Antonino La Vela Art

Welcome to my Art Blog. Art acts as a gateway to boundless creativity, unveiling a broad spectrum where imagination merges with inspiration. It propels us beyond the ordinary, prompting an exploration of the exceptional within ourselves and our surroundings, drawing from the profound depths of human experiences. www.antoninolavela.it

[antoninolavelaart]

🖤 “I want to die broken.” Not destroyed. Used up. Having spent everything there was to spend. In this interview, Alessandro Bulgini talks about what happens when art stops being an object and becomes people, responsibility, memory and presence. From the Heretics to Gaza, from painting to Flashback Habitat, from illness to the need to take a position, our conversation kept returning to one question: What remains of an artist when recognition is no longer the point? For Bulgini, perhaps the answer is simple: life comes first. Art is one of the tools. Not the final purpose. A conversation about visibility, marginality, activism, mortality and why silence can become complicity. With @alessandrobulgini @flashbacktorino @marghedion @ilcircolinodiflashback 📖 Read the full interview: https://www.antoninolavela.it/alessandro-bulgini-interview.html 🔥 “Art cannot limit itself to decoration.” #AlessandroBulgini #ContemporaryArt #ArtInterview #FlashbackHabitat #FlashbackTorino #PoliticalArt #SocialPractice #ParticipatoryArt #ArtActivism #Gaza #TurinArt #ItalianContemporaryArt #ContemporaryArtist #ArtAndPolitics #ArtWorld

“I Want to Die Broken.” An Interview with Artist Alessandro Bulgini

[antoninolavelaart]

🚨 They spent more than £85,000 trying to remove a Banksy from the Royal Courts of Justice. ⚖️ A judge beating a protester. 🏛️ On the wall of a court. 🧱 Then the court covered it. 💷 Then public money was spent trying to erase it. The obvious question is whether Banksy had the right to paint there. Probably not. But that is not the interesting question. 👉 **Does the fact that an artwork was made illegally automatically give us the right to destroy it?** Banksy cannot have a veto over the city. Fame cannot mean that every wall he touches becomes untouchable heritage. But the opposite is also dangerous. Because sometimes history appears before anyone gives it permission. 🎨 At what point does vandalism become cultural memory? 🏛️ Who decides what deserves to survive? 💰 The owner? The state? The market? A museum? Us? And when removing an artwork makes its meaning even stronger, have you really erased it? Or have you just completed it? 👀 🔥 New article on my Journal: **They Spent £85,000 to Erase a Banksy. But Who Gets to Decide What Art Survives?** 🔗 http://www.antoninolavela.it/banksy-mural-removal-royal-courts.html #Banksy #StreetArt #ContemporaryArt #PoliticalArt #PublicArt #ArtAndPolitics #UrbanArt #ProtestArt #ArtCriticism #ContemporaryCulture

They Spent £85,000 to Erase a Banksy. But Who Gets to Decide What Art Survives?

[antoninolavelaart]

♟️ EVE BABITZ WAS NAKED. DUCHAMP WAS NOT. In 1963, Eve Babitz sat naked across a chessboard from Marcel Duchamp after being excluded from the opening of his exhibition. The photograph survived. The guest list didn’t. Sixty-three years later, the real question is no longer why she took off her clothes, but how someone kept outside the room became inseparable from the memory of what happened inside it. Who really controls an image once it begins to live beyond the people who made it? 👀 A story about access, desire, memory, visibility and an image that eventually escaped everyone involved. Read the full article: https://www.antoninolavela.it/eve-babitz-marcel-duchamp-nude-chess-photo.html 📷 Eve Babitz. Marcel Duchamp. Julian Wasser. Pasadena, 1963. #EveBabitz #MarcelDuchamp #JulianWasser #ArtHistory #ArtCriticism #Photography #ContemporaryArt #VisualCulture #ArtWriting #LosAngeles

Eva Babitz was naked. Duchamp was not.

[antoninolavelaart]

In 1992, a man with AIDS was carried through the streets of Madrid in the arms of others. His bare feet never touched the ground. Pepe Espaliú called the action "Carrying". ❤️‍🩹 At a time when AIDS was still surrounded by fear, stigma and moral judgement, Espaliú did something extraordinarily simple: he made people touch the body they had been taught to fear. 🤲 Arms had to make contact. 🤲 His weight had to be accepted. 🤲 One person could not carry him alone. This was not pity. It was responsibility. On World AIDS Day, December 1, 1992, friends, artists and public figures carried Espaliú through Madrid, from the area of the Spanish Parliament toward the Museo Reina Sofía. A gay man dying of AIDS became the centre of a human chain. More than thirty years later, "Carrying" still leaves us with an uncomfortable question: "Which bodies are we still unwilling to carry?" 🔗 Full article: antoninolavela.it/2026/08/pepe-espaliu-carrying-aids-performance.html #PepeEspaliu #Carrying #AIDSArt #HIVArt #QueerArt #PerformanceArt #ContemporaryArt #ArtHistory #QueerHistory #AIDSCrisis #LGBTQArt #BodyArt #ArtAndPolitics #SpanishArt #MadridArt #ArtActivism

When Spain Carried Pepe Espaliú in Its Arms

[antoninolavelaart]

In 1992, a man with AIDS was carried through the streets of Madrid in the arms of others. His bare feet never touched the ground. Pepe Espaliú called the action "Carrying". ❤️‍🩹 At a time when AIDS was still surrounded by fear, stigma and moral judgement, Espaliú did something extraordinarily simple: he made people touch the body they had been taught to fear. 🤲 Arms had to make contact. 🤲 His weight had to be accepted. 🤲 One person could not carry him alone. This was not pity. It was responsibility. On World AIDS Day, December 1, 1992, friends, artists and public figures carried Espaliú through Madrid, from the area of the Spanish Parliament toward the Museo Reina Sofía. A gay man dying of AIDS became the centre of a human chain. More than thirty years later, "Carrying" still leaves us with an uncomfortable question: "Which bodies are we still unwilling to carry?" 🔗 Full article: antoninolavela.it/2026/08/pepe-espaliu-carrying-aids-performance.html #PepeEspaliu #Carrying #AIDSArt #HIVArt #QueerArt #PerformanceArt #ContemporaryArt #ArtHistory #QueerHistory #AIDSCrisis #LGBTQArt #BodyArt #ArtAndPolitics #SpanishArt #MadridArt #ArtActivism

When Spain Carried Pepe Espaliú in Its Arms

[antoninolavelaart]

Who Invented the Outsider? The Unresolved Paradox of Art Brut

How modern art turned marginal creation into a source of authenticity, and why contemporary art still needs the outsider to escape its own academic exhaustion.Art Brut was never an artistic movement. It had no manifesto signed by its supposed members, no shared programme, no organised group and no collective awareness. Adolf Wölfli, Aloïse Corbaz, Augustin Lesage, Carlo Zinelli and Giovanni…

Who Invented the Outsider? The Unresolved Paradox of Art Brut

[antoninolavelaart]

Frida Kahlo is everywhere. 🌺 On T-shirts. Mugs. Cosmetics. Posters. Museum shops. Yet some of her most important paintings may become increasingly distant from Mexico. That contradiction lies at the centre of two legal disputes involving the Gelman Collection and *Self-Portrait with Medallion*. Behind export permits and private ownership sits a much larger question: “Can an artwork remain entirely private once it has entered the cultural memory of a country?” A painting can be legally owned, insured, transferred and even used as collateral. But who really creates its value? Collectors may own the object. Museums, historians, critics and audiences build much of its cultural meaning. Finance then learns how to transform that recognition into liquidity. 💰 Frida’s global visibility makes the problem harder to see. Her image circulates endlessly, while access to the actual works depends increasingly on banks, trusts, foundations, public authorities and private agreements. “Visibility is not access.” International circulation does not necessarily redistribute power. Sometimes the artwork moves, while control remains exactly where it was. My new essay examines ownership, heritage law, cultural displacement and the uncomfortable question Mexico can no longer avoid: **Who owns Frida Kahlo, and should ownership include the right to decide how long a culture can live without her art?** 🇲🇽 Read the full article here: https://www.antoninolavela.it/?p=8975&preview=true #FridaKahlo #MexicanArt #ArtCriticism #ArtLaw #CulturalHeritage #ArtMarket #ContemporaryArt #MuseumStudies #CulturalMemory #AntoninoLaVela

Who Owns Frida Kahlo? Mexico’s Fight to Keep Her Art at Home

[antoninolavelaart]

She didn’t leave to become famous. She left to become herself. ✊🎨🌈 Born into one of America’s most influential intellectual families, Christina Schlesinger chose a different path: California, feminist art, public murals, lesbian visibility and the Guerrilla Girls. “All I wanted to do was run away as far as I could.” In our conversation, @christina.schles reflects on the impact of Womanhouse, meeting Judy Baca in a lesbian bar, painting murals in Los Angeles, co-founding SPARC, creating the Tomboys and Dildo Paintings, and joining the @guerrillagirls under the name Romaine Brooks. 🦍⚡ Her story is not simply about becoming an artist. It is about claiming the freedom to construct a life before family, institutions and society decide what that life should be. “It was during those ten years that I built my life.” Can art still offer that kind of freedom today? 🔗 Read the full interview: https://www.antoninolavela.it/2026/07/christina-schlesinger-freedom-revolution-interview.html #ChristinaSchlesinger #GuerrillaGirls #FeministArt #WomenInArt #LesbianArt #QueerArt #Womanhouse #PublicArt #ArtActivism #ContemporaryArt #ArtInterview #FemaleArtists #LGBTQArt #ArtHistory #VisibilityMatters

Christina Schlesinger: “Freedom Was the Real Revolution”

[antoninolavelaart]

🔥 **At 97, Mariuccia Secol does not speak about feminism as a closed chapter. She speaks about it as a struggle that is still unfolding.** An artist, a mother of four, a key figure in Italian feminist art and a participant in the 1978 Venice Biennale, Secol looks back on a life shaped by war, the Resistance, art and the fight for women’s autonomy. 🎨 She painted while looking after her children. ✊ She took part in consciousness-raising groups. 🏥 She brought painting and poetry into a psychiatric hospital. 🌊 She reached the Venice Biennale with Gruppo Immagine. 🧵 She transformed fabrics, clothes and domestic materials into political tools. And on the art system, she is unequivocal: **“It is not ready to accept women in general. It is a male-dominated environment. There’s no getting around it.”** A powerful conversation with Mariuccia Secol about motherhood, artistic labour, Carla Lonzi, Milli Gandini, the Venice Biennale and why feminism still matters today. Interview by **@santanastro**. The exhibition *Unraveling* is presented by **@muzeumsusch**. In collaboration with **@collezionesecol**. 📖 Read the full interview in English: https://www.antoninolavela.it/2026/08/mariuccia-secol-feminist-art-interview.htm #MariucciaSecol #FeministArt #ItalianFeminism #WomenArtists #WomenInArt #ArtAndFeminism #FeminismInArt #VeniceBiennale #BiennaleDiVenezia #MuzeumSusch #GruppoImmagine #CarlaLonzi #MilliGandini #MotherhoodInArt #ArtHistory #ContemporaryArt #ItalianArt #FemaleArtists #FeministArtist

Mariuccia Secol’s Feminist Lesson: An Interview with a Pioneering Artist

[antoninolavelaart]

🎨 Van Gogh meets Julius Nyerere. 🎼 Mozart enters into dialogue with Swahili history. 🌿 And scent becomes an invisible archive of memory. At the Tanzania Pavilion of the 2026 Venice Biennale, @angelo_orazio_pregoni_ presents *Ujamaa Express*, a project that refuses the easy shock dominating so much contemporary art. Instead, it asks us to slow down. 👁️ Through textured paintings, sculptural perfumes and unexpected cultural collisions, Pregoni explores what happens when different histories meet without being flattened, exoticised or absorbed into one another. 💬 “We are enriched precisely by what makes it impossible to assimilate the other.” In this interview, Angelo O. Pregoni speaks about painting, cultural appropriation, artificial intelligence and what he calls the “automatic provocation” of contemporary art. ⚡ Can art still produce thought without first producing shock? 📖 Read the full interview here: https://www.antoninolavela.it/2026/07/angelo-o-pregoni-tanzania-pavilion-venice-biennale-2026.html #AngeloOPregoni #UjamaaExpress #TanzaniaPavilion #VeniceBiennale #VeniceBiennale2026 #BiennaleArte2026 #ContemporaryArt #ContemporaryPainting #ScentArt #OlfactoryArt #SwahiliCulture #CulturalMemory #ArtInterview #ArtCriticism #ArtificialIntelligence #ArtAndAI

Angelo O. Pregoni at the Tanzania Pavilion: Inside Ujamaa Express at Biennale Arte 2026

[antoninolavelaart]

A glacier can disappear twice: first from the landscape, then from memory. 🧶🏔️ Inside the Manica Lunga of @castellodirivoli, Cecilia Vicuña’s monumental quipu does not simply occupy the space. It surrounds you, changes as you walk, and almost touches your body. While crossing El glaciar ido with curator @marcellabeccaria, a small fragment of wool landed on my clothes. I kept it, not as a souvenir, but as the trace of an exhibition that refuses to remain at a safe distance. In my new article, I explore how @ceciliavicuna connects the disappearance of glaciers with colonial destruction, Indigenous knowledge, the desaparecidos, ecological responsibility and the fragile transmission of memory. This is not an exhibition to photograph and leave behind. It must be crossed, heard, smelled and physically experienced. Read the full article: https://www.antoninolavela.it/2026/07/cecilia-vicuna-castello-di-rivoli-vanished-glacier.html What remains after something has already disappeared? Save the post and share it with someone who still believes art should do more than produce images. @lehmannmaupin #CeciliaVicuna #ElGlaciarIdo #CastelloDiRivoli #MarcellaBeccaria #ContemporaryArt #EcoArt #EnvironmentalArt #IndigenousKnowledge #Quipu #ArtAndEcology #ArtCriticism #TurinArt

Cecilia Vicuña at Castello di Rivoli: Inside the Quipu of the Vanished Glacier

[antoninolavelaart]

🔥 What happens when being visible is no longer safe? For @cassilsartist, the body is not simply an image. It becomes an instrument, an archive, a site of danger and resistance. In this interview, Cassils speaks about fire, darkness, meditation, trans visibility, institutional power and the responsibility of looking. In *Becoming an Image*, the spectator sees only through the flash of a camera. The image disappears immediately, but remains burned into the retina. “You become the custodian of this archive.” Perhaps this is the real question Cassils’ work leaves us with: not what should be shown, but under what conditions looking becomes possible. 👁️ Read the full interview: https://www.antoninolavela.it/2026/07/cassils-ethics-visibility-interview.html 🇮🇹 Italian version published by Artribune. #Cassils #ContemporaryArt #PerformanceArt #QueerArt #TransArt #LGBTQArt #BodyArt #PoliticalArt #ArtInterview #ArtCriticism #VisualCulture #PoliticsOfVisibility #ArtAndActivism #ContemporaryArtist #AntoninoLaVela

Ethics of Visibility and the Responsibility of Looking. An Interview with Cassils Between Darkness, Fire, and Retinal Archives

[antoninolavelaart]

Kader Attia does not speak of repair as consolation. In his work, the wound is not erased. The scar remains visible because history cannot be healed by pretending it has closed. Repair, for Attia, is not restoration. It is not the return to an innocent surface. It is the refusal to let damage disappear into silence, aesthetics, or institutional language. That is why his work matters now: because contemporary art too often confuses visibility with justice. My new article on Kader Attia, repair, colonial wounds, museums and the politics of the scar is now online. Read it on the journal. @thekaderattia #KaderAttia #ContemporaryArt #PostcolonialArt #Repair #ColonialMemory #VeniceBiennale2026 #ArtCriticism #MuseumCritique #AntoninoLaVela #ContemporaryArtJournal

Kader Attia: Repair Is Not Consolation

[antoninolavelaart]

Artissima 2026 Is Not Basel. That May Be Its Strength

In Turin, Artissima 2026 does not try to compete with the spectacle of the biggest global fairs. It asks a more difficult question: can a fair still produce cultural consequence without pretending to be outside the market? Luigi Fassi’s fifth Artissima turns the art fair into an acrobatic body, but the real test is whether imagination can survive inside the machinery of the market Artissima 2026…

Artissima 2026 Is Not Basel. That May Be Its Strength

[antoninolavelaart]

Why Chiara Camoni’s Italy Pavilion Is the Most Dangerous Fragility at Venice Biennale 2026

At the Venice Biennale 2026, Chiara Camoni’s Con te con tutto does not simply bring clay, plants, ritual, memory and collective making into the Italy Pavilion. It does something more uncomfortable. It asks whether Italy can still appear in public without pretending to be stronger, older, cleaner or more unified than it really is. Biennale 2026, Italy Pavilion. Photo Irene Fanizza Italy has always…

Why Chiara Camoni’s Italy Pavilion Is the Most Dangerous Fragility at Venice Biennale 2026

[antoninolavelaart]

"Nature Is Culture.” Interview with Artist Timur Si-Qin, Who Brought the Amazon to Art Basel 2026

Timur Si-Qin at Art Basel: Nature Is the Ultimate Artist At Art Basel Unlimited 2026, Mariposita brings the Peruvian Amazon into the fair. A conversation on technology, beauty, Indigenous cosmologies and the need to think of nature not only as a subject, but as culture. Link to the Italian version on Artribune At Art Basel, Mariposita, by Timur Si-Qin (b. 1984, Berlin), enters a space built on…

"Nature Is Culture.” Interview with Artist Timur Si-Qin, Who Brought the Amazon to Art Basel 2026

[antoninolavelaart]

Behind the Pistoletto Interview: When Art Becomes a Way of Living

Why the Third Paradise still matters today, but not only as a symbol Before he entered the room Read the shorter Italian version on Artribune Read the English version The interview began before Michelangelo Pistoletto entered the room. I arrived nearly forty-five minutes early. I was not alone. Someone had come with me, and together we entered Cittadellarte with that slight tension that comes…

Behind the Pistoletto Interview: When Art Becomes a Way of Living