Exhibitions: New York | Worldmaking at the Whitney

A pleasant surprise from my yesterday visit at the Whitney Museum. As perhaps an answers (at least in my personal interpretations) to the "making worlds" of la Biennale, three exhibitions were a real proposition of worldmaking as an artist's re-creation of realities.

• Dan Graham: Beyond is the artist's first retrospective of work spanning from the mid-1960s to the present. Dan Graham's work includes conceptual art, video and film installation, performance, site-specific sculpture, as well as musical collaborations. His installations are involved with with visual perception: the ambiguos relationship between the perceiving subject and subject of perception re-creates reality and makes ever-changing worlds where the viewer becomes active participants to the world making creations

June 25-October 11, 2009

• Lucinda Childs: Dance presents the material that choreographer Lucinda Childs, composer Philip Glass, and artist Sol LeWitt generated for Dance, the perfomance commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1979. The perfomance represents a world created by the intersection of movement, sound and images in one of the most complete and harmonious interactions ever presented.

• Photoconceptualism, 1966-1973 has to be found in the museum mezzanine, and presents series of photographs from the Whitney’s collection. Photography and his conceptualization is presented in a combination of different two-dimensional media, in the works of artists of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The exhibition includes work by Mel Bochner, Adrian Piper, Bruce Nauman, Michael Heizer.
  

  May 22-September 20, 2009

  
  

Exhibitions: Rome | Bruno Ceccobelli "Atti Unici" all'Attico

ATTICI UNICI è una mostra realizzata con 'installazioni' create da Bruno Ceccobelli, all'interno di uno spazio dalla dimensione 'domestica', potremmo dire: una galleria d'arte che si sviluppa all'interno di un'attico nel centro storico di Roma, via di Paradiso,tra piazza Campo de' fiori e piazza Navona.

Il nome della via, l'ambiente espositivo, il buio illuminato solo da lampade che illuminano il percorso, già sono rivelatori della mostra in sè: dei sacchi sono appesi al soffitto e ci è consentito, attraverso un'apertura alla loro base, di inserire la nostra testa all'interno di essi e scoprire una dimensione metafisica della realtà : i 4 elementi + l'uomo. Odori, suoni, colori, luci e composizioni in vari materiali.

Un tuffo in un utero primordiale dove ancora le forze vitali si mescolano e sono sul punto di prendere forma in un afflato vitale magico.

Camminando | New York High Line Opening on June 8

The High Line park in Chelsea opened to the public on June 8. After several years of petitions, public debates, design competitions and major fundraising, the abandoned elevated railways tracks are successfully being transformed into a public park. The first section opened to the public runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to West 20th Street.
Already the community are greatly enjoying the pedestrian only elevated park, an oasis in the busy neighborhood down below.

My competition entry in 2003

And a few photos from my usual strolls...






The High Line is opened to the public every day from 7am to 10pm.

For more information visit the official High Line site.

Performances | NewYork: SHO at Onishi Gallery

Calligrapher Kimura Ryoyu performed a calligraphy demonstration on Thursday, June 18. The Japanese belly dancer Marea Mizuki and koto musician Chiaki Endo collaborated with Ryoyu during the performance.

Camminando | Rome and Water: a Celebration!

I am always impressed how in Italian cities every utilitarian function has been celebrated with an aesthetic gesture in public spaces.

Drinking water, one of the most basic and simplest human needs and actions can be happen at the corner of almost every block. From the simplest and utilitarian to the most decorated almost sculptural objects, water fountains have been greeting residents and visitors for thousand years, a ready accessible relief in the hot Mediterranean summers.

drinking water in the streets of Rome...

...and in Venice

Photographs and text are excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

Camminando | Rome: Green Walls

"Green walls", either spontaneously or by design, have been a presence in the streets of Rome for centuries...

Green walls in via Margutta...

...and "pink walls" in Trastevere

Photographs and text are excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"

Camminando | Acqua Alta a Venezia

Walking in Venice became extremely difficult in the evening of June 6.
"Acqua Alta" ---the flooding happening in Venice , due to tides and very unusual in late spring--- unexpectedly ended the Biennale preview, after a magical night of full moon.

Photographs and text are excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project
“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture”

La Biennale di Venezia 53rd International Art Exhibition Fare Mondi / / Making Worlds | Art and Architecture: Giardini

La Biennale has never been a “white box” container. Since the Biennale beginnings at Giardini, national pavilions architecture was designed as symbol of the country of the pavilion. Although many pavilions architectural style is outdated, their architectural presence becomes is a memory of the time when they were built. Often artists works become specific to the architecture of the pavilion.
At the 2009 Biennale the most interesting examples of art installations relating to the architectural pavilions are from Russia, French, Japan, and Germany.

Video Installations at the Russian Pavillion

Claude Lévêque at the French Pavilion

MiwaYanagi's Windswept Women at the Japanese Pavilion

Liam Gillick at the German Pavilion