radio live broadcast interview

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Art from Slovenia: Maja Slavec SITUAKTCIJA

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Wednesday 3 December 2008 at 6pm

opening

Maja Slavec

s i t u a k t c i j a

curated by Michele Drascek

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Contemporary Art Space Camere Chiare

Università degli Studi di Trieste

Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione

Via Principe di Montfort 3, Trieste
untill 20 December 2008

from Monday to Friday, 9am - 7pm

more on Maja Slavec: http://maja-slavec.blogspot.com/

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Università degli Studi di Trieste website:
http://webnews.units.it/pagina.asp?id=432&tipoogg=0&lang=2&tipo=1



Review by Michele Drascek

Maja Slavec
S I T U A K T C I J A

Maja Slavec dedicated one whole year to the artistic project S i t u a k t c i j a. The artist followed the life of some women in them everyday activities, taking part in the simple actions of the day like privileged observer, but not intrusive. So we can see women portrayed in interior spaces of the house like kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms; but also during passing moments from room to room, or external from housing spaces. In both cases, the woman is alone.
Maja Slavec inquires into the real life and capture the situation (in Slovenian situacija) in which the woman is alone with herself. These are instants of intimate life (akt, naked; also in a broad sense) in which emerge subtly femininity and eroticism. Here, however, is completely absent any intention that leads to think of a voyeuristic look into intimacy. The woman isn’t a potential erotic object for outer observer.
In fact the artist deepens the topic of the self-perception of femininity and eroticism. And she speaks of the fear to loose this self-perception. In her shoots, consequently, we can recognize a latent sadness. In this way the photographic memory of S i t u a k t c i j a record also sadness, like a quality of experience.
The artist specifies “There’s a sort of poetry in being sad. Sadness is poetic”. If poetry has a certain inclination for emptiness [Iosif Brodskij], S i t u a k t c i j a describes this inclination tactfully, succeeding in express exactly the poetry, not only the semantic, of the situations.
Just for this inclination to poetry built in the project concept, Maja Slavec photography, although portray real life moments, is not purely realistic like greater part of contemporary situation photography: it meet precise formal and aesthetic fundamental rules (composition, light) maintaining yet the absence of artifice in the representation of reality.
The final result is a photographic series in which, absolutely, there isn’t narrative will.
S i t u a k t c i j a brings in itself the quality of immediacy of the real life.

Maja Slavec
S I T U A K T C I J A

S i t u a k t c i j a è un progetto artistico che ha impegnato Maja Slavec per un anno intero.
L’artista ha seguito la vita di alcune donne nelle loro attività di ogni giorno, partecipando da osservatrice privilegiata, ma non intrusiva, alle azioni più semplici del quotidiano. Vediamo così donne ritratte in interni come cucine, bagni, camere; ma anche immortalate nei momenti di passaggio da un ambiente all’altro, esterni allo spazio abitativo. In entrambi i casi, la donna è sola.
Maja Slavec indaga la vita reale e cattura le situazioni (in sloveno situacija) in cui la donna è sola con sé stessa. Sono istanti di vita intima (akt, nudo; anche in senso lato) nei quali emergono sottilmente la femminilità e l’erotismo. Qui, però, è totalmente assente ogni intenzione che lasci pensare a uno sguardo voyeuristico sull’intimità e la donna non è oggetto erotico potenziale per l’esterno.
L’artista, infatti, approfondisce il tema dell’auto-percezione della femminilità e dell’erotismo. E parla anche della paura di perdere questa percezione. Nei suoi scatti, di conseguenza, si riconosce una latente tristezza. La memoria fotografica di S i t u a k t c i j a registra così anche la tristezza. E la registra come una qualità dell’esperienza.
L’artista stessa precisa: “C’è una sorta di poesia nell’essere tristi. La tristezza è poetica”.
Se la poesia ha una certa inclinazione per il vuoto [Iosif Brodskij], S i t u a k t c i j a descrive questa inclinazione con tatto, riuscendo ad esprimere appunto la poesia, non solamente la semantica, delle situazioni ritratte.
Proprio per questa inclinazione al poetico insita all’idea progettuale, la fotografia di Maja Slavec, nonostante ritragga momenti di vita reale, non è puramente realistica come maggior parte della fotografia contemporanea di situazione: risponde a precisi canoni formali ed estetici (composizione, luce) mantenendo però l’assenza di artificio nella rappresentazione della realtà.
Il risultato finale è una serie fotografica in cui non c’è assolutamente volontà narrativa. Sono scatti che portano in sé la qualità dell’immediatezza della vita reale.

Editorial on Exibart

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Michele Drascek subeditor for Slovenia on Exibart, italian contemporary art magazine.

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In the international column Around, which concerns the foreign capital cities, a review on Mesec Fotografije.

On Exibart.com:
http://www.exibart.com/notizia.asp?IDNotizia=25274&IDCategoria=200

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more on Mesec Fotografije:
http://www.mesecfotografije.si/

Art from Slovenia: Urša Vidic "Beyoned"

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Friday 7 November 2008 at 6pm

opening

Urša Vidic

“Beyoned”

curated by Michele Drascek

Contemporary Art Space Camere Chiare
Università degli Studi di Trieste
Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione
Via Principe di Montfort 3, Trieste

untill 28 November 2008
from Monday to Friday, 9am - 7pm

more on Urša Vidic: http://uvslike.blogspot.com/

Università degli Studi di Trieste website: http://webnews.units.it/pagina.asp?id=380&tipoogg=0&lang=2&tipo=1

Urša Vidic is an artist of Galerija Ganes Pratt, Ljubljana (Slovenia)http://www.ganes.si/index_files/Ganes_Pratt.htm

Review by Michele Drascek

Urša Vidic
“Beyoned”

In her work, Urša Vidic opens the question about relation between biological and social gender. “Beyoned” is a made-up word coined in order to efficiently illustrate the artist’s idea; it describes revolt and a desire to progress in understanding of sexual identities in the western culture; to rise above the biological and cultural determination in the name of respect.

The work presented at this exhibition is a result of intense human body research. The subject is portrait with extreme precision, without seeming morbid or over-sensual. The artist transforms a photograph onto canvas, reinterprets its meaning and shapes into a sophisticated oil painting. That is why her paintings differ from the mimic portrait photography.

Even though the subject of her paintings is the human body, we can describe them as non-figurative. And it is true; the body extends, stretches and disappears. The details disintegrate until they are merged with a single layer of monochrome color. In this way it is almost impossible to identify the gender of the body. It becomes sublime.

Through researching her own physiognomy, the artist questions her identity, seeking answers to diametricality between the male and the female and asks what happens when we go beyond the gender determination and transform into one. By annihilating the gender differences we reach egalitarism. Or as the artist puts it: “It’s a fantasy and at the same time a realistic appeal towards unity between different social genders and towards respect between them.”

What we see on her canvas are outlines of human bodies and their organs. Most of all we notice the basic presence of hands painted in exquisite precision. The hands are grabbing skin and research various parts and organs of the body. With all this, it seems as if they are trying to understand, discover, almost penetrate, devour and possibly posses the bodies, which is impossible. We can also sense care and restlessness in her paintings. Canvases with their cold composition resemble scientific research of hybrids, but on the other hand, a strong emotional presence of the artist is sensed. The desire to communicate about her research through painting leads to phenomenology.

Urša Vidic
“Beyoned”

“Beyoned” è un lemma inesistente, un voluto errore grammaticale.
La parola è composta dall’ingelse beyond (oltre, al di là) e one (uno).
Da artista seriamente coinvolta nelle problematiche di genere, Urša Vidic propone un titolo che è un atto di resistenza, ma anche di volontà di superamento della cultura del sesso dominante – quello maschile – nella cultura occidentale: andare al di là del genere, accettare i generi differenti nel nome del rispetto.

Per questo motivo le opere presentate da Urša Vidic sono frutto di un intenso lavoro di ricerca sul corpo. Un soggetto pittorico trattato con estrema cura e attenzione al dettaglio, ma senza cadere nel morboso o nel sensuale.
Nel puntiglioso processo di produzione delle opere l’artista parte dalla fotografia per poi interpretarla e trasformarla sulla tela in raffinate pitture a olio. Pitture che però divergono dal reale ritratto fotografico.
Nonostante il soggetto sia il corpo, si può parlare di una pittura non-figurativa. Infatti il corpo si allunga, si distorge e svanisce, la pittura perde il dettaglio sino a diventare un’unica campitura di colore in cui è impossibile riconoscere l’identità di genere: il corpo diventa sublime.

Utilizzando la fisicità della Persona, l’artista si domanda cosa sia l’identità, cosa sia la diversità tra uomo e donna, e cosa accade con la perdita del genere (beyond) e la successiva trasformazione in un’unica unità (one). L’annullamento dell’identità corporea porta a una sorta di egualitarismo. L’artista descrive perciò queste opere come “un appello fantastico-idealistico a un rapporto egualitario tra i sessi fondato sul rispetto”.

Concretamente, quello che vediamo sulle tele sono porzioni estese di corpi, interferenze tra corpi. E la fondamentale presenza delle mani, dipinte molto dettagliatamente, che stringono i corpi e la loro pelle per investigarli. Di più: per percepire, scoprire, quasi penetrare, inghiottire e forse prendere possesso – un possesso impossibile – del corpo.
Si riconosce un disagio, un’inquietudine. Le tele sono simili a freddi fotogrammi di una ricerca scientifica sugli ibridi.
Si percepisce la partecipazione emotiva dell’artista. Il bisogno di comunicare la propria ricerca attraverso la produzione pittorica. Ne esce una fenomenologia.


Urša Vidic
“Beyoned”

"Beyoned" je beseda, ki ne obstaja, in je skovana na željo umetnice. Sestavljena je iz angleške besede beyoned, ki pomeni onkraj, preko in besede one, ki jo prevajamo kot eden, enak. Ker Urša Vidic v svojih delih odpira vprašanja, ki se dotikajo odnosa med biološkim in družbenim spolom, predlaga naslov, ki je sočasno delo odpora in hkrati želje, da bi napredovali v razumevanju naših spolnih identitet v zahodni kulturi; dvigniti se nad biološko in družbeno determiniranostjo v imenu spoštovanja.

Delo, ki ga na tej razstavi predstavlja Urša Vidic, je rezultat intenzivnega raziskovanja človeskega telesa. Slikarski subjekt obdeluje z ekstremno natančnostjo, ne da bi pri tem delovalo morbidno ali prekomerno čutno. Med umetniškim ustavrjanjem se umetnica poslužuje fotografije, ki jo na platnu na novo pomensko interpretira in preoblikuje v prefinjeno oljno sliko. Zato se slike razlikujejo od mimetične portretne fotografije.

Kljub temu, da je subjekt slikanja človeško telo, lahko govorimo o njenih slikah kot o nefigurativnih. In res, telo se razteza, podaljšuje in izginja. Detajli na slikah se razkrajajo, dokler se ne združijo v en sam nanos monokromne barve. Na ta način le še s težavo prepoznavamo identiteto spola. Telo postaja sublimno.

Preko raziskovanja lastne fizionomije, umetnica postavlja pod vprašaj njeno identiteto, išče odgovore na diametralnost med moškim in žensko in se sprašuje, kaj se zgodi ko se dvignemo nad spolno določenostjo (beyond) in se transformiramo v enost (one). Z razvrdnotenjem razlik med spoloma, pridemo do egalitarizma. Ali kot pravi umetnica sama: “Gre za fantazijski in hkrati idelastični poziv k enotnsoti med različnimi družbenimi spoli in k spoštovanju med njimi.”

Kar lahko vidimo na njenih platnih so obrisi človeških teles in njihovi organi. Predvsem je opaziti bazično prezenco rok, ki so naslikane z izredno natančnostjo. Roke grabijo kožo in raziskujejo različne dele, organe telesa. Pri vsem tem se zdi, kot da skušajo razumeti, odkrivati, skoraj penetrirati, požirati in mogoče posedovati telesa, kar pa je nemogoče.
Na njenih slikah lahko zaznamo tudi skrb in nemir. Platna spominjajo s svojim hladnim kompozicijskim kadriranjem, na znanstveno raziskovanje hibridov, po drugi strani pa je čutiti močno emocionalno prisotnost umetnice. Želja po komunikaciji o svojem lastnem raziskovanju preko produkcije slikarstva, pripelje do fenomenologie.

On newspaper:
Il Piccolo, cultural page Università, Thursday 6 November 2008

European Art Masters 2008 - Spain

Supported by Presidency of the European Union

Major of the City of Sevilla

Major of the Real Alkazar of Sevilla

Ambassador of Republic of Slovenia in Spain

present

European Art Masters 2008
Manuel Chabrera and Tomo Vran

presented by

Michele Drascek

25 September 2008
at 8pm
Real Alcazar de Sevilla

Sevilla, Spain

more in:

http://www.patronato-alcazarsevilla.es/ http://www.diariodesevilla.es/article/sevilla/238758/abrazo/artistico/entre/sevilla/y/eslovenia.html

BORDERLAND in ESPACIO ARTE ACTUAL - QUITO

New video documentary BORDERLAND, recorded in June 2008 for Aequadorlab, in Espacio Arte Actual, Space for Contemporary Art in Quito, Ecuador. Espacio Arte Actual is the ideal place to turn into practice the idea of favourable meetings between cultural producers, academics and members of the civilian society.
More: http://www.flacso.org.ec/html/arte_actual.html

B O R D E R L A N D

BORDERLAND is a video documentary of what remain of the borderline and the frontier posts between Italy and Slovenia in Gorizia and Nova Gorica after 21st December 2007, date of the entrance of Slovenia in Schengen Accord area.

Borderland in Espacio Arte Actual

The video show the different frontier posts located on the border: the frontier in the centre of the city, that was before pedestrian precinct, became the heavy road traffic way that cross the borderline; the duty commercial frontier, where before all the trucks had to stop, became a fluent traffic road; the frontier that present houses between the Italian and Slovenian frontier posts, so houses that were inside the no-man’s land; the frontier on the route of a country street, that we can recognize only because of an lifted up border barrier presence; the frontier on the railway; the frontier on the top of a hill in a small village or in a valley outside the city; the frontier neglected in the middle of the countryside. Sometimes the fence of the border is still there. Sometimes the borderline is unrecognizable. No one more is standing guard over the border, so the road blocks are empty: new non-places. The video on purpose start with the view of the tangible borderline in the city and end with the view of the abandoned frontier post in the countryside: it’s the same journey – by images – of the history of the border: a border that is vanishing.

BORDERLAND
still from video
production Michele Drascek
photography Maja Slavec
thanks to Ajda Es

AEQUADORLAB WORKSHOP IN FLACSO ECUADOR

Michele Drascek
curator

for

AEQUATORLAB workshop



FLACSO
Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales

25th - 26th June 2008
Quito, Ecuador

Aequatorlab is a project by a group of Latin American artists whose main concern is the relationship between art as cultural production and social issues such as environment, human rights, heritage, alternative political spaces, to name a few. Aequadorlab workshop and exhibition in Quito concerns the topics territory - society - frontiers - geographic imaginary and them relations.

Curator for these topics that concern Italian-Slovenian ex-border, Michele Drascek introduced to the partecipants this important hinge between Ovest and Est Europe with different instruments:

> a short writing on the history of the border till the European Union presidency of Slovenia (1st January - 31st June 2008);

> the showing of three video of the director Anja Medved and produced by Kinoatelje* on the cities Gorizia-Nova Gorizia, the border between them, history and stories:
Moja Meja / Il mio confine (My border), Mesto na travniku / La citta' sul prato (The City on the meadow), Sesivalnica spomina /Ricuciture di memorie (Memories restitched);

> the introduction and the presentation of an extract of the book Confini di celluloide by Moreno Zago, edited by Kinoatelje: a book on the border between cinema and society, fiction and reality to understand the complex life on the frontiers;

> Michele Drascek documentary Borderland - recorded for Aequadorlab in June - on what remain of the borderline and the frontier posts between Gorizia and Nova Gorica after 21st December 2007, date of the entrance of Slovenia in Schengen Accord area.


more info:
http://aequatorlab.blogspot.com/
http://www.flacso.org.ec/html/arte_actual.html

*kinoatelje:
http://www.nostrocine.co.uk/kinoatelje/site/html/php/index.php?mode=showcontent&id=58

news in elcomercio on-line review:
http://www.elcomercio.com/noticiaEC.asp?id_noticia=206355&id_seccion=7

Michele Drascek intervention in AestOvest seminar

European Commission
Observatory on the Balkans
Forum Trentino for Peace and Human Rights
Automomous Province of Trento - Council Department for International Solidarity
International Institute Jacques Maritain
Culture Club Istro Veneta "Istria"

present


AestOvest.

Trespassing in Europe.
The challenges of a common area.

24th June 2008
9:30 am
Regional Council, Sala Tiziano Tessitori
Piazza Oberdan 5, Trieste (Italia)

PROGRAM:

9:30 am - Introduction

LUISA CHIODI, Director Observatory on the Balkans - Rovereto (TN)

9:45 am - Salutations

LIVIO DORIGO, President Culture Club Istro Veneta “Istria”, Trieste
WALTER GODINA, Town councillor for Community Politics , Province of Trieste
ENRICO CONTE, Director Culture Departement, University and Research, Municipality of Trieste

10:15 am- The challenges of a common area
Moderator: FRANCESCA VANONI, Observatory on the Balkans

MARTA VERGINELLA, historian, University of Lubiana
GIAN MATTEO APUZZO, sociologist, University of Trieste
MILAN BUFON, geographer, Coast University - Koper/Capodistria
EMILIO COCCO, researcher, University of Teramo
MILAN RAKOVAC, writer

1 pm- Buffet

2:30 pm - Experiences confrontation
MELITA RICHTER, sociologist

ALEŠ DOKTORIC, President of Kinoatelje - Gorizia
MICHELE DRASCEK, artist and curator

3:45 pm- Presentation of the multimedia DVD

DAVIDE SIGHELE, journalist, Observatory on the Balkans

5 pm - Closing

Free entrance

INFO:
Observatory on the Balkans
Piazza San Marco 7
38068 ROVERETO
Tel: 0464 424230
Fax: 0464 424299
Email: http://it.mc276.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=eventi@osservatoriobalcani.org
Web: http://www.osservatoriobalcani.org/

http://www.osservatoriobalcani.org/article/frontpage/161
http://appuntamenti.osservatoriobalcani.org/content/view/full/7360

video of the intervention on web:

http://www.osservatoriobalcani.org/article/articleview/10515/1/1/

NEW INTERVIEW

Lubiana, capitale culturale.
Michele Drascek,

un artista goriziano fra due paesi.

Lubiana, cultural capital city.
Michele Drascek,
artist from Gorizia among two countries.

interview by Greta Sclaunich

New interview in an italian newspaper about art system in Slovenia and Friuli Venezia Giulia, Lubiana contemporary art situation and next projects like artist and curator.
In Il Messaggero Veneto, Friday 29th May, 2008.

Non clamor, sed amor in ArteIngenua collection

Non clamor, sed amor

digital print on photographic paper

100 x 70 cm.

[© collection ArteIngenua, Brescia]

New work selected in First International Competition ARTEINGENUA Prize 2008:
IMPACT – ART / place + relationships

Now in ArteIngenua collection in Brescia, Italy.

The work is about the artist and his relation with art system. The impact could be the meeting among the artist - his works of art - and the contemporary art system. In this case the meeting could create a contact that develop itself like a mutual relation. But the artist depends on an environment - contemporary art territory - with its structures and strategies. An environment that often becames a desert. The artist, sometimes abandoned [the word "desert" derives from the latin "desere" = "to abandon"] in a complex social system, feels himself in the centre of a non-place. In this elsewhere, in spite of it or maybe because of it, the artist is anyway pushed to discover and invent, to express and narrate, to live and love through the artistic production. He is pushed by the will, the dedication, the engagement, symbolized, with simplicity but also with strength, by the neuralgic centre of human body: the heart. The title Non clamor, sed amor is a sentence by Tommaso da Celano (13th century): "Non clamor, sed amor / non vox, sed votum / non cordula, sed cor" [not clamour sed love / not rumour but dedication / not violence but intelligence]. The photography declares and unfolds the sentence. It's a very demanding declaration that the artist makes to himself. A declaration that, at the same time, is against to another concept of impact: the impact of the surprising istant; the impact of the shockvertising in a kind of artistic production that wants to upset to call people's attention; the impact of the "impact makers" artists; the impact like reduction of artistic production into astonishment.

ART IN LJUBLJANA (click for an exctract)

CultureHunting + ScandicciCultura Firenze + GingerZone
present

Art in Lubiana
a video by Lorenzo Mazza

CulturHunting, a project about the artistic reality of the young european scene, begin with the presentation of the video Art in Ljubljana, including Michele Drascek interview recorded in Ljubljana, December 2007.

Friday 9 May, 2008
at 9 pm
GingerZone,
Piazza Togliatti, Scandicci (Firenze)

http://www.gingerzone.net/
http://www.myspace.com/ginger_zone

Isolated figures (Women)

The subject, the gesture, the wave, the position. A new series of mixed technique paintings to explore the bodily movements and attitudes out of the context and the environment: Isolated figures. The first series portray different women and them gestures - of everyday life or more symbolic - put in a empty-space surroundings. A sense of emptiness is not associated as effect of the black blackground, but rather the probable image of a context that the picture doesn't describe.


I assume a passive attitude. And I wait.
Isolated figures #1
mixed technique on canvas
20 x 15 cm.


Isolated figures (Women) #2
mixed technique on canvas
15 x 20 cm.


Weasel out
Isolated figures (Women) #3
mixed technique on paper
12 x 15 cm.


The thinker
Isolated figures (Women) #4
mixed technique on paper
10 x 7 cm.


Untitled
Isolated figures (Women) #5
mixed technique on canvas
15 x 20 cm.

Michele Drascek article for Drustvo Vita Activa

The gesture of the artist.
The pediluvium of Pippa Bacca
in
Drustvo Vita Activa

The main purpose of the Association for Promotion of Equality and Plurality Vita Activa is to promote the equality of human rights and basic freedoms regardless of gender, sexual orientation, religion, language, political or other belief, ethnicity, social background, education or other personal characteristics.

Drustvo Vita Activa published Michele Drascek The gesture of the artist. The pediluvium of Pippa Bacca, an article about the performance of the Italian artist in Ljubljana, during the Brides on Tour project stop Slovenia.

link:
http://www.drustvo-vitaactiva.si/9722/496101.html?*session*id*key*=*session*id*val*
http://www.drustvo-vitaactiva.si/59601/index.html?*session*id*key*=*session*id*val*
http://www.drustvo-vitaactiva.si/401.html?*session*id*key*=*session*id*val*

photo Maja Slavec

Michele Drascek

The gesture of the artist. The pediluvium of Pippa Bacca

The 31 December 2007 I received a call from Milano, so I maked Pippa's acquaitance and I started my participation in Pippa Bacca and Silvia Moro Brides on Tour project. She called me as an artist, because she was looking for the support of the artists, also to create a network amongst them. Like this I began to work like curator for the last stop of the tour in Italy, Gorizia, and for the first stop abroad, in Ljubljana. We wrote a lot of e-mails to each other, and this was another way to feel her belief: the trust in the others. This was her fundamental topic in the project. She was a trustful person and she believed that - like she said - "If I put one's trust in the people, I think I could receive good things and trust from the people". She used to travel hitchhiking in all her life and she choose to do the same for Brides on Tour: another attestation of faithfulness in the other people, in human beings and, more, in countries that lived or live conflicts. And she travelled dressed like a bride: white, light, womanly, "generator of new life equal to peace, love and purity". But Brides on Tour wasn't only travelling around dressed like brides. The foundations of the project were the performances: if Silvia Moro met people that sewed on her dress to bring with her a sign of every single city and country, Pippa Bacca met the midwifes for her washing-feet performance, a meaningfull gesture, "a tribute to the women that bring life, the ancient gesture to wash them the feet with the water and wipe them the feet with my dress voile" as she pointed out. I organized and then I saw two times this performance, in the Natural Birth Room inside the Hospital of Gorizia and in Alkatraz Galerija in Ljubljana. It was a gentle and poetic gesture; a rite - the pediluvium -indeed. The midwifes experienced at the same time the secular practice for guests in ancient civilizations and Middle Ages, and the ritual of the religious liturgy (a trasversal ritual present in different religions). Pippa poured warm water into her basin and began to wash the feet of the midwife in silence, then she started to ask to the midwife experiences, memories, feelings in her particular profession. At the end she wiped the feet with her voile and put on the feet lavender essence oil. A calm, still and deep atmosphere involved totaly the midwife. Naturally, it's come back to me at once the Gospel of John (13, 1-15): After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girdled. And yes, she really taked off the wipe that during the washing feet she girdled. This is the more strong image that I remember of Pippa Bacca. The gesture of the artist: the relation between the women bodies, the hands (to do) and the feet (to walk), the narrations. An aesthetic and human experience in a perfromance that didn't forget the ethics significance.

When she was in my home, doing needlework, I asked if she wanted to listen to some particular music: "Sì, vorrei ascoltare La Pastorale di Beethoven!" (Yes, I would like to listen to The Pastoral by Beethoven!). So I took the Symphony No. 6 in F major (Op. 68) and we listened to it. Pippa Bacca chose the music that was in principle the empirical description of her way to interpret and experience Art, in fact the composer wrote that this Symphony is "a matter more of feeling than of painting in sounds".

The shock caught all of us, we were frozen in front of the news. The end of the tour was a product of the tragic meeting of the trust and the inhuman in Human Being. They say that the world needs pity. I say that immediacy is a fraud (Dietrich Bonhoffer) and therefore the end of the travel is not the end of the project: if before the project was speaking and put forward a concept of life to the people, now the project is shouting and screaming.

Against the Unknowns / Sconfini (Beyond the Borders). Paintings.

A series of dyptichs for Sconfini (Beyond the Borders), a group show of five artists from five different Countries of Estern Europe curated by Giovanna Felluga, part of the exhibition Against the Unknowns in Public Space of Contemporary Art Villa Toppo Florio, Buttrio, Udine (Italia) in March 2008.
www.spacbuttrio.it/eventi/ci/ci.html


Public Space of Contemporary Art
Villa Toppo Florio

The artist presents three pictorial works, diptychs and one installation at the exhibition Sconfini - Contro Ignoti (Beyond the Borders – Against the Unknowns). Small dimensions of the paintings show the overwhelming care for the detail that the artist has been demonstrating since his early works. "The pleasure of working on small dimensions is a challenge, a clear refusal towards the art as a shock," says Drascek.
The viewer has to discover the work of art by getting closer, dedicating an adequate amount of time to perceive the energy and the message that it emanates, as if he would create an intimate and private relation with the painting. All three diptychs become small catalysers filled with preciousness and mystery. Who is the slave of corruption and the installation The Unknowns don't show themselves have been created explicitly for the exhibition. The political theme of global corruption is of great interest for the artist. Every year he confronts himself with this theme by consulting various online portals, unfortunately still not well known to a wider public, where he draws the inspiration. To convey the corruption perceptions index on a geographical level is one of the studies carried out by Transparency International (www.trasparency.org) that visually expresses the main theme of the exhibition in a clear way.
In the first painting, two images of children clash: on one hand, the malnutrition of Third World Countries compared with the obesity and the supply of “laboratory” food that is ingested daily in the western societies, on the other, two demonstrations of extreme consequences to which an inherent corruption of the global system can lead.
In other two diptychs and in the installation, moreover, all united under the same title The Unknowns don't show themselves, Michele Drascek recreated an atmosphere, a blurry environment where one can catch a glimpse of the Unknowns, perceive their presence, imagine their action, even if they stay in the twilight. The use of neon blue, as a constituent element of the installation, creates a “cooling” effect of the exhibition area that drives the observer inside a mysterious aura, in a world made of shadows and landscapes, similar to the one depicted on the panels of the work of art itself. Drascek says: "You cannot tell who is corrupted, yet one is aware of their presence that has become even habitual: known, perhaps morally condemned, but integrated, tolerated or even justified...because, like Honoré de Balzac wrote in "Father Goriot": "Corruption is the weapon of superfluous mediocrity".
Giovanna Felluga


The Unknowns don't show themselves dyptich
acrylic and oil on canvas
30 x 20 cm.


The trail of the Cirrupt dyptich
acrylic and oil on canvas
30 x 20 cm


The sons of corruption. Who is the slave of corruption? dyptich
collage, acrylic, oil and charcoal; paper on canvas
15 x 20 cm.
20 x 15 cm.

Against the Unknowns / Sconfini (Beyond the Borders). Installation.

The new full-scale light installation The Unknowns don't show themselves for Sconfini (Beyond the Borders), part of the exhibition Against the Unknowns in Public Space of Contemporary Art Villa Toppo Florio, Buttrio, Udine (Italia) in March 2008.

www.spacbuttrio.it/eventi/ci/ci.html

The installation The Unknowns don't show themselves have been created explicitly for the exhibition.

Michele Drascek recreated an atmosphere, a blurry environment where one can catch a glimpse of the Unknowns, perceive their presence, imagine their action, even if they stay in the twilight. The use of neon blue, as a constituent element of the installation, creates a “cooling” effect of the exhibition area that drives the observer inside a mysterious aura, in a world made of shadows and landscapes, similar to the one depicted on the panels of the work of art itself.

Giovanna Felluga

The Unknowns don't show themselves
site specific installation
plexiglas, print, light
90 x 120 cm. each plate

The Unknowns don't show themselves
full-scale light installation

Ho kryptos tes kardias anthropos (The hidden man of the heart)

Concept and development: Michele Drascek and Maja Slavec
Photography: Maja Slavec http://maja-slavec.blogspot.com/

Curator for the Brides on tour* stops in Gorizia (Italia) e Ljubljana (Slovenia), Michele Drascek, in collaboration with the photographer Maja Slavec, produced a work for the slovenian stage of the tour and for the final exhibition that will take place in Byblos Art Gallery, Verona (Italia).

Ho Kryptos tes kardias anthrophos (The hidden man of the heart) [I Pt 1,4] is a sentence that suggests to the women to take care of the hidden being that they bring inside of them. Two brides, two hidden beings.

[*Brides on tour is a unic and one-time trip of two brides thumbing through the Mediterranean area [bridesontour.fotoup.net]. Along the route they will stop to meet artists, associations , local craftswoman, museums and foundations, but also cultural and pacifist association with whom they will make some symbolic acts like the feet washing, the daily dress washing and also an interaction with them job. The purpose is to explore and raise every possible attestation with videos, photos and written diaries]

What is white? notebook project. January 15, 2008 - May 15, 2008

WORK IN PROGRESS!

Materials:
WHAT IS WHITE? Notebook:
black cover, white letters on black background, 9,3 x 14,3 cm. each.
WHAT IS WHITE? T-Shirt:
white cotton, white letters on black background, size S and L.
WHAT IS WHITE? Box:
white box, white letters on black background, size derives from numbers of notebooks completed.
WHAT IS WHITE? Photographies:
colour photographies, photographic paper , 21 x 27 cm. each.

All designs of WHAT IS WHITE? notebook project is a gafo/gabrielli fabrizio design.

The very first moment I saw the topic of “WHAT IS WHITE?” Contest, I immediately took my notebook and wrote the first thing that crossed my mind: Sophie Scholl die Weiße Rose (The WHITE rose) resistance group student from Munich executed by the Gestapo in 1943 This question swiftly brought to my mind - stream of consciousness – a photo of a young female student Sophie Scholl, published in the book The White Rose which I read in my first university yearS. My mental association is one strong and complex memory. What mental associations will others activate? Before I commence my work, I write a lot. Writing is a fundamental step in my creative process. The contest raised a question, I answered in writing and the idea for the WHAT IS WHITE? Notebook project was born. The curiosity, to find out from other people what is their first association/idea/answer that comes to their mind (the idea of passing your provocation on others), making it a survey tool for Terminal00, brought me to Ljubljana. I was walking about with my first notebook, asking people to answer a query, on the spot and everywhere: in bars, libraries, during a dinner, before a concert, on the street, etc. My notebook has now a plentiful collection of impressions. The idea – already in course - is to make a small library of notebooks, linking various Balkan metropolises: in each of these cities, there will be one “WHAT IS WHITE?” notebook in circulation. Collaborators with notebooks are ready to ask the question, documenting the answers of the local people. The simultaneous circulation of notebooks in different metropolises is a part of the project idea: to cover such a wide and complex geographical, social, geopolitical and cultural area like the Balkans, with the local circulation of a traditional documenting tool like a notebook. Literally, these notebooks physically cover a geographical space! Information Technologies (email, websites, etc.) would be easier and faster to manage, but decontextualised and therefore fruitless. Then there is handwriting: every personal and peculiar mark of the interviewees, on the entire Balkan territory, which is still politically difficult, will be a part of this unique collection. What a strong metaphor! Once filled in, notebooks will be sent back by mail to the point of collection: Ljubljana, Slovenia. The notebooks will be packaged in a “WHAT IS WHITE?” box, which will be sent to London. This will represent another visual tool during the transport phase that will have an active role of asking the question, creating curiosity. The result of the project will be left to judgement directly to the public: notebooks of different origins will be exhibited in a unique small set and exposed on a white bookshelf (I will construct an hand made one), ready for consultation and reading. The challenges are numerous: with what differences – minor or relevant or more, conflicting – will answer the public to the provocation in various Balkan countries? What difficulties will the compilation of the notebook encounter? Therefore, how long will the filling in take in different metropolises? Will there be a constant recurrence of answers? Will there be new curiosities discovered? Etc. The project is accompanied with a “WHAT IS WHITE?” T-shirt. To wear it is like to ask the question. This is another contribution to evaluate the curiosity of people, sent to all collaborators of every metropolis, who will have to document with a photograph, in a public or private place, the presence of this simple visual suggestion in their city. All the photos will then be exposed together in the library of notebooks. Some people, who saw me wearing the t-shirt, already asked me what it is about: "It’s about responding!" Therefore, I collect more ideas on the subject.
[* It was required to write all answers in English language, and where not possible, in the language of the place of origin.]

Notebook

black cover, white letters on black background

9,3 x 14,3 cm. each

[gafo/gabrielli fabrizio design]

Box
white box, white letters on black background
size derives from numbers of notebooks completed
[gafo/gabrielli fabrizio design]

T-Shirt
white cotton, white letters on black background
size S and L
[gafo/gabrielli fabrizio design]

The Circle: parachute and smile. Or how to protect yourself in the Art System

The new project includes a series of light source performances and photographies. The main theme is the Artist, the surroundings and circumstances of the life of the Artist inside the Art System. March 2008.


The Circle: parachute
digital print on photographic paper
100 x 70 cm.


The Circle: smile
digital print on photographic paper
100 x 70 cm.