Dorothy Iannone's Innocent and Aware
Dorothy Iannone, "Innocent and Aware", 8 March 2013 - 5 May 2013, Camden Arts Centre in London.
"Iannone's portrayals of male and female sexuality celebrate the joy of her most intimate relationships while subverting traditional gender stereotypes of dominance and control. Through graphic paintings, sculptures and video boxes her works depict partly-clothed and naked figures on bright psychedelic backgrounds of flora, mandalas and biomorphic patterns. Recalling classical Indian erotic art, Egyptian frescoes and Byzantine mosaics, Iannone's intricate work communicates a personal narrative, passionate love affairs and lifetime pursuit of 'ecstatic unity' through transcendence and spirituality."
(Camden Arts Centre, 2013)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Ralph Hotere, New Zealand Artist, Dies at 81
Ralph Hotere 1931-2013 "was one of New Zealand's leading abstract artists, well known for his enigmatic, black painted surfaces stripped with luminous lines of color. He was not a strict formalist or wary of content. When an aluminium smelter was proposed for the Aramoana wetland, he famously nailed protest works on local telephone poles, painted on corrugated iron. And although his message was never explicit, his black paintings emerged at the height of the Civil Rights movement and suggested themes of historical crisis: war, nuclear testing, the Cuban Missile Crisis and Apartheid. With an understated gravitas unusual in protest art, Hotere demanded that his work speak for itself.
Although Hotere did not want to be pigeonholed as a 'Māori artist,' his works were steeped in the spiritual world of his ancestors. He was one of the first generation of Māori artists in New Zealand who, with quiet perseverance, forged a path for subsequent generations of artists by establishing a distinctive visual vocabulary that would be influential to both Māori and Pakeha (European) artists alike."
(Andrew Clifford, 1 March 2013, ArtAsiaPacific Magazine)
Fig.1 Ralph Hotere with his Black Phoenix installation at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in 2000. Photo by Stephen Jaquiery.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Technological advances expand the artist's expressive vocabulary
Exhibition: "Bruno Munari: My Futurist Past", Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, 39A Canonbury Square, London, N1 2AN, From 19 September 2012 to 23 December 2012.
Bruno Munari was a "founding member of the Movimento Arte Concreta (M.A.C.) in Milan, which was established towards the end of the 1940s. This acted as a catalyst for new developments in Italian abstraction, and aspired to bring about a 'synthesis of arts' in which traditional painting would be complemented by new tools of communication, demonstrating the possibility of a convergence of art and technology, creativity and functionality. Reflecting his belief that technological advances expanded the artist's expressive vocabulary, by 1950 Munari had begun to experiment with creating works by means of projecting light through compositions made from a wide range of materials such as coloured and transparent plastic, organic elements and Polaroid filters, producing beautiful and intriguing images of vast dimensions."
(Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, 2012)
Fig.1 Bruno Munari, Aeroplanes and Archers, 1932, mixed media, 34.8 x 24.8cms Courtesy Massimo & Sonia Cirulli Archive
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Thomas Allen: whimsical pulp fiction cut-outs
"Playing the role of scientist, [Thomas] Allen enlists mid 20th-century books on the natural phenomenon of science(astronomy, physics, electricity, biology) and presents his research as if through the eyes of his 8-year old daughter. How would she understand and portray these theories and absolutes of science?
Allen's signature use of cutting and repurposing book illustrations has not vanished. Instead of the pulp fiction genre, Allen plays with 50's era versions of clean cut youths and domesticated moms. His unmistakable talent for creating the illusion of 3D in photography with his deft cuts and crimps, establishes a magical world in which a boy and girl play tag creating their own kind of electricity, a milkman makes a very special delivery in space, young toughs play marbles with the solar system and a mother busily sews her own version of 'string theory.'"
(Foley Gallery, 2012, New York NY)
Fig.1 Bearings, 2012. Fig.2 Eclipsed, 2012.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Russian-born artist Yelena Popova: one to watch
"Russian-born artist, Yelena Popova, has been garnering attention in the art world since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2011. As well as her inclusion in the Saatchi Gallery's upcoming exhibition of contemporary Russian art entitled, 'Gaiety is The Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union', Popova created work for the Zabludowicz Collection, in light of the London 2012 Olympics, and was named by The Independent newspaper as 'one to watch'. Popova works across various mediums including painting, where she makes use of different types of linen for her canvases as well as pastel colours and circular shapes reminiscent of the Bauhaus movement. Although her work is often influenced by Russian Constructivism, Popova, now a part of the Nottingham arts community, sees artistic movements as local developments thus questioning herself as a 'Russian artist'."
(Crane.tv)
Fig.1 "Yelena Popova for Saatchi Gallery", Published on 12 Nov 2012 by CraneTVVideoMagazine.
Fig.2 Yelena Popova (2011). "Balance of Probabilities", mixed media on linen, wooden domestic objects, brass doorknob, dimensions variable.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
