, and architecture.

Borges Labyrinths

In the last room, the relationship between the labyrinths and the body is represented. This is glimpsed in Antonella Bussanich's video, which begins with the tracing of a labyrinth in the sand in allusion to that of the Chartres Cathedral until it transforms into a human brain through a juxtaposition and fusing of images. This idea is also found in the work of Yoan Capote, who starts from the design of the brain to approach it as a labyrinthine space, and Michelangelo Pistoletto, where the viewer becomes part of an installation, going through its labyrinth until finally finding the reflection of oneself, like Narcissus in the water.

In this room we can find scientific illustrations dating from the eighteenth century of the labyrinth of the ear, which gives its name to the complex cavities of the inner ear, confirming the presence of a labyrinthine space constitutive of our organism.

Each of these proposals is accompanied by room texts and activities during the exhibition that aims to deepen the different meanings, uses, and adaptations of the labyrinth given by national and international artists of all times, highlighting the enigma it continues to rise.

"Labyrinths"

Location: PROA Foundation, Av. Don Pedro de Mendoza 1929, C1169 CABA, Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Opening Date: 3rd September 2022

End Date: 3rd November 2022

Working hours: Thursday-Sunday: 12pm to 19 pm

Official website: https://www.proa.org/esp/

https://www.instagram.com/fundacion_proa/

Artists:

Dan Graham

Michelangelo Pistoletto

Jorge Miño

Antonella Bussanich

Yoan Capote,

among others

assemblage

Ion Anghel / "Retroactiv" at Galeria Dana

October 18, 2022 | Cosmina Marcela OLTEAN ArtPage

The Artists Union from Romania - Iași Branch and Galeria Dana present, between October 11 and November 11, the exhibition "Retroactiv" - signed by artist Ion ANGHEL. The project is curated by Smaranda Bostan and the art critic Dr. Maria Bilasevschi.

Ion Anghel is a visual artist, curator and lecturer at the Department of Painting at the University of Arts in Bucharest. A member of the UAP, within which he holds the position of President of Honor, Discipline and Arbitration Commission, Ion Anghel has been awarded with numerous prizes, being, at the same time, the author of important exhibitions held at museums and galleries throughout Romania.

Photos by Galeria Dana

"In the interstice of space-time, Ion Anghel's artistic approach within Retroactiv project does not propose a visual formula under the warmth of which understanding develops, hence the viewer's self-satisfaction, but insinuates itself into everyone's capacity for active decoding and reactive vigilance. Installation, object, sculpture, assemblage, painting, each work transcends its own personal history in the face of learned history through re-signification and contextualization. The extraordinary character of the "ordinary" that exists in found objects, saved from their own loss under the curtain of everyday indifference, outlines the often unseen substratum of the feeling you have, upon first contact, with the artist's objects, assemblages and collages.

Finding the thematic becomes secondary, in fact finding a narrative thread or an explicit statement is not justified, the viewer being invited to go beyond the immediate meaning of the fragment towards the surprise, even partial allusion. Of course, viewed without understanding the playful-ironic dimension, translated with a bittersweet feeling that remains fixed behind the retina, the intellectual-emotional resonance would be diluted towards a formalist dialogue with a enigmatic intimacy. By reassembling the elements and materials that constitute individual allegories, the creation process intuited in the final form seems similar to that of an alchemist. In fact, the re-evaluation of the object's status, which results from the artist's relationship with it, endowing it with a new destiny that erases the past and mirrors the future is, in the whole exhibition, a re-examination, an aesthetic and conceptual re-evaluation of the paradigms of art which become a metaphor for life itself.

Precisely for this reason, disillusionment, derision, the volatility of cultural or spiritual value systems, the lessons of history, the lessons of art (the pseudo-idyllic landscape in the portrait), the lesson about human being, become through two and three dimensions a journey towards the personal archeology of artist Ion Anghel", we learn from art critic Maria Bilashevschi.

Barcelona

Cinema and Fashion by Jean Paul Gaultier

October 14, 2022 | Analía Vallejo Larrea

The new exhibition at CaixaForum highlights the link between the world of the big screen and the world of the catwalks. The idea is to project the union of both industries from the personal perspective of Jean Paul Gaultier.

Image: CaixaForum

In this way, we have an eclectic journey through the vision and work of the French designer, along with designs by other creators and national and international artists.

The common thread of this tour is the idea of empowered women reflected on the big screen through daring and challenging costumes. Thus, the exhibition, divided into five distinct areas, analyzing the context of the creation of costumes for films, emphasizing key aspects such as the influence of rock, punk and queer cultures.

Image: CaixaForum

Jean Paul Gaultier explained: "With my fashion I wanted to show how women became freer and more empowered", the fashion designer is also the artistic director of the exhibition, which is co-organized by the Fundación la Caixa and La Cinémathèque française.

According to Gaultier, as well as this exhibition shows the female empowerment, it also shows the change that the male image has undergone, which, according to him, is more and more banal to the point of becoming practically a man-object.

The general director of the Fundación la Caixa, Elisa Durán, explained that the exhibition brings together a set of more than 100 pieces of clothing that are shown in about 70 "iconic looks", fragments of more than 90 films and 125 graphic representations -posters, sketches, stills and photographs, including originals and reproductions.

Image: CaixaForum

The exhibition includes dresses worn by actresses Grace Jones in 'Panorama to Kill', Catherine Deneuve in '8 Women', Grace Kelly in 'Rear Window', Sharon Stone in 'Basic Instinct', Marilyn Monroe in 'Naked Eve' and the Gaultier corset worn by Madonna on her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour, among many others.

You can visit this exhibition until October 23, 2022 at CaizaForum, located at Av. Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, 6-8, in the city of Barcelona.

animated imagery

Cyanotypes and Animated Imagery at APARTE GALLERY

October 06, 2022 | Cosmina Marcela OLTEAN ArtPage

APARTE GALLERY recently presented a complex event for emerging artists, students at “George Enescu” National Universtity of Arts: the project “Parallel Universes”, exhibition of cyanotypes and animated imagery and some collateral events held by SOPHIA HADJIPAPA & DEMIE ENGLEZOU from the European University of Cyprus, Nicosia. The conference “From manual to digital to manual and back again: A talk on the transference of media” by Sophia Hadjipapa & Demie Englezou, raised questions such as: “is it possible in this day and age not to think digitally? Would that mean pretending that the digital camera, the internet, and all these they entail, were never invented?” Even if we create analogically, the whole process of our thinking, from the conception of an idea, our access to information - a necessary part of research - and the means of experimentation, the necessary interconnections and combinations that make up the creative process, cannot bypass our digital reality.

Photos by APARTE GALLERY

On the other hand, even the most ardent digital creators, who produce their work entirely on the computer, hide a little black book in their chest, where they reverently place with a pencil, all their ideas in their most embryonic form, because a piece of them (still?) needs the tangible transition of a mental image to the paper.

Later on Demie Englezou talked about “Movement in art” and the principle of making images that appear in motion. It can also refer to the path the eye takes through the artwork, often to create a sense of action or to emphasize a particular area, otherwise called a focal point. Movement is an essential element of many art forms, and its power lies in its ability to transform the static image into something dynamic and alive. The speakers aimed - through their own practice - to explore that intermediate area, in the artistic process, where thought and action constantly and imperceptibly meander between the digital and the analogue.

Presentation of an Experimental Film & Animation and Motion Graphics by Demie Englezou

Staring with the few basic principles, the presentation followed the process of filmmaking and Animation in the comparison with the New Media Motion Graphics, exploring possible definitions, methods, approaches, and potential futures of filmmaking and also explore making expanded moving image projects.

"Parallel Universes" Cyanotypes exhibition and animation projections - The exhibition opening

The starting point for this project was a series of illustrations that Sophia Hadjipapa had initially designed as digital illustrations accompanying two poetry books, published in 2021 in Sofia, Bulgaria, written by poets Vasilka Petrova- Hadjipapa and Georgi Constantinov. The illustrations were shown as limited-edition cyanotype prints on A3 archival paper in November 2021, in Nicosia, Cyprus and gave the idea for the current proposal.

”In this project we are interested in the intersection between media and the transference of attributes from one medium to another creating new, hybrid forms: first, Sophia Hadjipapa moved from manual to digital to manual again, ending up using cyanotype, a medium traditionally used in Photography, for drawing prints, thus creating a medium that is neither photography, nor drawing, nor printmaking but also maybe all of those.

Secondly, Demie Englezou build on these static images to create moving ones, thus creating works that are neither just animations nor just drawings.

And then, there is also the level of text. The transmutation of poetry into visual form and it’s repercussions in the static and moving image”, pointed out the project team.

For the exhibition in Iasi, cyanotype large prints of the illustrations were presented, together with simultaneous projections of moving images/ animations based on these illustrations, where the textual element of the poetry is also interwoven.

Cyanotype Workshop

For those intrigued by the technique used in the exhibition and want to try it themselves, Sophia Hadjipapa offered a cyanotype workshop.

"Cyanotypes are one of the oldest photographic printing processes in the history of photography. The distinctive feature of the print is its shade of cyan blue, which results from its exposure to ultraviolet light. When the blue print emerged, cyanotypes were traditionally used for reproducing the technical drawings of architects and engineers until the arrival of photocopy machines. However, with its versatility and affordability, the technique was adopted by photographers soon after its discovery. Now artists of all kinds use this technique experimenting to print not only photographs by any kind of image, as is the case with Sophia’s prints", we found out from the organizers.

In a two – hour workshop Dr Sophia Hadjipapa guideed the participants into printing their own cyanotype. They could either do a cyanotype print from scratch by using found materials as leaves and feathers, or, they could bring their own image scanned and inverted, ready to be printed as their negative for their cyanotype.

Then the Screenings of the Best Films of the International Motion Festival were presented.

- - -

Dr. Sophia Hadjipapa is an active visual artist living in Cyprus. She is Associate Professor of Fine Arts at the Department of Arts of the European University Cyprus. She holds a BA in Painting from the National Academy of Arts of Sofia, where she also completed an MA degree in Painting and a PhD in Art History and Theory. Besides painting she has worked on video art,interventions in Public spaces, installations and participatory projects, illustrations of poems, covers of books and lately theater stage design.

Demie Englezou holds a Master’s degree in Computer Animation from the National Center of Computer Animation at Bournemouth University 2001 and a B.A in Graphic Design from the University of the West of England Bristol in 2000. She has created a large number of animated short films and Motion Graphics and participated in international film festivals, exhibitions, and art projects. She is a Lecturer and the program coordinator of the Graphic Design Program (BA) at the European University Cyprus. Her research interests are based on the Motion Graphics & Broadcast Design, Social Media Design as well as 3d Computer Animation.

art gallery

Abstract mud figures in PASTO gallery

October 05, 2022 | nadiaevangelina

"PARAMPARA" is the solo exhibition of Argentine artist Manuel Brandazza, curated by Carla Barbero, as part of the opening of the new exhibition space at PASTO gallery. Parampara continues a work begun last year that the artist first exhibited under the name Muchacho del Paraná, a mural installation that quoted the iconic 1942 sculpture by Lucio Fontana, one of the figures of Latin American modern art.

For Hinduism, "Parampara" is the sonorous expression that indicates the oral transmission of knowledge between masters and disciples, the way in which wisdom circulates. Brandazza's work seems to consist of collecting the attributes of the Paraná, an Argentine city, and creating tributaries to honor it, just as others did before him.

This exhibition integrates his vast trajectory in textile design, performance, and visual arts that he has been pursuing since the late 1990s. In this installation, the artist also absorbs the link with local history (the Paraná River is one of the most important rivers in South America, as it connects three important countries: Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay), but includes the current dramatic atmosphere.

Manuel Brandazza's past projects

The artist's work stands out both for the materials used and for the symbolism that emerges from them. Brandazza uses mud from the Paraná River, silk, and pearls. In this way, he sets out to represent and pay homage to the Argentine Littoral by telling its myths and stories with techniques ranging from sgraffito, embroidery, and sculpture.

Through his works, Brandazza also testifies to the critical current context in which the Paraná River's low water level exposes the difficulties of today's society to commit itself to the care of natural resources. The ecocide that has been developing in the last decades in the region of the Argentinean coast has already provoked the most serious lowing of the river in 77 years.

In Parampara, the artist finds an integrating power between the formal, the poetic, and the historical in precise portions, as he has been developing in the last year. The tension between the beauty of his sculptures, pearly with mud, and the sensual fantasy evoked by those bodies in the midst of brutal reality is what grows in Brandazza's work and governs everything. As his curator puts it, his work can be defined as a bitter-sweet sensation.

Manuel Brandazza's past projects. "Carnaval" (2022)

Manuel Brandazza's past projects. "La Chola Poblete" (2020)

"PARAMPARA"

Location: PASTO Gallery, Chacabuco 866, C1069 CABA, Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Opening Date: 16th September 2022

End Date: 29th October 2022

Working hours: Tuesday-Saturday: 3pm to 8pm

Official website:

http://www.pastogaleria.com.ar/

https://www.instagram.com/pastogaleria/

Participating Artist:

Manuel Brandazza

"Labyrinths", an exhibition on their historical importance at Fundación Proa

Ion Anghel / "Retroactiv" at Galeria Dana

Cinema and Fashion by Jean Paul Gaultier

Cyanotypes and Animated Imagery at APARTE GALLERY

Abstract mud figures in PASTO gallery

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