#artblog

Beyond the Canvas

2 days ago
1 min

On World AIDS Day

“I want to be discussed in hushed tones. When people talk about me, I want them to be whispering.’ - Peter Hujar (b.1934 - d.1987) With his powerful black & white portraits of people and animals and raw cityscapes in which he captured the unglamorous areas of New York he used to roam, Peter Hujar remains one of the most influential American photographers. He is known for spearheading an avant-garde group of artists and performers active in the Manhattan subculture of the 197

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Simone Leigh's Sovereignty at the U.S. Pavilion, Venice Biennale

Beyond the Canvas

Nov 20
1 min

Simone Leigh's Sovereignty at the U.S. Pavilion, Venice Biennale

"I like the idea of thinking of femininity as something solid and enduring rather than always something fragile and weak." - Simone Leigh As the 59th of the Venice Biennale draws to a close, I'm looking at the photos I took (they are decent, for once) of Simone Leigh's large-scale sculptural work and I'm having some belated thoughts. Leigh's figurative sculptures in bronze and ceramic (the latter is her medium of choice) illustrate her relentless focus on the exploration and

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Beyond the Canvas

Nov 14
1 min

Robert Capa at Mudec, Milan

"I hope to stay unemployed as a war photographer till the end of my life." - Robert Capa (1913-1954) Alas, Capa's hopes were destined to be dashed, time and time again. In the course of his extraordinary career, he would cover no less than five conflicts. After fleeing his native Hungary moving to Berlin, he witnessed the horror and destruction of the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, WWII across Europe, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and, lastly, the First Indochin

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Overlooked and underrated: Bologna's Renaissance.

Beyond the Canvas

Oct 31
1 min

Overlooked and underrated: Bologna's Renaissance.

Eclipsed by Ferrara's and crushed between Venice's and Florence's, Bologna's Renaissance art fails to garner the attention and appreciation it deserves. With one of the largest and best-preserved city centres in Europe and its 62 km of porticoes (recognised by UNESCO in 2021), the city has more of a medieval identity. This, however, doesn't mean the Bolognese school did not produce some truly remarkable work. Take, for example, Francesco Francia. A painter at the court of Gio

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Masterpieces of Bologna's Pinacoteca Nazionale: Ludovico Carracci's San Pietro Toma Crocifisso, 1613

Beyond the Canvas

Sep 23
1 min

Masterpieces of Bologna's Pinacoteca Nazionale: Ludovico Carracci's San Pietro Toma Crocifisso, 1613

Compared to other Italian painters of the 17th century, I find that the Carracci (brothers Annibale and Agostino and their cousin Ludovico) are shamefully unknown outside of Italy. As a fellow Bolognese, I'm now in the process of getting reacquainted with the many gems of our wonderful pinacoteca and I feel compelled to address this great injustice. The son of a butcher, Ludovico Carracci (1555-1619) trained in Bologna under the Renaissance painter Prospero Fontana, and was l

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Albrecht Dürer and history's first selfie

Beyond the Canvas

Sep 7
2 min

Albrecht Dürer and history's first selfie

“I, Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg portrayed myself in appropriate colours aged twenty-eight years”. In painting himself like Christ the Saviour, Dürer is saying that he has created this painting on behalf of God. The direct gaze, the fur coat. This is a bold personal statement about his own God-given creative ability. An iconic self-portrait that needs no introduction, this arresting picture was painted by Dürer when he was only 28. Maybe he did paint himself like Jesus, but so

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Beyond the Canvas

Aug 14
2 min

The issue of (female) ageing

You know when you're having a conversation with a friend and the following day you read something that exactly echoes your thoughts articulating them better than you ever could? This morning I randomly found this interview on Libération, in which French writer and journalist Laure Adler states: Je suis vieille et je vous emmerde, meaning I am old and you can go to hell/I don't give a sh*t what you think (translations are seldom straightforward). Adler goes on to say exactly w

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A nameless painting and a story of new beginnings

Beyond the Canvas

Jul 24
2 min

A nameless painting and a story of new beginnings

Antonio Pedrazzi was a family man, a husband, a father of four. After studying at Bologna University to become an agronomist, he worked as an insurance executive. Life, as you know, has a way of taking you places you never planned to go. After his wife died, he decided to become an artist. Antonio was serious about it, he wanted to be formally trained and learn how to paint. So he turned up at the local Accademia and convinced the professors to allow him to attend their class

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Remembering David Wojnarowicz, artist and activist (1954–1992)

Beyond the Canvas

Jul 22
1 min

Remembering David Wojnarowicz, artist and activist (1954–1992)

"One of the strongest feelings I have about death is that it's a time when the energy we carry is dispersed and becomes a part of everything." - David Wojnarowicz It's been 30 years since David Wojnarowicz died of AIDS-related illness at the age of 37. I remember seeing his survey exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2018 and being struck by the poignancy and brutal honesty of his work, a genuine punch in the gut. Wojnarowicz was, for all intents and purposes,

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Beyond the Canvas

Jul 16
1 min

Donatello at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence

If there is an equivalent of Zoom fatigue for art shows, I 100% suffer from it. The ridiculous speed at which I move from one room to the other is incompatible with any coherent understanding of what's before my eyes. The best I can hope for is that adequate appreciation is happening on an unconscious level, but as far as retention and analysis go, they are sketchy at best. The one marvellous thing I did take away from the Donatello exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi , is a renewe

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Domenichino's Sibilla Cumana at Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna

Beyond the Canvas

Jul 15
2 min

Domenichino's Sibilla Cumana at Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna

Being inside an empty museum at night might well be the ultimate art lover's fantasy. Apart from not having to share the space with herds of other human beings, which tends to be a much broader issue as far as I'm concerned, there's a sense of heightened awareness that does result into a more intimate and meaningful relationship with the art. And whilst last night I couldn't fully realise my fantasy of blissful solitude, I am hugely grateful to Bologna's Pinacoteca for arrang

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Sarah Ball (et al.) at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London

Beyond the Canvas

Jul 9
1 min

Sarah Ball (et al.) at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London

There is a milky evanescence to this mesmerising portrait by British artist Sarah Ball, and the longer I stood in front of it, the more it was drawing me in. There is nothing conventional or normal about Emma. Look at the size of the head, the length and thickness of the white eyelashes, the texture of the hair, the clownish quality of her makeup, the uber plump lips. Her shimmery face is odd and beautiful, her eyes aloof and alluring. She looks fake but feels real, her gaze

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Beyond the Canvas

Jun 8
1 min

In memoriam: Paula Rego (1935 - 2022)

Paula Rego died today. The art world has lost one of the greats. I'm so glad I got to see her some of her work one more time at the Venice Biennale, where it inhabits an entire room in the Central Pavillion. Rego didn't paint to please the viewer, she painted to unsettle them. Her pictures tell uncomfortable, ambiguous, and sometimes downright disturbing stories that we struggle to make sense of. And the longer we stand in front of them, the more we are intrigued and confused

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Beyond the Canvas

Jun 5
2 min

Anselm Kiefer at Palazzo Ducale, Venice

Go early, go alone. This could be my motto for many things, but it becomes particularly fitting when I'm on my arty trips. And, for the sake of transparency, full disclaimer required: I am a lifelong Anselm Kiefer adept and, as such, chances are I will struggle to write anything remotely insightful or objective. In this case, going early meant that I could experience a good couple of minutes of blissful solitude in the Sala dello Scrutinio, a place of great symbolic importanc

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Where Once the Waters, David Cass - Venice Biennale

Beyond the Canvas

May 29
2 min

Where Once the Waters, David Cass - Venice Biennale

My experience at the Venice Biennale is that it is often the fortuitous detour, aka me getting lost like I inevitably do, that is going to take you to the most unexpected rewards. This is how I came across David Cass' installation near the Giardini (now sadly closed so apologies for the late post). David's work is about the rise of sea levels, an issue Venice knows all too well. The idea behind Where Once the Waters is to raise awareness about the variation in sea level in t

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Kehinde Wiley’s Archeology of Silence, Fondazione Cini

Beyond the Canvas

May 15
1 min

Kehinde Wiley’s Archeology of Silence, Fondazione Cini

“That is the archaeology I am unearthing: The spectre of police violence and state control over the bodies of young Black and Brown people all over the world.” - Kehinde Wiley As I was walking through the dimly lit halls of this show this morning, all I could think about was the news of the umpteenth shooting in the US, the one in Buffalo where a 19 year old killed 10 people. In a way, I felt like I was at the crime scene. And that was it. I realised I had no desire to rea

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Beyond the Canvas

May 7
2 min

Ukrainian artists: Nikolay Lukin

I had been following Nikolay Lukin on Instagram for some time, and this morning he followed me back. Дякую, Микола. His latest post is a week old, it shows us a wildflower meadow and trees in bloom in Odessa, which Nikolay captioned: Spring walks hand in hand with death. The work I have chosen is not recent, it's from 2016. The Ukrainian people have been living with Russian invaders since 2014, when Putin dispatched his army to the country's borders for 'military operations',

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Luca Maria Castelli "Bologna sola" - Galleria Forni, Bologna

Beyond the Canvas

Apr 9
2 min

Luca Maria Castelli "Bologna sola" - Galleria Forni, Bologna

The first lockdown was nothing short of surreal. And although we were all at home and terrified of not knowing what the heck was happening, I find that now many of us are unashamedly nostalgic about some of some of its unexpected benefits. Namely a world that was suddenly cleaner, quieter. A world where nature was liberated and allowed to have a renaissance. A world whose eerie stillness was possible because of the lack of human presence. This is story behind this fascinating

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Beyond the Canvas

Mar 23
1 min

Ukrainian artists: Maria Kulikovska

"Mariupol is always covered with smog. On the other side of the sea is occupied Crimea - my home. 20 km away in the east, the war continues daily, but people just rest on the beach tired of the conflict. This beach is full of mines and people with guns. It has been going on for 2 years and people don't even notice it anymore because they are tired. They are tolerant to death, weapons, violence, war. I also came to the beach. For screaming. I looked at the sea, which is the bo

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Beyond the Canvas

Mar 12
1 min

Ukrainian artists: Kinder Album

"There will be a painting that shows our victory, for sure." - Kinder Album (interviewed by Bird in Flight) The truth is we do not know that there will be, but I can but hope the artist is right. For now, I'm counting the little dot-like heads in her painting. I think I counted around 80, but after a few they seem to blend into one. It must be my declining eyesight. So I remind myself that each dot represents a person running from their home, one of the hardest things imagina

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