Category Archives: Exhibitions

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ARTEVENTO CERVIA is the first event in the world that viewed the kite as visual and performance art, blurring the lines between contemporary expression, theater, dance, circus, and puppetry.

This year it will be attended by 250 professional kite artists from 5 continents and over 2000 enthusiasts from all over the World!

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From 21 April to 1 May 2023, on Cervia’s Pinarella Beach (Italy), 250 designers and pilots selected from among the most significant interpreters of a millenary tradition, in constant dialogue with the environment, will join over 2000 enthusiasts for the 43rd Edition of ARTEVENTO CERVIA, the original festival dedicated to kites and the environment, which has become a cult event for both promoters of the wind art and lovers of green tourism as well as sustainable creativity. In simultaneous flight, the event will show the most complete presentation of artistic, ethnic, historical, giant, sport, acrobatic, and even combat kites! All visitors and participants will dive into the magical practice that was born over 2500 years ago.

In the enchanting location at the southern gateway to the Po Delta Park, amidst salt marshes, pinewoods and the sea, the world’s first event dedicated to kites as an art form has been held since 1981. It is in Cervia, in fact, that the ‘artists of the wind’, new voices of an avant-garde poetic language, yet rooted in the history of mankind, have found their elective home over the course of more than four decades, experimenting with the effectiveness of this original artistic medium. 

International artists who have made art history of the calibre of Jackie Matisse, Yayoi Kusama, Tal Streeter, Mimmo Paladino, Robert Rauschenberg, Curt Asker, Niki de Saint Phalle, Emilio Vedova, Karl Otto Götz, Jean Tinguely and Tom Wesselmann, Kazuo Shiraga (whose kite was sold by the Nagel auction house in Berlin last February for a record sum of € 1,140,000) and many others have used the kite as a means of artistic expression, creating true works of art. Jackie Matisse, granddaughter of Henri Matisse, for example, was a real fan of wind art: one day she saw a kite flying over the rooftops of Harlem in New York – a “line drawn in the sky” – and became fixated “on the idea of creating kites… using the sky as a canvas”. In 1995, she signed the Art Volant Manifesto and throughout his life he has created multiple works of ‘flying art’ with his brightly coloured kites used for performances designed to emphasise the ephemeral force of ‘chance’ in the artistic act that dialogues with the natural environment.

And it is precisely through the kite, as the paradigm of a new language of artistic creativity, that the ARTEVENTO CERVIA festival celebrates for the 43rd consecutive edition the reason that has made it the destination of an unmissable pilgrimage, namely the fact that it represents the cradle of a specific artistic current that has found its “place of the soul” on the Cervia beach. It will be , suitable for a diverse audience and spectators of all ages and abilities;The programme includes displays of artistic, ethnic, historical, and giant kites, acrobatic flight displays to the rhythm of music, multidisciplinary dance-theatre and contemporary circus performances, exhibitions, didactic workshops, night performances, the Flag Ceremony, the Special Award for Flying Merits, the Night of Miracles, the STACK Italia acrobatic flight championship, installations, air sculptures, a market, a food area, and much more.

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ARTEVENTO CERVIA – Historic ‘International Kite Festival’

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In the name of a poetic of wonder between arts and cultures, the historic festival that has made Cervia not simply a kite capital but the world home of the art of wind, returns to celebrate the symbolic power of the rainbow with a record edition: 50 delegations from 5 continents will be present to promote peace, inclusion and environmental sustainability, with 11 days of unmissable entertainment. 

ARTEVENTO CERVIA for 2023 will welcome as Guests of Honour the young ambassadors of Maori culture in the world of the Kaimatariki Trust & Te Kura O Hirangi group, coming to Cervia from the City of Turangi. Welcomed to Italy under the patronage of the New Zealand Embassy in Rome, the Maori delegation of 27 performers will be the protagonists, on the beach of Pinarella, of an extraordinary show that will include, along with the presentation of the anthropomorphic aboriginal kite, also performances of kapa haka (an exhibition of different Maori songs and dances) and waiata songs on the central stage of the Festival Village and a meeting with the public at the Maori Tent, located in the centre of the Wind Fair.

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The Homage to ‘Images for the Sky’ with Mimmo Paladino and Master Masaaki Sato

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The main theme of the 43rd edition of ARTEVENTO CERVIA will be a tribute to the “Images for the Sky” collection (created in 1989 by Paul Eubel under the aegis of the Goethe-Institut in Osaka) with the presentation of the restoration of Mimmo Paladino’s kite commissioned by the artist himself to Dr. Nella Poggi Parigi, one of the leading experts in the conservation and restoration of works of art on paper. Dr. Poggi’s consultant, as a scholar of the history and culture of kites, Caterina Capelli art director of ARTEVENTO CERVIA, followed the entire process of the restoration operation starting from its presentation in the prestigious venue of the Vatican Museums, during a conference that also emphasised the role of the Cervia festival as the main international observatory on kite art. On the kite constructed by Japanese masters Kazuo Tamura and Shoei Ogasawara, Campania artist Mimmo Paladino chose to depict a Vitruvian man with donkey ears surrounded by symbolic presences and golden brushstrokes, adding to the poetic value of the support the strength of a metaphorical representation that is both essential and powerful.

Also paying homage to “Images for the Sky” will be the presence of Wind Master Masaaki Sato.  It is to the latter, the protagonist of the 43rd edition’s collateral exhibition under the patronage of the Japanese Institute of Culture, that ARTEVENTO CERVIA assigns the Special Award for Merits of Flight 2023, presented over the years to personalities promoting environmental and social sustainability such as, among others, Lucio Dalla, Tonino Guerra, Franco Arminio and Gherardo Colombo. Master Sato, with the contribution of the cicada kite made for the Viennese artist Hundertwasser, was one of the masters custodians of the ancient art of the Japanese kite involved in “Images for the Sky”, of which he is to all intents and purposes one of the last precious witnesses. ARTEVENTO CERVIA thus wishes to pay homage to Eubel’s historic project that valorised the idea behind the festival, that of making the kite, a cultural asset with a history stretching back thousands of years and a symbol of peace and environmental sustainability, the perfect trait d’union linking East and West, past and future, tradition and innovation, knowledge of the hands and intangible cultural heritage, through the art that gives form and colour to the primordial desire to fly, celebrating the marvels of creativity between human dreams and needs, and above all making us feel united in our diversity, because we are all flying in the same sky.

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Successful Format

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ARTEVENTO CERVIA has achieved great success over the years thanks to a rich and unique format which is once again being used in 2023. Themes, artists and events are as follows:

PROTAGONISTS: among the Masters of the Wind, guests of the 43rd edition: Michel Gressier (France), among the personalities who drafted the Wind Art Manifesto together with Jackie Matisse; Kadek Armika (Bali), winner of the first prize for best original work at the Festival du Cerf Volant in Dieppe 2022; Makoto Ohye (Japan); Robert Trepanier (Canada), is part of the Quebec Ministry of Education’s directory for his teaching activities and actively collaborates with Cirque du Soleil and the company Theatre Ciel Ouvert; George Peters (USA), has realised more than 80 national and international interventions commissioned by private, public and corporate institutions and has curated the image of Barack Obama’s campaign for the State of Colorado; Carl Robertshaw (UK), has created visionary set designs for the Superbowl, the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, the likes of Bjork, Anthony and the Johnsons, Peter Gabriel, Nora Jones, Katy Perry and Alicia Keys, and fused the world of kites and puppetry in the performance The Hatchling presented to Queen Elizabeth at the Platinum Jubileum; Claudio Capelli (Italy), the creator of the festival and founder of ARTEVENTO, the first to imagine a contamination between visual and performing arts modulated by the energy of the wind in the form of an international event.

GUESTS OF HONOUR: the Maori team – Kaimatariki Trust & Te Kura O Hirangi from New Zealand. The kite as an opportunity for a valuable encounter between cultures to celebrate peace and get to know the host countries not only through the tradition of wind art but also through performances of theatre, dance, performance disciplines and folklore.

WIND GARDENS: the largest open-air exhibition of air sculptures and wind installations from around the world to celebrate environmental art and promote wind power as an inexhaustible source of renewable energy.

EXHIBITIONS AND LABORATORIES: the informative and educational activities of the Kite Museum to get to know one of the most fascinating and versatile human inventions, the subject of anthropological, historical and scientific research and emblem of a sacred relationship between man and the environment.

MEMORABLE PROGRAMME: “The Night of Miracles” (an original immersive show that has become emblematic of the spirit of the festival: collective performance of wind art, music and lights on the seashore), the “Special Award for Flying Merits”, the “Flag Ceremony”, the Kite Parade, Kite Aerial Photography demonstrations, acrobatic ballets in time to the music, STACK sport kite competitions and the original proposal of dance, puppetry, theatre and contemporary circus to build a poetics of wonder through the contamination of the arts. On the programme, performances of kapa haka and waiata songs by the Maori Kaimatariki Trust & Te Kura O Hirangi Team, Balinese dance-theatre performances and shows by Circo Madera (contemporary theatre-circus, without animals)

FESTIVAL VILLAGE: ‘Wind Fair’ and ‘Grand Circus Bazar’, kite and craft market, contemporary circus chapiteu.

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Kite Photography

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A unique exhibition of wind artists, ARTEVENTO CERVIA is for this very reason an unmissable appointment for the most extraordinary interpreters of KAP, the practice of taking aerial photographs using a device carried aloft by a kite, as the meaning of the acronym KAP makes clear: Kite Aerial Photography.

Practised for 136 years not only as an artistic medium, but also in the fields of archaeology, geology and zoology, KAP is represented at ARTEVENTO CERVIA by its undisputed masters and by a large group of enthusiasts determined to prefer the ecological flight of the kite to the more impactful solution of the drone for reasons of sustainability as well as artistic poetics.

Realised during the festival, the reportages set in the territory’s most identifiable locations become in turn an opportunity for in-depth studies, as in the case of the collateral exhibition dedicated to the undisputed Master of aerial photography Wolfgang Bieck (Germany), set in the evocative industrial archaeology area of the Magazzini del Sale (Salt Warehouses) in the historic centre of the city of Cervia.

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Environment

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With the motto “we are the rainbow”, the festival dedicated to wind art chooses all the colours of the rainbow as its flag to celebrate pluralism, dialogue and inclusion as instruments of peace, while at the same time identifying in that colourful bridge between earth and sky the emblem of a sacred relationship between man and the environment, a perfect prodrome of the environmentalist spirit that makes this spring event the great festival of sustainability.

In a stimulating climate marked by psychophysical wellbeing, through the wonder engendered by its spectacle and rich programming, for over 40 years ARTEVENTO CERVIA has been boosting a model of interdisciplinarity and multiculturalism inspired by environmental sustainability and social responsibility, encouraging the activation of inclusive and conscious collective good practices and promoting some of the goals of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Precisely on the common thread of sustainability, the festival will dedicate some artistic and popular insights to the bee, a pollinating insect emblematic of the rebirth and renewal of nature. ARTEVENTO thus celebrates the formative value of the experience of play and the effectiveness of active learning through the Educational Workshops of the Kite Museum, choosing the bee as the symbol of the training course dedicated to the youngest: a real school of kites.

ARTEVENTO CERVIA International Kite Festival is organised by ARTEVENTO with the patronage and cooperation of Regione Emilia Romagna, Municipality of Cervia, New Zealand Embassy, Japanese Cultural Institute, APT Servizi, Consorzio Aquiloni, BPER Banca, Cooperativa Bagnini Spiagge Cervia.

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www.artevento.com

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^{Story submitted by Culturalia. The World Art News (WAN) is not liable for the content of this publication. All statements and views expressed herein are only an opinion. Act at your own risk. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission. © The World Art News}

By Didier Guenard

I was born in Le Creusot in 1965. Following an unruly childhood and a troubled adolescence I was attracted to woodworking, and enrolled in the Lycée Bonaparte in Autun, earning my diploma there in 1981. During those years I got to know the special world of restoring antique furniture, which shook up the ideas about production I’d been taught in school. I spent the next 20 years as a furniture restorer, learning about the ingenuity, sensitivity and beauty of our ancestors’ work, and bringing the objects they made back to life.

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“I’m an artisan who experiments with new ways of making furniture”

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The secret world of the restorer encompasses many skills, much like those of a surgeon, who performs grafts to replace damaged areas and adds new veneer ‘skins’, and the hairdresser, who exercises his knowledge of chemistry to revitalize colors, or the locksmith, who restores worn-out locks … it’s a profession that requires an unusual bag of tricks as well as knowledge and patience, and includes stripping, sanding, ginning, polishing and varnishing wood, and an endless amount of rubbing. It’s also frequently unacknowledged, since its goal is to blend the restoration work with the original piece, the restorer’s work is invisible. 

I took an evening ceramics class at the School of Fine Arts in Chalon-sur-Saône in 1982, and a drawing class in 1988, which increased my skill in making quick sketches. In 1990 I put on my first outdoor exhibition, presenting a few paintings, some figurative wooden sculptures, and a miniature walnut wardrobe, a masterpiece that combined all my areas of expertise. That year I got married and in 1992 we bought an old stone house in ruins. I spent the next three years restoring it for our growing family.  

The next creative project I tackled was the “Diaposaurus”. It begun in late 1996 and took more than 1000 hours to complete. Starting in 1998 I presented it in a variety of venues such as the Château de Pommard. In the summer of 2003 it was exhibited in Dompierre les-Ormes at the European Gallery of the Forest and Wood, where it was viewed by more than 15,000 enthusiastic visitors. 

I finished the “Diaposaurus”, the creative equivalent of walking the Way of Saint James, in 1998. This multipurpose cabinet of curiosities recounts the legend of the Burgundian dragon known as La Vouivre. Made with fossils I found as a child in the vine yards of the Chalon wine-growing region, and wood I acquired here and there as an adult, this complex and refined piece transcends life on earth. It includes 16 varieties of local and exotic wood, forged steel rods with several different patinas, resin and fiber glass light fixtures, and many fossils, pebbles, sand and glass marbles that make up the cornucopia mosaic.

The different woods used in this piece were turned, sculpted, and include marquetry. It had six drawers, one cylindrical with a sprung ejection mechanism that can be used to store a bottle, and another with a retractable curtain closing. Pushing the button made of boxwood burl makes the midnight blue writing table advance, revealing a half-cylindrical pen holder. Opening the door with the horn handle reveals partitions and two small drawers with varnished interiors. It goes without saying that this piece also contains a secret space … location of which must remain a secret! 

After completing the “Diaposaurus” I took a recreational break and delved into a more Art Brut approach, using old acacia wood fence posts. After reworking them with a drawer-knife, I combined the posts with old slate pool tables and old metal to create a prehistoric effect reminiscent of the “Rahan” comic books I used to enjoy.

My next collection anticipated the total eclipse of the sun in 1999. These pieces include thick steel rims from old wagon wheels that were worn by being driven over paving stones. The soldered arcs act as both a design element and form the structure that sup ports the repurposed stone and wooden components, which are made of old wine barrels.

As a young woodworker my nickname was Diogenes, and I used the phrase “metamorphosis of the barrel” when I presented my work. As I gradually discovered the potential of the curved barrel stave and became an expert in its use I decided to set off on a new adventure and made my first pirate’s trunk, which led me to the “Barque du petit  Béta” and the “Fauteuil à pépé”. I showed my work – the first pieces in the Diogenes, Rahan, and Eclipse collections – in a little chapel in the village of Corlay during the summer of 1999 as part of the “Eclipse” exhibition, and sold almost all of them the same year.

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Encouraged by my success, I built a workshop extension onto my home and became an official furniture maker in 2001. During the same period I took part in the “Trophées du Net 2001”, organized by PME 71 and the Journal de Saône-et-Loire. I also built the “La Vache à  roulette” (“The Cow on Wheels”), a trolley used for ceremonial serving of bread and cheese at the Hostellerie Bourguignonne owned by Didier Denis in Verdun-Sur-Le-Doubs.

The year my workshop opened I also took part in a symposium organized by the Conseil Général de Saône-et-Loire at the European Gallery of the Forest and Wood in Dompierre-les-Ormes, and sculpted the “Fœtus vegetal” from a block of limestone that I worked directly in the block. The following year I sculpted “Le cri de l’Orme” from a piece of elm 2.2 meters high. Many people have ordered farm tables from me. They’re made from re-machined wood from the wine industry; the seats and backs of the chairs that go with them are fashioned from old Burgundian barrels. Curved steel semi-circles are soldered together and reused in the architecture of these pieces, giving new life to ancient wagon wheel rims. 

In 2003 I had the opportunity to try my hand at interior design when the beer cave “La Billebaude” in the town of Givry asked me to create their décor. This is the only time I’ve designed a public space. At the same time I entered “Dionysus” in the European Bacchus competition, and won the “Grand International Creativity Prize 2002/2003” in Florence. This armchair-ship brings together African, Greek, Celtic and Roman influences in a timeless way.

These transcendent curves lend themselves to pieces influenced by the medieval era was well as other periods and places, such as Africa, Greece, and Burgundy: the cradle of humankind, the first vowel and first letter of the alphabet, the origins of the barrel, the spiral staircase that resembles a Burgundian snail …

I made the “Barrel and Chariot Wheel Collection” between 2002 and 2005 as I dreamed of the days when steel-rimmed wagon wheels rolled on cobblestones as they transported barrels to wine cellars…

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“I began to invent a new language with my hands”

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In 2006 I had to stop building furniture full time because I became a teacher in the woodworking section of the ESAT in Crissey. There I learned to manage production and accompany students while continuing my creative work on a part-time basis. I alternated between the school, fallow periods, restoration work, and building extensions on our home.

I made this “Reception desk” for my eldest daughter’s Bed and Breakfast in 2013. The façade of the L-shaped desk is the counter; it is ideal for welcoming clients and placing a computer. The piece is entirely made of repurposed solid oak, originally used in wine vats, and barrel staves. The staves were re-machined and glued together to create new shapes that were then assembled with other shapes, resulting in an architectural construction that features a variety of rounded forms.

The rounded forms and horizontal surfaces are joined by invisible dovetail joints, the most complex and least apparent technique for assembling wooden furniture. Shelving under the desk provides storage place for documents. There is also a secret  hiding place, a small retractable litter basket, and a spinning key holder mounted on  ball bearings under the desk area.

My first hybrid pieces date from 2014 and include square steel tubes. “Jeu de  mains” took off in a new direction and allowed me, thanks to the metal I incorporated, to look beyond the architectural possibilities of wood alone. As my work continued to evolve I began making more sculptural pieces in 2016, opening the door to fresh possibilities with my first figurative works.

“The Archer” was the first character I made from metamorphosed barrels. This timeless piece, from an undefined continent, is neither masculine nor feminine. Its architecture includes oak and chestnut that were glued together and assembled. The increase curvature of the bow was achieved through making numerous notches (kerfing), to which I then glued an outer layer of veneer in a template.

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To be continued …

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^{The World Art News (WAN) is not liable for the content of this publication. All statements and views expressed herein are only an opinion. Act at your own risk. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission. © The World Art News}

The Bomb Factory Art Foundation is pleased to present All Things Fall, a solo exhibition featuring the work of contemporary British artist Mat Collishaw, from April 20th, 2023, to May 21st, 2023. The exhibit will be held at Bomb Factory Art Foundation’s newest building in Marylebone. 

Mat Collishaw is one of the most significant and compelling artists in contemporary British art. With an early foundation at Goldsmiths College, Collishaw formed part of the legendary movement of Young British Artists. He was one of 16 young artists who participated in the seminal Freeze exhibition organized by Damien Hirst in 1988 as well as the provocative Sensation show of 1997. 

The Bomb Factory Art Foundation show will feature two works that have never been exhibited before, Insilico (2023) and the Palantir (2022) series of 13 paintings. The large-scale zoetrope sculpture, All Things Fall (2014), will be shown in London for the first time. The Machine Zone (2019), inspired by the historic behavioural experiments of the psychologist B.F. Skinner, has previously been exhibited in the UK and internationally in Moscow & Dubai.

The selected works reflect on human perception distorted through the dark, manipulative lens of social media. Insilico’s robotic stag slips and falls in response to abusive posts on Twitter. Night vision images of animator predators and prey appear as ghost-like spectres in the Palantir paintings on raw linen. In The Machine Zone, animatronic pigeons re-enact the behavioural psychology experiments of B.F. Skinner. Finally, in the gripping and powerful All Things Fall, a Temple featuring the Massacre of the Innocents erupts into a delightful orgy of violence. Mat Collishaw’s world consumes and captivates. 

Throughout his 30-year career, Collishaw has contemplated the nature of the human subconscious and explored ways to influence it through various media. Through optical illusions, paintings, projections and moving sculptures, the artist creates works and scenarios that directly and unconsciously engage their viewers. The works encourage us to think about fundamental questions of psychology, history, sociology and science. Behind the richness and visual appeal of each work there is a deep exploration of how we perceive and are influenced by the world through images, and modern technology. Questions regarding behavioural manipulation and programming linger in the viewing experience.

The majority of works in the exhibition emerged early during lockdown when everything outdoors fell silent and people turned to social media to make a noise. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram increasingly became forums for attack, platforms used to hunt and take people down. 

A primal herd instinct reared its beastly head through the medium of digital technology. Like our online records, the artworks attempt to capture a fleeting, furtive moment of disquiet; a shadowy record of the predator and its prey.

Mat Collishaw

Founded by artist Pallas Citroen in 2015, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation is a charity that provides affordable studio spaces to over 100 resident artists and delivers free public educational programs and exhibitions for the local communities of London. The Bomb Factory Art Foundation is a cultural art destination that is based across four sites; Archway, Chelsea, Covent Garden and now Marylebone. 

‘Mat Collishaw has always been an artist I have held in the highest esteem. I was, therefore, thrilled when Mat agreed to exhibit with the Bomb Factory Art Foundation at our new gallery space at 206 Marylebone Road . Bomb Factory Marylebone heralds in a new era for the Bomb Factory Art Foundation; where we will endeavour to bring in new audiences to witness exhibitions by emerging, as well as established artists. We will facilitate the merging of partnerships between these artists to encourage the production of new works that will add to the roster of urgent and thought provoking exhibitions that Bomb Factory has, and will continue to put on for the public. We can’t wait to see what this season will hold’ 

Pallas Citroen, Founder of The Bomb Factory Foundation

With special thanks to BHive Technologies who designed and developed AI and machine learning models to collect and analyze the data, leveraging top rated OpenAI-developed engines. 

^{Story submitted by CCIcomms. The World Art News (WAN) is not liable for the content of this publication. All statements and views expressed herein are only an opinion. Act at your own risk. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission. © The World Art News}