Cornell in Rome 2015

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Donatella Landi.

A video artist. 

Working with the body in relation to nature. Examining the human in respect to the animal. 

Certain works of hers resonated more deeply with me than others (which is to be expected). The piece pictured above Le Déjeuneur Sur l'Herbe/Zoo 1993-2009 was a particularly successful work that took into consideration the entire space in question. The videos, which framed both sides of the room, engaged with something; was it each other, or was it with the audience members? The slight ambiguity in the confrontation that was presented made the piece successful. 

Her works seemed, however, to be a bit scattered. She covered a range of ideas in her presentation that seemed to wander in various unexpected and at points disappointing directions. For instance, her hotel laundry piece in which she hired actors to read scripts and make the sounds of hotel guests. I say to that, why not use real hotel guests? 

Her pieces reference plainly her art historical background. She did a piece involving a contemporary take  Madonna and Child, and then again we have the aforementioned  Le Déjeuneur Sur l'Herbe reference. I sometimes wonder why we think it is necessary to reference so blatantly the works of our predecessors. It doesn’t verify our present state. It only says look at what I know, I only want to have a conversation with you if you know what I know too. 

On a different note. I found myself take notes and gather some of my own ideas for installation. I think it is a thing right now to do videos and make miniatures. We have seen that a couple of times now. 

-Anna

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At Art Basel Miami Beach, Measuring a Calder Against a Raven

MIAMI BEACH — Aviator Charles Lindbergh is quoted as saying “that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.”

Just excited.

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No Man's Land review – Miami's Art Basel week kicks off with all-female show

A counterblast against pervasive art world sexism, this show winds up as a great cross-section of cultural production today – and the men aren’t even missed

Just good things.

-Anna

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Leonardo DiCaprio Attends Art Basel in Miami, Parties with Lenny Kravitz and Jamie Foxx

From private gallery tours to partying until the wee hours, Leonardo DiCaprio took advantage of everything Miami's elite art and fashion festival had to offer

Mmm. Interesting.

-Anna

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Art Basel

You are welcome. 

-Anna

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Napoli.

I enjoyed the time we spent in Naples. The people themselves were particularly refreshing. They seemed inclined to smile, which, Romans seem less incline to do. This man saw me taking photos, smiled and gestured at himself. I felt so HONY in that moment. It also felt so good. To have someone content in the presence of a stranger, rather than angry or bothered. The people of Naples love their city. That was evident by the number of locals stopping to talk with us, and particularly by the woman who gave a good chunk of her afternoon to us, walking with us, and talking about her love of Naples. 

The art in Napoli, too, was a joyous reprieve from the art of Rome. MADRE was full to the brim with good art. Art that had something to say, something to comment on, something to experience. Spending time with artists, in the presence of their own and others works is an interesting experience. It makes one consider where they might be in years to come. 

Soon to come: An “All Katy Rose” blog post. 

You’re soon to be welcome Katy Rose. 

-Anna

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8 Natural Handstands

A series by Robert Kinmont from 1969-2009 (featured in an upcoming exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz)

I wish I would have known of his work when I first started film photography. I stumbled upon this series when I was looking through e-flux and I was immediately intrigued. After doing more research it turns out he is conceptually very similar to my favorite photographer Arno Rafael Minkinnen: 

Mouth of the River, Fosters Pond, 2014, made on Epiphany, not in the religious sense but more in the joy of revelation beyond our ken.  

Minkinnen works mainly with film photography- taking self-portraits juxtaposing his body to natural landscapes and finding connections between nature and man. I was fortunate enough to have an email exchange with him last year and this was how he explained his work in a nutshell: “Reality is the anchor for the most amazing truths about life, and the camera is still very able and willing to discover them for us.” 

He uses reality to create visual illusions between nature and the natural self. Which is something that I had in mind when I was taking a series of photographs for a film photography final: 

Side note: we also do handstands everywhere we go here... Serena tries... 

~Rachel

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While there were many exciting pieces shown during Donatella Landi’s lecture here at the palazzo, as a whole I found her body of work to be somewhat disjointed, with individual series being strongly cohesive yet disconnected with one another. Instead, I would like to focus on her Madonna and Child inspired works, which I found intriguing, albeit a bit abstruse from Landi’s description. Despite often finding works with such overt art historical overtones, such as this series, to be contrived and compensating for a lack of conceptual substance, I really appreciated this re-interpretation of such a traditional, omnipresent image in Italy. I am curious as to the thought behind details such as the women’s clothing and the offset drapery cloth behind them. The interplay between the women’s direct gazes and the babies’ occasional glances at the camera was fascinating, alongside the somehow simultaneous contentedness and restlessness of the infants and their constant squirming (and their holder’s rearranging). I feel that Landi’s choice of medium in this series was well suited to the work, as the scene itself is painterly in nature, reflecting the classical Renaissance mode of depicting the famous motif of Madonna and Child, yet brings a contemporaneity to the work by incorporating the moving element of video. I also found Landi’s miniature environments and corresponding videos to be reflective of perhaps a larger trend at the moment, as a long established artist we visited with Shara’s course, Paola Gandolfi, is now experimenting with a similar endeavor, in constructing small environments and using them to enact film scenes, an entirely new style of work apart from her well known paintings and equally interesting recent video works.

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Jorinde Voigt

“Her work seems to be both familiar and totally new, controlled yet wild and unhinged.” Rory MacLean

These are the words I was looking for when I was standing in front of her large-scale drawings in Berlin. From afar, her work is a free-flowing stream of colors and lines that run down the paper. But up close, the work has an impressive precision to it; the lines resemble a sort of mapping of a sedimentary rock. 

She doesn’t limit herself, these drawings are her words and her way of expressing her studies. Whether it be through music or philosophy, it is clear to see that these drawings are an extension of herself.

This piece is a collective of 32 drawings entitled Beethoven 1-32 (there is a really great talk on youtube that she did from the Laminate Festival about these specific pieces). It is her processing and mind-mapping of her emotions each time she plays each individual song. In a way, these are a documentation of a performance piece that we have to imagine for ourselves which I believe is what drew me most to her work. 

~Rachel

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Art Collectors.

We have been fortunate enough to experience two very different art collectors in the last three days. Maria Gloria and Anna Marra. Maria Gloria grew up with artists at her dinner table. At 22 she met Picasso as a result of her father. She was friends with Andy Warhol later in her life. Friends to the point of gifted art pieces which adorn the wall space between her kitchen and living room. Her collection grew as a result of her friendships. She forged bonds and relationships with artists, that lasted lifetimes. Her perception and relationship to the world of art is pure, and she vocalized her open distaste for artists who get caught up in commercial aspects of the art world. This was refreshing. Our semester seems to have been tainted somewhat by the fiscal aspects of the art world. 

Anna Marra came into art collecting through a different route. Her marriage introduced her to collecting. Her husbands father was an art collector in Milan, and post marriage the couple purchased their first art work together. From there her collection has expanded. Her home (a piece of architectural beauty in itself) is filled to the brim with artwork of a fine caliber. She too spoke about her collection being only about the art, unmotivated by the potential for resale value. She said a true collector doesn’t care about such things. 

My thoughts on this are as follows, it would be nice to live not having to care about ones financial future to the extent that one can lavishly adorn a home with art works. It’s a complicated balance. I love art, but can’t foresee myself living in the midst of it to the extent that the kind Anna Marra does without mixing myself into a different field in order to create the finances I would need to pay for the works. But I want to be amidst such beauty now, at this point in my life. Making it, experiencing it, living around and near to it. 

-Anna

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Italo Calvino: Invisible Cities (1974)

Cities and Memories: Isidora

I really enjoyed reading this short little paragraph because it read so poetically. The description of what one would encounter within the city seemed like paradise- especially since it is where “the perfect...violins are made”; I’ve been a violist in the orchestra since I was 8 years old, so string instruments of any kind always intrigue me. I also noticed that Isidora is the home to the classic “spiral staircases” that are also “encrusted with spiral seashells”, making it sound like a haven by the seaside. However, the tone immediately changes to that of nostalgia- this “dreamed-of city contained him as a young man; he arrives at Isidora in his old age”, too late to enjoy what would have pleased him if he was younger.

Cities and Signs: Zoe

After briefly describing the ways that cities differentiate themselves, Calvino launches into a short description which states that Zoe is an exception. One thing one can do in the city is “make tools”, which I was immensely interested in. I could imagine myself getting lost in the city’s metal shop crafting tools. However, there is apparently nothing that stands out in the city. “The traveler roams all around and has nothing but doubts: he is unable to distinguish the features of the city, the features he keeps distinct in his mind also mingle. If existence in all its moments is all of itself, Zoe is the place of indivisible existence.” Every detail of the city seems unremarkably meshed together- nothing is unique. Yet, I find that characteristic remarkable in itself. It pushes us to find the extraordinary in the ordinary- to find that one quirk within the city that makes it special to oneself.

“But why, then, does the city exist?”

Serena

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Invisible Cities

“Thin Cities” and “Cities and Signs”

I was surprised by how similar a concept portions of “Thin Cities” seemed to share with Calvino’s other work “The Castle of Crossed Destinies” in which travelers who cannot speak use tarot cards to tell stories to each other. Calvino also describes how the emblems Marco Polo uses to describe the places he’s seen are inefficient while also attributing greater meaning to the places. The symbols he uses become inextricably linked to them even after he is able to more adequately describe them with words. The meaning behind “Cities and Signs” was a bit more elusive, but I think the connection between the two sections is made in the final line:

“Falsehood is never in words; it is in things.”

One thing that interests me is how that falsehood lends greater significance to what the false things describe; how does the mind expand upon the unknown to ultimately build something beyond what exists in reality?

~Jim

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Invisible cities

I decided to discuss a quote which I found relatively relevant and powerful:

“Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places”

I find this to be incredibly compelling especially because of the relation it has to us living and working in an environment that we are completely not used to. Only by being so far away from home, so separated from the distant, do we finally begin to understand who we are, who we used to be, and who we want to be. Being surrounded by ancient art and architecture to some people is incredibly appealing, to others it is not.

When we are so far away from home, we cannot go back to our parents and ask for help. We can try to call, if the wifi cooperates. We see different cultural ideas, methods of approaching tasks that we thought we knew how to do, different perspectives on things we thought already learned. This is a marvelous journey that we are on, one that presents a different form of existence and of being, one in which truly does change our lives.

I just found that particular quote to be of great relevance to all of us who are uncertain of what to do in a new city.

-veronica

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Gianfranco Lecture

The 92 year old artist, who was a former student of Marcel Duchamp, has experienced a large amount of success, having his work showcased at the MAXXI and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Although he is so successful, Baruchello has remained incredibly humble and generous.

He told us to have the courage to learn new languages, read new books, travel the world, and most importantly, create work that you believe in. He spoke about the notion of the real and the unreal, stating that we are in a real world. Therefore, to create art, and to think of something that is unreal, is to take a risk. By deviating from the norm, you are exposing yourself and ultimately facing an uphill battle which is dictated by the “landscape of money”. In the sphere of Contemporary art, galleries, museums, and curators are typically more focused on profit rather than the work itself. Therefore, it is necessary to defend yourself, whether it be with words or images, as a means of making it in the art world. According to Baruchello, art can either drive you mad, or set you free. It is up to you to decide what happens, something which I think is fantastic advice. He is honest, sincere, and experienced. His words are words of wisdom that I think we should all listen to.

After sharing his inspirational advice, Baruchello discussed his work and his focus on the idea of the garden and the various nuances associated with it: the garden as a representation of the past, the idea of a literary composition, and the subject of a painterly drawing. One can draw a garden and create a representation of it, or similarly one can write about it using a detailed description. Yet the garden itself presents a dichotomy which concerns two aspects- positivity and negativity. On one hand, the garden is rather ferocious and not aesthetic in terms of insects destroying flowers and other plants. On the other hand, the garden, if completely preserved, is extremely beautiful. I am not particularly fascinated by gardens, but I find it interesting that he takes something that is typically viewed as normal and contorts it into this systematic issue. He’s rather old, has seen a lot, and isn’t afraid of anything. That deserves a lot of respect.

-Veronica

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Georges Perec: Life a User’s Manual (1978)

While reading the first 8 chapters of this book, what stuck with me most was the Preamble. I felt a personal connection to the writing because of the topic- puzzles. Having spent a whole semester on woodworking and puzzle-making, I was immediately drawn into the plot with the first sentence due its reference to “jigsaw puzzles.” 

One passage rang true to me: “...you can look at a piece of a puzzle for three whole days, you can believe that you know all there is to know about its colouring and shape, and be no further on than when you started. The only thing that counts is the ability to link this piece to other pieces, and in that sense the art of the jigsaw puzzle as something in common with the art of go. The pieces are readable, take on a sense, only when assembled; in isolation, a puzzle piece means nothing- just an impossible question, an opaque challenge (pg.XV).”

When I was building my very first puzzle box in February (the cylindrical one), I was struggling a lot. I had to create and recreate each puzzle piece perfectly to ensure that they would fit precisely together. Yet, when all the pieces were complete, I then struggled to place them together into a whole puzzle. I had my altered diagram sitting in front of me while I stared at those pieces for hours. Suddenly, one of my architecture friends wandered over and was confused as to why I was at a standstill. He explained, “you’re just looking at it from the wrong angle.” As he moved pieces around and pointed towards the diagram, I realized that I had been attempting to fit pieces together while looking at it from a different way (upside-down and flipped over, no less). The above quote reminded me of this particular situation; I had been looking at my pieces of the puzzle for more than three days, believing that I knew all there was about each piece, and yet was no further into completing my project than I was before that. I learned to approach things with an open mind- after this incident and working at the woodshop for over a year, I have grown accustomed to approaching my art-making with both an architectural and artistic viewpoint. This thought process helps me in my theme of precision and also keeps my art interesting.

Serena

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Gianfranco Baruchello

When we were first introduced to him, I didn’t really understand who Gianfranco was and what he had done. It was so cool to find out that he was close friends with Duchamp, and that he’d lived through such important moments in art history. But I also liked the fact that he hadn’t started really focusing on art until he was older. It shows that you don’t need to know exactly what you’re going to do for the rest of your life from when you are young. He changed his trajectory when he was a little older, and that is inspiring to me. Seeing his pieces and hearing him talk, I felt like he truly did this because he enjoyed it, and that he loved to create and have fun with it. To be honest I couldn’t understand/hear some of what he said, but I got the impression that he only really does what he wants to do, and doesn’t seem too bothered with what people want or expect from him. And that’s why his art has been successful. I hope someday I can get on his level. 

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if u ever see a girl awkwardly trailing after a stray cat trying to get its attention that’s probably me