Art allows me to give this brain and heart a voice
Annamaria Pennazzi, collage and film artist once told me she used to dream in frames… When you’re constantly looking at film every day, your language develops as a film language so…Yeah I guess it creeps into the sub-conscious.
This is how Annamaria kicks off her interview with Smoor, she’s sitting at her desk in her new studio, which has sketches beneath her elbows and her work leaning up against its lemon yellow walls… Collage is putting the pieces together, just like in editing, it’s also the perfect off screen activity. Sometimes it’s great to come home after spending 12hrs of the day looking at 5 screens.
From the looks of things her art work isn’t so dreamy when it comes to her collages, as she usually begins with an organ in mind: It might be the brain or the heart lets say, and I try to dig inside to find the feeling from that specific body organ. This kind of exploration of anatomical emotion fascinates me, she explains that she wants to get what’s inside out, but what does that mean…
You really wanna know, it’s scary sometimes; we both laugh at what might be swirling around in her head. But before long, my attention is brought back to the collection of sketches dotted around, pink and yellow fluorescent postits clamber the wall all with scribbles on them, magazine cut outs pricked with drawing pins…and as I eye some of her work on display I see a gradient of colour drawing my eye down and across the collages. Does colour matter to her…. It’s very important to me that the colours match, and the feeling that that colour brings to the work. Yes. Annamaria certainly has a way of capturing the mood; her careful consideration where things are placed on a blank page seem purposeful -even if by explorative means. Seeing a tower of magazines stacked on the floor, I wonder what or who inspires her…
Leonora Carrington is a big inspiration, I read various books…sometimes I have an image in mind but no collage pieces, I use scientific resources from the internet, erm pornographic magazines, like Penthouse because the advertising is so interesting and I usually pick up magazines when I travel.
Is there a correlation between the film work and the art, or are they separate mediums for you… Oh definitely…. the short film I’m working on at the moment is called ‘The anatomy of anxiety’ and it’s about panic attacks, the protagonist of the film is made up of the organs of the human body.
Annamaria goes on to speak about how she’s suffered from her own panic attacks, anxiety and depression. I decided I wanted to make a comedy about it, I was also interested in looking at how each organ reacts when you have a panic attack, but in a comedic way.
With silence, fear and stigma that can surround mental health it’s a great way to break down some of those barriers, the more we talk, the more we learn, and like many pieces of art that has made an impact with others, can provoke tough conversations that aren’t being had; like abstract expressionist artist Rothko’s black and grey series, who famously suffered from depression. The Guerrilla girls who asked in 1989 ‘If all women had to be naked to get into the Met’ a feminist art collab exposing gender bias’s, the infamous Frida Kahlo, drew herself not only in her beauty but also in her pain…The list is endless. You can find beauty in something unconventional and a bit dark, which is what I like.
I can tell this film holds a lot of significance for Annamaria, I’m intrigued to see it once it hits our screens.
Next, I just have to ask about the deck of Tarot cards on her desk, it has been the elephant in the room for this entire interview … Oh yeah, I use the cards sometimes when I’m stuck. She gives me an example with some cut out pieces of brain, and clouds etc, with each decision she makes she asks the cards, it reminds me of a technique Merce Cunningham, a contemporary dance choreographer, sometimes used called chance choreography -I-ching- to decide on anything from the steps, speed, direction etc.
I’ve never heard of Tarot being used in this way for art but it must be liberating to give the power to the cards, when there’s a boulder in the way clouding your brain.
But what if the cards are wrong, is she afraid of making mistakes? I’m very wonky and clumsy and I love that this shows in my art work, she says of a bigger collage I’ve picked up in its frame. I don’t like perfection because nothing is perfect, that’s what I like to portray in my films too, I don’t mind mistakes…I know they bother some people.
Can you tell me more about the piece I’m holding?
I find it hard to talk about my stuff… but in this piece at the time, there was a lot going on in my love life, because my brain is close to where my vagina is – meaning I believe all of our organs are connected in some way and the vagina can interpret reality the same way a brain does (laughs). But I think there’s happiness and love in this piece and I think I was trying to make sense of what was going on at the time.
With all the things we’ve touched upon I’m excited to see what her exhibition ‘A taste and the aftertaste: Immersive journey into Annamaria Pennazzi’s art’ has in store. However, what I do know is that she’s not keen on the barriers a conventional exhibition provides. I’d love to make art and film that people can interact with, I want people to touch it to feel it I want people to create a discussion around it…I want people to get involved and feel like they can make it their own, it’s not just mine, it’s for the world to enjoy.
If you’d like to see more of Annamaria’s work, her exhibitionwill be on At Odyssey- Hoxton, 6-9:30pm, 28th November 2024.
Maybe I’ll see you there, or not, let me see what the cards have to say first.
The Decline of Conscience by Nick JS Thompson
We are proud to announce the launch of our first exhibition: ‘The Decline of Conscience’, a photo series confronting us with gentrification in London in the most antagonizing way.
If there is one word to describe ROOMS, it is as a creative platform; whether that takes form as an online art website, or a print magazine. We are not limited to the confines of media, because we believe art should have no limits at all. With that in mind, we are proud to announce the start of our exhibition programme, introducing the first exhibition on the list: ‘The Decline of Conscience' by Nick JS Thompson.
Co-curated with visual artist Benjamin Murphy, ‘The Decline of Conscience’ shines a light on the amazing work of Nick JS Thompson. The documentary photographer, with an interest in communities and the effect they have on their surroundings, has spent the last 3 years in the dark spaces of Heygate Estate in Elephant and Castle, South London. Confronted with vandalism, dilapidation and even cruel events such as animal sacrifices, this empty building is the perfect example of one of the biggest problems London is dealing with today. Having been empty for 7 years and now finally regenerated, only a wretched 3 per cent of the building can be used for social housing. This photo series makes gentrification real in the most antagonizing way, playing with the idea that morality might not be a necessity anymore in our society.
The exhibition will be running from the 19th till the 25th of November, in the Hundred Years Gallery.
URBAN KINGS: A solo exhibition with Gonny Van Hulst
To artistically imbue socio-political themes on an unforgiving medium such as glass is no easy task. But London-based artist Gonny Van Hulst (also known as GonnyGlass) manages just that.
To artistically imbue socio-political themes on an unforgiving medium such as glass is no easy task. But London-based artist Gonny Van Hulst (also known as GonnyGlass) manages just that.
URBAN KINGS elevates the pest to the princely. The vermin to the valiant. The animals native to our concrete, urban environment are paid a royal homage in this exhibition. The Foxes, Rats, Pigeons, Squirrels and Crows – all endemic to the city life – have had to adapt to their industrial surroundings and survive nonetheless. By depicting these crowned creatures in such a light, URBAN KINGS reminds us of our harmonious relationship with nature despite such an adversarial environment, and that we must celebrate all living things, no matter how big or small. These citified animals are enthroned on antique English glass, hot and cold cured photo-fusing prints, paint, lacquer, and hand-forged ironwork all framed in restored late 1800s Victorian timber.
URBAN KINGS by Gonny Van Hulst - 16th to 31st May 2015
PRIVATE VIEW: Friday 15th May 6:30-9pm
9 Turnpin Lane, Greenwich, London SE10 9JA
Opening Times: Thursdays –Sundays 11-6pm | Monday –Wednesday by appointment.
Marlene Dumas Retrospective – The Image as Burden
“Art is not a Mirror. Art is a translation of that which you do not know.”
Born in Cape Town 1953, Marlene Dumas has had a long and distinguished career. After studying psychology, Dumas focused her energies upon painting, often referencing the darker side of the human psyche. Sex, Death and Love, are often explored in depth, as well as Homosexuality, Shame, Celebrity, Religion, Gender and Race.
This retrospective shows a diverse plethora of work spanning her entire career. In the first room we are greeted by her ‘Rejects’, almost monochrome and darkly melancholy paintings of larger-than-life faces that fill an entire wall and intimidate all that enter. To begin a retrospective with paintings that you essentially been rejected from other projects is a bold move curatorially, and one that in this instance has definitely paid off. Dumas is not one for convention, and in this the show doesn’t disappoint.
These gritty portraits set the theme for the whole show, and some even appear as if they have been painted with real dirt. It is difficult to avoid the icy chill that these works issue down your spine. On a few of these paintings the eyes have been cut or burnt out, to reveal other painted images beneath, peering through. This twinned with the vast foreheads and blank stares, makes these paintings appear as if they are deathmasks of the recently deceased. A chilling indication of things to come, and an apt way to begin the show.
In room two the large blueprint collage ‘Love verses Death’ poses much subtler and unusual questions. It is less bold and striking than the first room, and for this reason could be overlooked. Simple line drawings of people, with the recurring image of the Caritas Romana (a man being breastfed by his daughter to save him from starvation), show not only her true skills of draftsmanship, but also her knowledge of, and interest in, the darker and more esoteric sides of art history.
Dumas’s paintings are dark and dangerous, the skin on many is painted so thinly and transparently that it appears as real skin. Not the perfectly smooth and radiant skin of the classical portrait painters, but pale and unctuous and unglamorised. Like that of a corpse.
Many of the paintings are larger than life sized and hung higher than eye-level, two devices that are utilized to emphasize the haunting and forceful nature of the works. Dumas paints things that are often swept under the carpet, but here she brings them out into the open and forces us to look.
Her colour palate is unusual, choosing blues and greens for areas that are usually pink and red. This serves to heighten the feeling of unease felt upon viewing the works, as one is forced to wonder what purpose this strange juxtaposition serves. A panorama of navy blue and purple spans the forehead of one African male, suggesting immense wisdom.
Corpses also feature heavily in the show, sometimes life-size and prostrate. One of these is titled ‘Dead Girl’, and is painted from a photograph that Dumas found and then kept for twenty years before painting it. This kind of connection to a subject is how she has been able to paint such a haunting and yet beautiful portrait, long after the girl has gone.
Displacement is often hinted at throughout her oeuvre, which echoes her own displacement from South Africa to The Netherlands in 1976, where she still lives and works today. Censored paintings of a nude woman being led away by two soldiers still retain the black modesty boxes added by the publisher of the source photograph. These boxes do nothing more than heighten our awareness of her nakedness, and show how out of place and vulnerable she is in-between these two men, who hold her arms apart to expose and display her frailty. Dumas did two different paintings of this same photograph, both of which are in the show.
Another key element in this show is the text, cleverly written titles such as ‘Evil Is Banal’ and ‘The White Disease’, add another dimension to the already poignant paintings about evil and race. The painting ‘Magdalena’ in room seven, for example, has exaggerated birthing hips that represent fertility and traditional ideals of beauty, but small and awkward breasts that hand limply on her chest. This is hung with the contradictory subtitle ‘Out of Eggs, Out Of Business’, suggests and then subverts what the painting itself depicts.
As well as these clever titles there are many quotes and poems by Dumas herself. Her quote; “Painting as a form of exorcism or therapy”, suggests what she sees as the values of art.
Dumas has compared her paintings to ‘action paintings’, which are focused more on their gesture and method than on their subject matter. Dumas would often disregard the brush and paint with her hands or other parts of her body, if the painting necessitated it. The paintings are not there to depict exactly something as she has seen it (often she will do two completely different paintings from the same source photograph), but as a way of creating something new. “Art is not a Mirror. Art is a translation of that which you do not know.”
Her work is unapologetic in its starkness and brashness, and the viewer is merely a voyeur to many of these paintings. In describing a nude painting of her daughter Dumas remarked, “She is not there to please you. She pleases herself.” The painting exists as an autonomous entity, unconcerned with our opinions on its meaning or our pondering on the ethics of the subject matter. This quote is also important as it sets a clear boundary between this type of non-sexualised nudity depicted in her paintings of children, and the other forms of erotic nudity in her watercolours.
Never one to fall in line, this show breaks many rules. Paintings of Princess Diana are hung in the same gallery as Osama Bin Laden. Innocent portraits of children are given haunting titles, and nothing is deemed too controversial.
Marlene Dumas is a painter that shows the world as it really is, rather than how we wished it were. Her paintings are honest and brutal, showing us things that we would often turn away from. She rejects how media often glamorizes the vacuous and ignores the important, and she forces us to do the same.
Marlene Dumas once said that “Painting is about the trace of the human touch”, and in this show she has shown that this includes not only the pristine and the perfect, but also the dark and macabre elements of human life. This show proves that there is a true and unique beauty that exists in the obscene, and it shows us that we cannot experience one fully without also understanding the other.
Abstract Creations: Robert Sosner at John Marchant Gallery
Brighton’s John Marchant Gallery presents Robert Sosner’s new works; entitled SOS, the exhibition is characterised by bold use of colour and bright abstract shapes in the artist’s usual style.
Brighton’s John Marchant Gallery presents Robert Sosner’s new works; entitled SOS, the exhibition is characterised by bold use of colour and bright abstract shapes in the artist’s usual style.
Working with canvas and paper, Sosner paints thoughtful and eye catching compositions, playfully leading the viewer’s eye across his works. His creations are enriched by varying textures sometimes visible beneath the paint, with some works also hinting at the artistic process through the inclusion of alternative colours in the final piece.
Sosner invites viewers to engage and experience his paintings subjectively, aiming to add a little magic to everyday life:
“Overt narrative is avoided and I invite the viewer to find their own way in to each painting to experience something powerful, intangible and at the same time meditative, when looking at the work.”
Born in London, Sosner studied at the Chelsea School of Fine Art attaining a BA Hons in Fine Art – he has since exhibited widely in London, while also working on commission in a variety of private and commercial projects.
Sosner has been the recipient of Pollock Krasner Foundation and Spanish Government scholarships. He currently lives and works in Brighton.
SOS
New paintings by Robert Sosner | John Marchant Gallery | 28th March - 12th April
52 Words a Year
On Tuesday 7th April the Nancy Victor Gallery in Fitzrovia will display the culmination of a year’s intense work from three London based artists.
On Tuesday 7th April the Nancy Victor Gallery in Fitzrovia will display the culmination of a year’s intense work from three London based artists.
52 Words a Year is an online project that had Mayumi Mori, Leni Kauffman and Oliver O’Keeffe each draw an illustration a week, every week for a year.
The three sets of works that will fill the Nancy Victor were inspired by 52 words, chosen by the artists and taken off in different directions and styles.
These include a New Year’s Restart, prompting a germinating bulb in watercolour from Oliver, Evolution and a clean, tree-filled landscape from Leni and style; a sumptuous patchwork of colours from Mayumi.
The progression of artistic flair and competence that can be tracked across the course of the year is similar to several other projects. Californian artists Alberto Calleros spent 2008 creating daily work for his Blogspot, Drawing Every Day for a Year, exhibiting an immense creative capacity and commitment.
The real uniqueness of 52 Words a Year therefore lies in the tweaking of a tried and tested idea. To view an artist’s year of toil is engaging, but to walk along the diverse branches of inspiration spread by 3 individuals, all emerging from the same point, is to receive a real glimpse into the artistic process.
52 Words a Year runs from Tuesday 7 to Saturday 18 April 2015, Tuesday to Friday 10am–6pm, Saturday 12–6pm.
Nancyvictor or for a taster of the exhibition, Wordsayear
Heated Words: Initial Research of a forgotten typeface
Heated Words presents, Initial Research private view, an exhibition documenting the journey of a forgotten typeface across the subcultural movement.
Heated Words presents, Initial Research private view, an exhibition documenting the journey of a forgotten typeface across the subcultural movement.
The exhibition, which will display photography and ephemera, is solely focused on a specific, unidentified typeface that exclusively existed as iron-on flock lettering.
The typeface has made predominant appearances within the documentation of subcultures between the early 70s to late 80s, appearing on items of D.I.Y clothing and used by: Little League teams, Street gangs, B-Boys, Punks, Pop artists, Pop stars, Disco dancers and the entire squadrons of the Double Dutch skipping troupes.
Heated Words aims to illustrate an ongoing investigation to uncover the true identity of a folk-lore typeface that never made it to the post analogue era. The discovery of this typeface involves some of pop cultures most influential individuals, locations, brands and central moments in history.
The Clash, Biz Markie, Ramellzee, Big Audio Dynamite, Rock City Crew, Furious Rockers and the Ebonettes all have a connection with this typeface, and make an appearance within Heated Words.
Located at multi use creative space, House of Vans, in the heart of one of the world’s most creative cities, London. The 3,000sqm space is devoted to encouraging evolving talent, across cinematic, artistic and musical areas. The creative space is free, and open to all who wish to attend.
Heated Words: Initial Research | March 27th to April 10th, House of Vans, London.
Private view - Thursday 26th April 2015 | 7 – 11pm
Kent Baker and Futurecity present Inferno: Alexander McQueen
Striking Images taken from Kent Baker’s new book, Inferno: Alexander McQueen, will be shown for the first time at the Gallery at Foyles till 3 May 2015.
Striking Images taken from Kent Baker’s new book, Inferno: Alexander McQueen, will be shown for the first time at the Gallery at Foyles from 20 March till 3 May 2015.
As another tribute to the McQueen season, the up and coming Futurecity show will display a selection of previously unseen, backstage photographs, taken by Kent Baker during the seminal show, Dante, in 1996.
Alexander McQueen, who applied to Central St. Martin’s School of Art and Design in 1994, was persuaded by Bobby Hilson – the Head of the Masters course to apply. The exhibition will inhabit the Foyles Bookstore building, which Central Saint Martins once notably occupied.
McQueen showcased his early collection, Dante, in 1996 at Nicholas Hawksmoor’s architectural masterpiece Christchurch in Spitalfields. In true McQueen style, the audiences were treated to a theatrical spectacle. Photographer, Kent Baker, who was lucky enough to be in McQueen’s intimate circle of friends, was able to capture this iconic moment in contemporary fashion.
His backstage photography not only captures the excitement and dramatics of the evening, but the distinct moment in which this creative force was born. Displaying just how much McQueen’s vision was destined to challenge and fundamentally alter notions of beauty, bookmarking an unforgettable moment in British fashion history.
Olly Walker curator of the ‘Inferno’ exhibition
Leon Golub Retrospective – Bite your Tongue review
The oppressively large, looming portrayals of war and suffering that adorn the walls of The Serpentine gallery create a cinematic panorama of disaster, which both entices and repels the viewer
The oppressively large, looming portrayals of war and suffering that adorn the walls of The Serpentine gallery create a cinematic panorama of disaster, which both entices and repels the viewer.
Born in Chicago in 1922, Leon Golub had an early interest in the visual arts, stating once that seeing Picasso’s famous anti-war painting Guernica at age eleven, was the most profound art experience of his life.
Golub first studied art history, before joining the U.S. Army as a cartographer, and it was during this time that he developed his hatred of war. After he left the army he returned to art school to complete a Masters Degree in Fine Art, during which he met fellow artist and his future wife Nancy Spero.
Golub’s larger-than-life characters commit atrocities that we are unable to look away from, as the floor-to-ceiling paintings fill the entirety of the space and tower over all that enter. The characters stand on almost-blank backgrounds, asserting that they are the only things we should be focusing on, and giving our eyes no avenue of escape.
In one particular painting, an unidentifiable assailant is putting someone in the boot of his car, as he looks straight out of the painting at the viewer. This sinister eye contact and the way the perspective makes the victim below eye-level, forces us to be accessories to the crime.
Golub describes his work as crude and vulgar, something that is necessary to accurately depict the horrific things his work is commenting on. The works honest depiction of violence is a salient factor in Golub’s long-standing anti-war discourse, and something that he never shied away from.
In this retrospective spanning over fifty years, many different eras and conflicts are represented, from Vietnam, Latin America, and beyond. This resonates with the way in which Golub would collect and combine different source materials from which to paint, often combining into one painting images from many different conflicts and settings. These fragmented characters in his paintings are depicted as of one era, but are timeless, and because of this convey a broader and more encompassing critique of the ‘Misuse Of Power’ as a whole.
Golub’s work forces its message upon the viewer in both its size and subject matter. This harsh exposition of violence compels us to accept responsibility for our complicit violence through inaction. Golub is pointing out our moral responsibilities through his portrayal of the most horrific and difficult to look at subject matter.
With the current climate of war and terror, his is even more of a poignant message today. His indulgence in his subject matter has created a harsh and undiluted statement of intent; by keeping silent we are allowing this to happen, and we must never bite our tongues.
I for one, long for a world where the work of Leon Golub is no longer necessary or relevant, and I’m sure Leon would feel the same.
*Images via Serpentine Gallery
Showing at The Serpentine Gallery London
The Parasol unit presents: Los Carpinteros, the multidisciplinary duo
The Cuban art collective, Los Carpinteros, will be holding their first major show in the popular Parasol Unit Foundation for contemporary art, in London. The duo will exhibit their large-scale sculptures and installations
The Cuban art collective, Los Carpinteros, will be holding their first major show in the popular Parasol unit Foundation for contemporary art, in London. The duo will exhibit their large-scale sculptures and installations.
Made up of artist collective Marco Castillo and Dagoberto Rodriquez, Los Carpinteros have been working together since the early 1990s. They live and work between Madrid, Spain, Havana and Cuba, and have showcased their work all over the world. Focusing on the intersection between art and society, the group unites architecture, design and sculpture in comical, surprising and inventive ways.
Drawing on personal experiences, their work is often described as ‘interrogative art’. They chose to examine the relationships between art and society, form and function, practicality and frivolousness.
The Parasol unit will include the duo’s installations, sculptures, watercolour drawings and film screenings. The ground floor will be devoted to their larger works, such as the installation Tomates 2013, in which 200 real tomatoes will be splattered against the gallery walls. The piece aims to evoke feelings of compassion and sensitivity surrounding the topic of a political revolution.
The exhibition, curated by Ziba Ardalan, founder and director of the Parasol unit, will also include a series of watercolour drawings and small-scale prototype models. The watercolours bid to display the prosperity of possibilities. These paintings are a crucial aspect of how Los Carpinteros work, and act as a pivotal discussion between the two artists.
The gallery’s intention is to offer a fertile space for artists, so audiences can explore and question contemporary art and the way in which the chosen artists work creatively. The Parasol unit encourages interactivity, asking their audiences to push the boundaries of art, and support artists throughout the exhibitions.
Los Carpinteros will be exhibiting at the Parasol unit from March 25th, until May 24th 2015.
Don’t Ask Why - Ask Y Not?
International Women’s Day may have just passed, but Sweet ‘Art and London’s Espacio Gallery are keeping femininity at the forefront with their upcoming aid exhibition Y Not?
International Women’s Day may have just passed, but Sweet ‘Art and London’s Espacio Gallery are keeping femininity at the forefront with their upcoming aid exhibition Y Not?
Exploring everything from femininity to feminine identity and women’s day, the event will focus on the female form, gender identity, feminist issues, social and political issues and constructs, personal accounts, and perspectives.
Contributing artists, regardless of what gender they identify with, have been invited to celebrate, critique, challenge, ridicule and reflect notions of femininity in our society and internationally.
Launched in 2012, Sweet ‘Art are a non-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of upcoming and established artists; they will be partnering up with Lensational, a creative organisation involved in the emotional and economic empowerment of women through the provision of photography training and equipment.
Also partnered are The LMP Gallery, set to host a parallel show across the pond in Austin, Texas - the two spaces will be exchanging 5 artworks to exhibit during the show run in a display of international solidarity and connectedness.
The private view will take place on Thursday 2 April from 6-9pm, and promises to be an evening of thought provoking fun with welcome cocktails courtesy of Courvoisier along with the usual Sweet ‘Art freebies and surprises!
Y Not?
Espacio Gallery
31 March - 5 April 2015
Private View: Thursday 2 April 6-9pm
ROOMS presents KÖEN VANMECHELEN - Darwin’s Dream
ROOMS presents
Koen Vanmechelen - Darwin’s Dream
Interviews with artist Koen Vanmechelen, curators James Putnam and Jill Silverman van Coenegrachts
The Crypt Gallery, St Pancras Church
15 November - 14 December 2014
*Read more about Koen Vanmechelen and our interview in the current issue ROOMS 15