artists in black…

Had dinner with Michelangelo Pistoletto and Germano Celant…no, not just me but all the UNIDEE residents (14) and Pistoletto’s rather marvellous wife Maria. Celant for those who don’t know is one of the most eminent Italian curators working today, He has been senior curator for the Guggenheim in New York, and also curates the Fondazione Prada art collection.

igloo (1969) by Mario Merz, part of Arte Povera collection at Cittadellarte

If that was not enough, he also named, wrote about and curated much of the Arte Povera movement in the 1960′s, which for me remains the last movement of contemporary art from Italy of any real impact.

men in black, M Pistoletto and G Celant

Anyway, there they were, the old school, all dressed in black, they have both met everyone, been everywhere and and done everything. Celant entertains us with stories of early encounters with Gordon Matta Clark (he happened to have access to an abandoned building in Genoa, and Matta Clark was looking for a building…) amongst others. He is generous with his time and remained with us late into the night eating all together in Cittadellarte’s courtyard. These are always my favourite moments of the residence, in these moments i feel lucky to be here eating, drinking, talking into the night…and if you dine with Pistoletto, there is always excellent red wine and plenty of it!!

in on the joke…

…another nice moment during the UNIDEE residency…Michelangelo Pistoletto, totally in on the joke as Kosta Tonev, a UNIDEE artist in residence interviews him about a particularly ugly pair of shoes he (Kosta) bought in Biella because they were decorated with a symbol that looked suspiciously like Michelangelo Pistoletto’s own symbol for the Third Paradise.  Pistoletto (un prompted), an old pro in the art of performance and irony, answered all questions deadly seriously but with a glint in his eye, managing to juggle the absurd with high art…it was a very nice moment…

below is an excerpt from Kosta’s film:

“I am interested in the discrepancy between the intentions of the author and the meanings that are expressed unintentionally. I want to challenge the concept of authorship often seen as uniqueness and originality.” Kosta Tonev

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spaces and art…

…one of the many beautiful spaces at the Fondazione Pistoletto where i currently live and work…

…on the left window you can see an image of a work by Pistoletto, i happened to be around while it was being made a few years back, i was asked to document the process for another project. Thought i would post that wee film here…

the making of Woollen – La mela reintegrata (Woollen – The Reinstated Apple)

contextualising my sitiuation…

Just to give a idea of the background of the Fonadazione Pistoletto where i spend so much of my time…here is Michelangelo Pistoletto, showing UNIDEE around some of his works dating from the late ’50′s till the present day…

He explained how the mirror works evolved from early self portrait paintings…FYI the mirror paintings are very numerous and MP is always producing new ones. He tends to use people in and around the foundation as subjects…am still waiting to be asked!!!…

…the division and multiplication of mirrors…

“Venere degli stracci” (Venus of Rags)

Explaining the the thought process that led from Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man to the creation of the Segno Arte (Art Sign)…

stop motion of rotazione dei corpi:

At night we were invited to dinner by Michelangelo and Maria. At first i was a little disappointed because they chose to have it in our workspace and we are already here ALL the time!!!! However i was wrong, sharing food has such transformational powers, having dinner around a huge table (there were 25 of us) can really change the atmosphere of place, it was truly a social and happy occasion. Maria (MP’s) wife did the cooking, and she is great, having lived in the middle east for a few years and also having travelled extensively, her food is always abundant, adventurous and REALLY good. For example among the many dishes, we had Serbian meatballs, Iranian style rice, hummus…you get the picture…

more EZ…

So following on from the previous post and the aforementioned 100yrs celebration exhibition…

here are some images from the setting up of the show…

That is Matteo Piazza, kneeling on the left, he is a proper photographer, he uses a 40 mega pixel hasselblad camera!!! and spends a really long time on each shot…and he takes some really nice photographs…

There are huge rooms full of these wooden crates in Zegna, they are used to store wool thread. I designed an installation using them for habituszegna in Trivero. Some of them are almost 100 years and you can trace the different ages by how the E Z logo is branded onto the boxes.

weird and wonderful skiwear from the ’70′s…

the giant mirrored apple is an artwork by Michelangelo Pistoletto