#beyondthecanvasblog

Beyond the Canvas

Feb 19
1 min

One year of war in Ukraine

It's coming up to the 1st anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2021. The media have reported that Russia is planning to send tens of thousands of young troops to Eastern Ukraine as they launch yet another major offensive. The idea that Ukraine should trade land for peace is both ignorant and offensive. Any territorial compromises would weaken the invaded and embolden the invaders. There is no possible peace scenario in which Ukrainians can share thei

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Alice Neel: Un regard engagé at Centre Pompidou, Paris

Beyond the Canvas

Feb 11
1 min

Alice Neel: Un regard engagé at Centre Pompidou, Paris

"I do not pose my sitters. Before painting, when I talk to the person, they unconsciously assume their most characteristic pose, which in a way involves all their character and social standing – what the world has done to them and their retaliation." - Alice Neel (1900-1984) Neel's view that the subjects of her portraits were retaliating against the world's nastiness is extraordinary. Then again, there is very little about her that wasn't. A lifelong communist since the McCar

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Soheila Sokhanvari: Rebel Rebel at The Curve, London

Beyond the Canvas

Feb 9
2 min

Soheila Sokhanvari: Rebel Rebel at The Curve, London

There are exhibitions that touch you somewhere deep inside. Far from merely delighting you visually, they grab you by the hand and they take you somewhere, they teach you something, they plant a new, curious seed inside of you. And they make you want to learn more so you can really understand and appreciate, rather than just look and admire. These are the shows that stay with you for a long time after you've seen them, and you keep revisiting them in your head, time and time

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Making Modernism at the Royal Academy, London

Beyond the Canvas

Jan 29
1 min

Making Modernism at the Royal Academy, London

"It is my duty to voice the suffering of men, the never-ending sufferings heaped mountain-high." — Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945) The bundling up of female artists in an art show will forever remain one of my most gigantic and infuriating pet peeves. Besides, it is my firm belief that this show could and should have been an exclusive and much overdue celebration of Käthe Kollwitz's art. In my questionably modest view, her work is vastly superior to the rest in terms of intensity

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Beyond the Canvas

Jan 27
1 min

Holocaust Memorial Day

"Memory is the only vaccine against indifference." - Liliana Segre. This post is dedicated to Liliana Segre, a Holocaust survivor, a life senator of the Italian republic and the former President of its Senate. Segre, who had lost her mother when she was only one year old, was deported to Auschwitz at the age of 13. Once there, she was separated from her father Alberto, whom she would never see again, and who would be killed a few months later. Her paternal grandparents were a

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Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at Tate Britain, London

Beyond the Canvas

Jan 21
1 min

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at Tate Britain, London

In my mind, a portrait is the depiction of an actual person, someone who has lived. Their portrait was made so their story could be told and so we would know about them, learn about their life. But what happens if the painting, like in the case of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's work, is of a fictional person, someone who only exists in the artist's imagination? Well, I guess perhaps that's the representation of humanity at large. It is none of us and all of us. What I realised whil

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Venini: Luce 1921-1985 at Le Stanze del Vetro, Venice

Beyond the Canvas

Jan 7
1 min

Venini: Luce 1921-1985 at Le Stanze del Vetro, Venice

Writing a review of a show the day before it closes is probably nonsensical, not too mention a tad unfair. I must, however, pay tribute to Le Stanze del Vetro and their consistently superb programming. Nestled in a corner of the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, away from the hustle and bustle of San Marco (yes, even in January), this cultural foundation showcases the art of glass making in its many, wonderful forms of expression. The exhibition Venini: Luce 1921-1985 celebrates

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On being shushed (twice) inside the museum: Expectations and experience.

Beyond the Canvas

Jan 2
2 min

On being shushed (twice) inside the museum: Expectations and experience.

Museums are complex structures that serve multiple purposes. Mental stimulation, knowledge acquisition, cultural enrichment, visual enjoyment and, for many, stress and anxiety relief. Museums and art galleries are havens of calmness, but also, importantly, places of delight. I like to think of them as essential environments of wellbeing. The museum experience is historically associated with a respectful, reverential silence. From the moment we cross that threshold, we are tol

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The Sara Baartman effect: objectification of the black female body and misogyny today.

Beyond the Canvas

Dec 20, 2022
2 min

The Sara Baartman effect: objectification of the black female body and misogyny today.

Sara Baartman was born in 1789 near the Gamtoos River in South Africa, home to the Khoikhoi tribe. After emigrating to Cape Town, she became a slave on a farm until, in 1810, she was sold to a British doctor called William Dunlop. The man convinced her to travel to England with him with the promise of a domestic job, and the alleged agreement that Sara would also exhibit her extraordinarily voluptuous body for entertainment purposes. In reality, Sara ended up being showcased

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Stacey Gillian Abe: Shrub-let of Old Ayivu - Unit, London

Beyond the Canvas

Dec 10, 2022
1 min

Stacey Gillian Abe: Shrub-let of Old Ayivu - Unit, London

"Indigo, in my work, is an intersection between the body and identity as a continuous exploration. Indigo played a significant role in positioning the black body in the past and in facilitating its exchange. I'm interested in how much of that history has dragged on to today." - Stacey Gillian Abe In African culture, indigo is seen as a symbol of protection. It's the colour that connects humans and the divine, and is often used to swaddle newborns. However, indigo, aka 'blue

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Beyond the Canvas

Dec 1, 2022
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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Football, human rights, fossil fuels and geopolitics.

Beyond the Canvas

Nov 25, 2022
1 min

Football, human rights, fossil fuels and geopolitics.

The 22nd FIFA World Cup has kicked off. Italy did not qualify for the event, which I'm now almost pleased about as it's all turning into an awful mess for a number of rather obvious reasons. Corruption. Despite the absence of a definitive smoking gun, there is strong evidence that the bidding process was rigged (not for the first time) and that, much to no one's surprise, hefty bribes were paid. Workers' exploitation. The astronomical $220 billion infrastructure budget was ke

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

Beyond the Canvas

Nov 20, 2022
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, 2022
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, 2022
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, 2022
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, 2022
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, 2022
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, 2022
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, 2022
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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