“During the visit to the Maybach Manufaktur of Sindelfingen, I had the inspiration to create tho iconographic pictures conveying the same seducing and dynamic attraction of the Maybach itself”, said LaChapelle.

It was love at first sight since the last spring and it was expressed through a series of pictures whose subjects are the limited edition of the Zeppelin and its ancestor from the 1930s, the Zeppelin DS8, immortalized in the surreal and sensual atmosphere characteristic of the American photographer.

The shots, “Exposure of luxury” and “Berlin stories”, have been presented on the occasion of Art Basel Miami Beach in early December 2009.

Italian version

Born in the Seventies among the first international art fairs of modern and contemporary art in the world, the event, stage-managed by Silvia Evangelisti, proposes a wide range of works of art from the beginning of the Twentieth century until the most recent trends; 15000 s-m of exhibition, 200 Italian and international galleries, are only a few of the numbers of this new edition.

A unique occasion to discover popular masters like Carlo Carrà, Felice Casorati, Giorgio de Chirico, Gino Severini, together with the conceptual art of Enrico Castellani, Agostino Bonalumi and Vincenzo Agnetti, or the movements of informal art of Giuseppe Capogrossi, Alberto Burri and Emilio Vedova; the Spatialism of Lucio Fontana and the Poor art of Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Gilberto Zorio – to whom the Museum of Modern Art of Bologna dedicates an important exhibition until 17th February 2010 – and the representative of the Italian Transvanguard.

Many of the works of art at the fair also offer a wider view on the international stage, with works by Antony Gormley, Wym Delvore, Per Barclay, Tony Ousler, Hans Peter Feldmann, Alfredo Jaar together with the most popular representatives of the English artistic movement like David Ockney, Gilbert&George and Tony Cragg, or the masters of photography like Thomas Russ, Anton Corbijn or Luigi Ghirri. There will also be a collection of works of artists coming from different geographical areas and investigating the state of being contemporary through the use of the most diverse artistic tools like those of the American performer Nick Cave, the installations of the Russian Peter Belvi or the material compositions of the Chinese Zhang Huan.

To the new trends, presented by the emerging Italian and international artists, is dedicated the section Young Galleries, where research galleries with under five years of experience exhibit their works with prices ranging from 500 to 10,000 euros, for collectors just getting close to art or for those who want to discover new talents.

Of course there will also be book launches, meetings and competitions.

For the second consecutive year the International Art Fair Art First dedicates the daily schedule to the theme of collecting: collectors and museum directors will debate on the interaction between private collections and museums and how they enter the Italian and international artistic stage. The goal is to stimulate a dialogue, by inviting also representatives and collectors of the Asia-pacific area due to the synergy with ShContemporary, the first contemporary art fair dedicated to the Asia-Pacific Area organized in Shanghai by the Group BolognaFiere.

The entire city of Bologna will be involved with exhibitions in museums, courts, buildings and streets of the old town. Bologna Art First, an exclusive town itinerary, is at its fifth edition and for the first time it is a project made in collaboration with Julia Draganovic. The project is conceived of as a single big collective town exhibition through a path among images of art and history and it presents from 29th January through the end of February 2010 a series of installations by artists working for the galleries taking part in the exhibition, in order to create a dialogue between contemporary art and unusual locations of the old town and surroundings.

For the third year Arte Fiera OFF will be the frame of several events like exhibitions, concerts, festivals that will take place in Bologna and Emilia Romagna during the Fair.

Saturday 30th January Art White Night turns the old town of Bologna in a big window of contemporary art with the extraordinary opening of museums, galleries, buildings, concerts and exhibitions.

www.artefiera.bolognafiere.it

Italian version

The main purpose of the event is to reverse the rules of the current fairs system by putting a special emphasis on those works of art that will come through fashion and compromises.
Nowadays galleries and fairs have become a real business market, hardly characterized by exclusiveness and rather focused on the importance of the artist’s name rather than on the specific value of the artistic emotional impact.

We decided to give prominence to painting, introducing nine very different artists. The event aims to demonstrate that even in the contemporary art scene there is still an ongoing painting knowledge, although contemporary art seems exclusively focused on important and popular names and on being provocative.

The ideal venue for this event is the Spazio Pergolesi 8, former TV studio, now White Cultural Cube.

The artists called together for this first event are nine. Angelo Cruciani has been going through a spiritual path for years that begins from the character of Christ through the Street art Operations until social exhibitions. Alberto Garbati is a popular fashion director and an artist at the same time. He has worked for years on the figurative-material vision of the metropolis. Gatto Nero, writer of the Old School of Milan, is an international protagonist of the Street Art with over twenty years of experience. Pietro Geranzani is a painter searching for an obscure reality expressed through paintings full of uneasiness and of psychological shadows. Fabio Inverni, instead, followed the strand of hyper realism. Walter Ladislao came to the world of fashion in the seventies and since he has carried on a long relationship with Gianni Versace. In 2000 his great passion for painting led him to tackle a deep analysis of the colour bringing up its utmost emotional and expressive potential. Luca Lillo is an example of artist who went from Graphics to Contemporary Art. Technology and soul found a aesthetic and conceptual compromise in his works of art, that counter childlike intimity with the future. Salvatore Melillo gets lost in torment and in the deforming expression of the image to entrap the reality that often only one’s sensibility can bring into focus. Eventually, Roberto Silvestrini Garcia combines the manga with sacred iconography.

Milan Art Affairs Special Event
By Hamilton Moura Fiho and Grace Zanotto
11-12-13th December 2009
Spazio Pergolesi
Via Pergolesi, 8 – Milan
Phone: +39 02 66986054
milanartaffairs@email.it

Italian version

It was inaugurated in Rome on 2nd December 2009 the White Gallery, the very first big lifestyle store of the capital, dedicated to fashion, food, design, art and fragrances. An enchanting venue where luxury and excellence rule, starting from the very structure of the store.

Andromeda presents Fluxus, a wavering Murano glass sculpture created to adorn White Gallery. The sculpture originated from the collaboration between artist Michela Vianello, whose inspiration gave concrete shape to the overall concept of the sculpture, and designer Karim Rashid, who designed the Knit – individual hand-made glass element.

“Knit – stated Karim Rashid – for Andromeda is a system I designed of hand-made Murano glass loops that can be woven together from a few to thousands to create endless configurations of delicate ornate glass chandeliers and lighting. Our living spaces and objects should ideally be organic, transformable, flexible and allow objects and furniture to breathe,  to shape the personality of the space. And knit is the fabric of light itself, to forever keep space dynamic, luxurious, and inspiring.”

Fluxus covers a surface area of 60 sq metres, using 42,000 handmade glass Knit elements in 5 colors. The lighting is provided by 5000 punctiform micro lights distributed on the internal surface of the wave.

The White Gallery was conceived to be a contemporary art gallery, stretching over a surface of 5000 sq metre where fashion, design, art, books, music, technology and food will interpret the news and cultural contaminations proper of contemporary lifestyles.

Fluxus is “in charge” of expressing the meaning and identity of the place, through the apparent flow of a structure that seems to be a fabric.
“The challenge – stated Michela Vianello, author of the work of art – consisted in imagining myself as an element and being carried away by a rhythm in an optical, and overall dreamy space, where negative and positive, black and white, would make me move around through a grey area as if it were a pause in an endless journey.”

White Gallery
Piazza G.Marconi, 18/19 Rome (EUR)
info@whitegallery.it
www.whitegallery.it

Italian version

The classic objects of desire – cars and boats, helicopters and design, jewels and watches – will light up for four days this enchanting spot of the Como Lake, but the real luxury of the event will be the donation of the proceeds, collected both from the contribution of the exhibitors and from the sale of the entrance tickets, to nationally and internationally renowned ONLUS.

E20 Como, the non-profit Association organizing the event, couldn’t put up but an initiative strongly charity-oriented: therefore, ethical luxury, sobriety and not ostentation, smart consume and no to wastes.

Therefore, it will those three ONLUS to benefit from the fund raise: AISM – Italian Association Multiple Sclerosis, FFS – Foundation for the research on Cystic Fibrosis and the Foundation Giacinto Facchetti for the study and care of tumors. On 6th December, during the closing ceremony, the funds will be handed to the representatives of the three ONLUS.

Italian version

From 4 to 28 November, Spazio FMG in Milan will host “Milano work-in-progress 2,” a truly interesting exhibition.
Luca Molinari and Simona Galateo curated the set up of the projects realized by MABarquitectura, Consalez Rossi, Paolo Pasquini and 5+1AA, at the discovery of Milan to be.

Two are the main themes faced by the exhibition: public housing and retail malls. Very different from each other but both offering interesting prospects for experimental, leading-edge design.

“These are new-generation works, designed by some of the most interesting young architects on the Italian scene, and they convey the concept of a different Milan, which looks out towards Europe and expresses the idea of contemporary architecture responsive to its users’ needs, such as the physical and environmental quality of the complexes created,” comment by the exhibition’s curators Molinari and Galateo.

The winners of “Living Milan,” MABarquitectura and Consalez Rossi put their works on public display on Via Gallarate and Via Civitavecchia. Both projects are currently almost finished.

“Milano work-in-progress 2” also focuses on the subject of new retail developments through the design for the Food Park in the Maciachini area realized by Paolo Pasquini and the Retail ParkArea at Milanofiori by 5+1AA.

“With ‘Milano work-in-progress 2’, Spazio FMG continues its investigation of the near future and reinforces its mission as a space open to quality architecture and a responsible approach to the destiny of our habitat,” concluded Luca Molinari and Simona Galateo.

For further information:
SpazioFMG per l’Architettura
Via Bergognone 27, Milano
4– 28 November 2009
tuesday – saturday h 15:00 – 20:00
Free Entrance
Info: 0039 (0)2 89.41.03.20

Italian version

From 6 to 11 November 2009 Basel will host the BAAF, Basel Ancient Art Fair, dedicated to antique dealers, fans and collectors of ancient art.

The exhibition, which is now in its sixth edition, will host 15 exhibitors from Europe and the United States that will put on show pieces of Classic, Egyptian and Middle Eastern art, belonging to ancient civilizations, preserved in perfect conditions. The charming selection of pieces appeals experts, designers, collectors and lovers from all over the world.

Among the works on show: an Egyptian relief on chalky stone dating 1838-1759 b.C. belonging to the Royal Athena Galleries, New York; the Aphrodite or Nymph statue belonging to Charles Ede, London; an Egyptian mirror dating back to the 1400 b.C. belonging to the Robert R. Bigler Asian & Egyptian Art, Zurich.

There will also be on show pieces of art whose value is slightly more held down such as an Hellenic bracelet for children, with spiral-form decorations.

www.baaf.ch

Italian version

A section of the space, with a seven-marble qualities wall on the background, coming from India, iran, China and South America, is dedicated to flowers: clients can admire a rich variety of orchids exclusively distributed by Trussardi 1911. The new concept store is open at night as well: it’s open everyday until 10 pm. Conceived and designed by the creative directore of Trussardi 1911 Milan Vukmirovic, able to interpret with his contemporary sensibility the excellences of the maison of the Greyhound, the new shop re-creates all the ground floor of Piazza della Scala.

The Café Trussardi as well, inaugurated in April 2008 (with the déhors designed by the architect Carlo Ratti and the vertical installation of green created by Patrick Blanc) now unites and shares its spaces with those of the boutique, creating a unique 400 s-m environment whose floor is made of over a thousand wooden staves painted with craftsmanship. On the first floor of the building lies the restaurant Trussardi Alla Scala, decorated with two stars from the Michelin Italia 2009 guide book, which has recently re-opened after a complete restoration.

Each of the group activity is directed by a young international talent: Milan Vukimirovic, creative director of Trussardi 1911, Massimiliano Gioni, artistic director of the Foundation Nicola Trussardi, Andrea Berton, director of the restaurant Trussardi Alla Scala and of the Café Trussardi. All the activities are created and coordinated by Beatrice Trussardi, who is managing director and head of the group. In particular, in fashion department, Trussardi 1911 represented for the group a great revolution but is a synthesis of the values that have always characterized the Trussardi world: craftsmanship, made in Italy production, use of prestigious materials, definition of the cuts, care of the tiniest details but also an eclectic and contemporary taste redefining the idea of luxury.

Milan Vukmirovic represents a way of working very close to today’s rhythms and values: as a  designer, director of a magazine like L’Officiel, buyer for a multibrand like The Webster in Miami and as a photographer has a wide overlook over all the variables of the fashion world. It’s rather the perspective and the outlook rather than Trussardi’s taste that have changed: Trussardi today is much closer to new generations whose values he represents (mobility, eclecticism, speed but also the great care for details and the taste for prestigious craftsmanship) and it is a luxury brand whose quality is easily be recognized.

Besides Trussardi 1911 there are Tru Trussardi and TJ: both expressing a more informal world, the former dedicated to the city and its rhythms, with its soft but elegant style, the latter for the spare time. Variety is one of the elements of the winning formula by Trussardi: each moment of the day and each occasion can be accompanied by a Trussardi experience.

The restaurant Trussardi Alla Scala is acknowledged as one of the greatest experiences of the new Italian Cuisine and, while it has been growing within its own walls cultivating an informal, elegant and cosmopolitan environment, it has also contributed to renovate the centre of Milan, offering a new outpost of absolute quality. The chef Andrea Berton has been able to combine experiments with a certain rigour in his proposals: the restaurant Trussardi Alla Scala is, in fact, a place where the culinary technique is never showed off and where the pure taste gets the better of complexity or of the research per se.
One of the keys to the success of the restaurant Trussardi Alla Scala has obviously been placing again the clients at the centre of the gastronomic experience: The great novelty of the restaurant has been the recent restoration of the room to make it even closer to the new identity of the brand. With a new inspiration, taken from the urban atmospheres of the contemporary world, the clients can now choose whether to spend the evening looking out on the spectacular view of Piazza Alla Scala, comfortably seating on soft armchairs, or in a more dynamic environment, right at the centre of an open kitchen with a monumental golden wall in the background. It is very important for Trussardi to keep the public away from the idea of a classic starry restaurant where one can almost be in trouble because of the gastronomic research.

Eventually the Trussardi Foundation is currently busy organizing a project which is still at an early stage when it’s preferable not to spread news. The Foundation became popular in the city because of quick and sudden events, but also because of more private and introspective projects, like the last exhibition at Palazzo Dugnani showing the films by the English artist Tacita Dean. The Foundation has a gipsy and varied identity that led it to gain over the past years an important role not only among the institutions of contemporary art in the world, but in the collective imaginary of the city.

Alessandra Iannello

Italian version

Protagonists of this exhibition Sitting and seating, limited edition collection of seating by Martino Gamper + Costellazioni, a limited edition collection of lamps by Duccio Trassinelli. An exhibition aiming at comparing two generations of design and the work of two contemporary authors dealing with wood.

Sitting and seating by Martino Gamper is a limited edition of three seatings made of oak, nut and pine wood, with five copies for each shape. Together with the two big benches Audio benches (in this case two copies each shape) has been created in 2008 as commissioned by Manifesta 7, European Contemporary Art Biennal, for the multimedia  exhibition and ‘nonmaterial’ Scenarios.

Costellazioni by Duccio Trassinelli is a series of ‘enlightening objects’ in limited editino drawing on studies and sketches dating back to the Seventies. The woods used range from pine through chestnut and the prestigious nut and cherry-wood. The lighting system makes use of low voltage electromagnetic contacts.
Hydra has an arm with a movement going from the ground up to 4 meters heigh. Cetus is an arch lamp featuring a rotating 360° basis. Cassiopea is a swinging source with a light spot adjustable towards all directions.

The event takes place simultaneously with the exhibition Martino Gamper organized at the Milan Triennial.

Opening hours:
15th October 2009 – 14th November 2009
Tuesday through Saturday from 10.00 to 19.30,
Monday from 15.00 to 19.30

For information:
Nilufar Gallery
Via della Spiga 32 – 20121 Milan
www.nilufar.com
www.gampermartino.com
www.ducciotrassinelli.com

Italian version

Where does it come from and where does it go to your artistic research?
I have always been labelled as an eclectic artist.
I believe the reasons are to be found in my childhood. As a child, when looking outside the window – I was born in a town at the sea, La Spezia – I used to sea the harbour and the colours of the ships, the containers and the tracks.
Moreover, at the ground floor of the building where I used to live, my parents owned a naval furnishing and antiques shop. I lived 90% of my life from age 0 through 10 in that place. The strong contrast between the splendour of the sea and the dusty reality of the harbour, besides the smell of old furniture and of any kind of object, became part of me. After junior high school, I graduated at the Artistic high School and then at the University with a degree in set and costume design at the Academy of Beaux Arts, thanks to which I was able to strengthen and deepen my ideas.

What is the origin of your projects?
When I begin a project, I have to think it through so that it can go on smoothly and be consistent with the leitmotif driving the world, that is mathematics. I have always considered the aesthetics of things essential for people’s life. I do not refer to the trivial and futile appearance per se, rather to the real energy of the objects. An object has a shape, given by whom produced that object, be it a great designer or the blind Chance…This object, eventually, is chosen. By whom? Why? Where it located? The same object, related to others, originates endless combinations that deliver, want it or not, emotions and thoughts. Objects re-create, telling a lot of whom chose them. It is as if there was a diffusing power, blending things together.
Like ingredients, mixing to create meals. Whether you talk about human emotionalism, music, design or botany, or any other topic, everything interacts and acts according to the common language of mathematics. This thought has always been the constant element I drew my artistic expression on.

Is this the reason why you express yourself through manifold languages?
My eclecticism actually becomes a single language, with numerous forms of expression. I never get stuck on one single particular discipline. I need to paint, to write, to project objects, clothes, costumes or environments, for the film set, theatre or private houses it doesn’t matter, although each of them has different needs. Obviously, each discipline needs knowledge and experience, but if you love what you do, you can reach the best results without efforts.

Why the title “Equilibria” for the theme of your works of art?
The choice of the name “Equilibrium”, as for paintings and sculptures, was automatic. My works of art are the search for the perfect balance between the spaces, according to Aristotelian and Vitruvian criteria.
Concepts which are deeply embedded into physics, from which the man can not be separated. Those are few of the certainties you can rely on, reflecting in the equilibrium of things which belongs to each life experience.

Why did you choose materials like gold and glass?
My works of art, whatever they are, reflect the search for elegance…the natural, thin, unconscious, not-showed off or garish elegance. What material can better than gold express the concept of elegance? Gold has always been used as symbol of the divine. It is not a colour, it’s more than sculpture, it lives with the observer, it gives back light, stepping out of the painting without the possibility of stopping it. It cannot be tamed.

Other colour that you like?
I paint using deep and intense colours, with a marked preference for the blue of Prussia, which is a night blue stretching towards black. In the past I used to paint using oil painting clothing, searching for transparency in the nuances. Now I almost exclusively paint using oil colours on glass armour-plates, that I crash afterward. The chipping transform into crystals radiating light. And the transparency of the glass allows to reflect into the entire work of art.

Whom or what do you draw on when you create?
On the subject I need to design. Be it a painting, a sculpture or anything else. For instance, if I need to design the direction or the scenes of an opera, I listen to it unrelentingly. I need to become part of it, I need to know it as if the events the protagonists go through were happening to me, blending in the music. Moreover, I try to find out everything about that opera, when it was written and set; I also conduct long iconographic researches, trying, at the same time, to focus on the principles of my “equilibria”.
The same is true for films, as well as other disciplines.

What is you internal perspective on today’s market of contemporary art? How much room is there for emerging artists?
I am very individualist in my job. But the market, especially in Italy, is going through a difficult moment. As for emerging artists, I believe that it has become too easy to define oneself an artist and that, on the other hand, the galleries tend to invest mostly on the safest choice of popular artists. Rather than investing energies on good emerging artists, a good amount of galleries, also important ones, do nothing but hiring rooms, allowing therefore only who has enough financial means to exhibit. This, obviously, is a system that in the long run will destroy the same genuineness of art.

Davide Passoni

Italian version

Preparations are well on the way in Regent’s Park in London for one of the most important Fairs of Contemporary Art in the world, Frieze Art Fair 2009 that, from 15th through 18th October, will give room to over 150 galleries of thirty countries and will present works of art of a thousand artists, both famous and new talents.

Two big novelties, Frame and Frieze film. The former is a section dedicated to thirty young galleries presenting the personal exhibition of one of their artists. The latter is a film commissioned by Frieze Foundation to the Danish Superflex, dealing with the relation between arts and finance.

And of course a thick series of side initiatives. Frieze Project is back, for which have been commissioned to an international group of artists seven site-specific works of art for the fair. There is again the Cartier Award, events dedicated to the youngest and to music.
Great room is given to the protagonists of contemporary sculpture.

During the fair there will be also several debates with experts of the field to discuss some matters that currently involve the world of contemporary art.

http://www.friezeartfair.com/

Italian version

From 16 October to 28 February 2010 the Memmo Foundation on Via del Corso in Rome will host the exhibition “The Grace Kelly Years. Princess of Monaco”. After a smash hit in Monaco in 2007, with 135 thousand visitors, the exhibition became a roving one and after Paris and Moscow, it gets to Italy to then head off to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, only with the fashion section, and then to Japan.

The exhibition starts with a gallery showing magazine covers from the 50s, period in which Grace turned from being an icon of Hitchcock’s films to being the Princess of Monaco. Set or artistic photos, realized by figures such as Howell Conant, Cecil Beaton, Irwing Penn, clothes by Christian Dior, Oleg Cassini, Balenciaga, Chanel – till the famous wedding dress made of ecru silk – jewells by Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, bags, Hermès of course, posters, magazine covers, film contracts, letters exchanges with Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant, Jackie Kennedy and Maria Callas, movies privately shot in important moments.

An intimate portrait of the American actress that became a princess, icon of style as well as perfect mother and wife.

Italian version