Headline & Editorial
Last Issue: #31 The Journey
Twenty thousand leagues under the sea by Jules Verne (1825-1905). This book is the answer to my thoughts on travel. It certainly anticipated the saga...Read more
Andre Komatsu is the winner of Premio illy for SustainArt at ARCO Madrid 2011
-> Andre Komatsu is the winner of Premio illy for SustainArt at ARCO Madrid 2011The Brasilian artist Andre Komatsu is the winner of the fourth edition of Premio illy for SustainArt. The prize was assigned today in the morning in the illy´s exhibition space, designed by the world famous artist Tobias Rehberger as integral part of ARCO Madrid 2011, the international Contemporary Art fair taking place from 16th to 20th February ...
continue..Adam Wallacavage takes over São Paulo Summer with octopus chandeliers
-> Adam Wallacavage takes over São Paulo Summer with octopus chandeliersIt's summer in São Paulo and the city is hotter than ever. What better way to kick off the 2011 art season than the opening of Adam Wallacavage’s show at Choque Cultural, one of my favourite art galleries in town. Co-headlining the show is Rafael Silveira, one of most talked about newcomers from the Brazilian art scene. His work combines roc...
continue..Fashion spirit in London…
-> Fashion spirit in London...Fashion air in the London winter. In the first months of 2011 some of the most important museums of the city have given space to innovation in the fashion field, involving of course design, art and history. One of the “not to be missed” events, that I warmly suggest and that gained so far an overwhelming public success is Future Beauty: 30 Year...
continue..“Rehearsing”: an overview of the Biennale in Shanghai
-> "Rehearsing": an overview of the Biennale in ShanghaiEver since in 2000 the Biennale of Shanghai has opened to international participants and curators, and more importantly, to any art techniques, while the first two editions were exclusively reserved to traditional Chinese techniques as oil, watercolour painting and ink. This event has become a stage for any possible art experimentation and at the s...
continue..Marina Abramovic “reloaded”.
-> Marina Abramovic "reloaded".When she was a child she did not like herself. She had a huge nose, an ugly hair cut and wore orthopaedic shoes. And she was fascinated with Brigitte Bardot. Every time she asked her mother to get her nose operated, she got a slap in her face. So she made a plan: spinning around, very very fast, falling on the edge of the bed, that was sharp, break...
continue..Real art in a virtual space: VIP Art Fair
-> Real art in a virtual space: VIP Art FairAlways the big event of a fair is an appointment that for art experts can't be missed. It is marked in good advance on their calendar like a celebration, usually characterised by the city where it takes place: Madrid, Basel, London, Turin, Miami. But for the first VIP Art Fair's edition you don't need to book a ticket, an hotel or to move from h...
continue..Soma in Berlin. When Rudolph, the red nosed reindeer became a drugdealer…
-> Soma in Berlin. When Rudolph, the red nosed reindeer became a drugdealer…A scientist who is also one of the most prominent contemporary artists in the world, an experiment which crosses the borders of science by landing in the realm of art. This is SOMA, the successful exhibition by Carsten Höller hosted at the Hamburger Bahnhof (Museum für Gegenwart) in Berlin. What a perfect start, I thought, for my first blog se...
continue..2011: let´s celebrate the 10th anniversary of illywords!
-> 2011: let´s celebrate the 10th anniversary of illywords!2011 is a milestone for illywords. This year we are having the tenth anniversary of the magazine and we would like to warmly celebrate it on our illywords blog which is young but nevertheless able to reach a wide group of friends. To keep track of some illywords’ thoughts of the past ten years, we came up with the idea of developing in our blog ...
continue..Paris and art
-> Paris and artParis pétillante! Paris is a sparkling city as far as contemporary art is concerned these days. Besides, the very cold weather pushes people to enjoy the warmth of the museums. The longest queues in town can be found outside the Musee d'Art Moderne that hosts an amazing retrospective of Basquiat, the talented Puerto Rican/Haitian/American supersta...
continue..Culture as a vision
Magazine -> #29 What's your colour?Any person, group of people, city, country, or company is sometimes identified with a colour; tell us a colour: red, yellow, green, blue…. If I should try to describe illy I’d say red… probably for the red logo, a symbol of passion and love that has a strong goal. Berlin would be described as green city, as the hope of a united country,...
continue..The kaleidoscope of art
Magazine -> #29 What's your colour?Blue like the women Yves Klein once stuck to a large sheet of paper so they could leave their marks, after every part of their body associated with fertility – breasts, stomach and thighs – had been painted in bright colours. The resulting Anthropométries were monuments to life, a combination of substance and flesh on the one hand, and sky and...
continue..Reaching the light
Magazine -> #29 What's your colour?What’s the most important life lesson that colour has taught you? I think it was a study of a Venetian painter from the 1950s, Mario De Luigi, an artist who unfortunately has been forgotten by many. Reading through his notes and writings, I came across a statement of his that said: “All I do is take away colour to get to the light”. It was...
continue..Non è facile essere donna nel mondo dell’arte!
-> Non è facile essere donna nel mondo dell'arte!Leggo sul magazine Io Donna (il femminile del Corriere della Sera) che Angela Vettese, critica d’arte, è appena stata premiata come figura di spicco al femminile. La Giuria internazionale del Veuve Cliquot Award ha deciso di assegnarle il premio 2010 “al valore artistico femminile”. Sorrido mentre leggo l'intervista ad Angela Vettese (di P...
continue..illywords at Bocconi University
-> illywords at Bocconi UniversityMilan, 2.30 p.m., Bocconi University: Communication and Events Management course. I have just come out of the presentation that Carlo Bach, art director of illywords, and I were here to give. We presented the last issue, "Conviviality". There were more than 30 students inside and their coordinator, Lia Zarantonello. I do not know if we have been...
continue..China art
Magazine -> #12 Waiting for ChinaRealism, cynicism, tradition rejected yet yearned after and sought for. These would appear to be the catchwords characterising the latest, burgeoning generation of Chinese artist and the first to have been seen in Europe when Harald Szeemann brought a small party of these new artists to the Venice Biennale in 1999. They then looked to us a bit p...
continue..798, the art factory
Magazine -> #12 Waiting for ChinaConcept artist, painter, sculptor, designer, and calligrapher, Huang Rui is one of the founders of Le Stelle, the first avant-garde group in China. Founded in the eighties, the group challenged the strictures and prohibitions of officialdom against the creative freedom of artists. After living in Japan for ten years, he is now back on his home tur...
continue..…Artistic movement
Magazine -> #10 Nomadic knowledge“Fare forth” is the overwhelming imperative of our times. Each according to her/his life style - on a white sofa fitted with wheels, in a shabby dinghy, or playfully in a portable pool like those invented by Andrea Zittel for personalised caravans in the nineties. We’re nomads, be it for pleasure or out of necessity. It’s a paradox, but ...
continue..Fear of not succeeding
-> Fear of not succeedingThe countdown has started towards issue #28... "che emozione!" Cut, add, translate, check, cut again... that doesn’t work… now it is ok! We lack a cover but Pietro (Corraini) is finalizing it and will be good for sure. The feather is growing and at the same time grows the fear of not suceeding. This is the most critical phase w...
continue..Art + Activism = freedimensional (fD)
-> Art + Activism = freedimensional (fD)freeDimensional (fD) is an international network that advances social justice by hosting activists in art spaces and using cultural resources to strengthen their work. illywords shares their global support of young artists. Here is a video that introduces fD... (more...)...
continue..Art Fairs? Impressive
-> Art Fairs? ImpressiveI have just arrived at the Arco Art Fair in Madrid. Have you ever visited an art fair? If the answer is no, then DO IT! You will enter a never-seen-before world. An art fair is more than a solo exposition or one artist's performance. It is a "cosmo" around which several artists, galleries, interests, hopes and emotions frantically revolve. ...
continue..The Automatic “refresh” button
-> The Automatic “refresh” buttonIssue #14’s theme was “refresh”. As in, the green button with two arrows at the top of Internet Explorer that is going extinct thanks to auto-updating streams. In 2005, to discuss the question of being “always on” was highly perceptive; it was pre iphone and before we could truly speak of being “always connected”. I read through the...
continue..Biennale twice the size
Magazine -> #13 Conscious project2 questions to the 2 organisers of a unique, 2-yearly event: the Venice Biennale. What's art's role in building up awareness on such major issues as the environment, human rights, social development? Maria de Corral: Today's artists do not share a style, but an attempt to build personal aesthetic worlds, to establish their own formal needs, to ...
continue..Real presence
Magazine -> #13 Conscious projectnKA | ICA Indipendent Centre of Art Beograd Director: Biljana Tomic Art director and workshop manager: Dobrila Denegri In 2001, straight after the arrival of democracy in Serbia, the idea took off for a great meeting of young REAL PRESENCE artists. Biljana Tomic and I asked young emerging artists from all over Europe to come to Belgrade an...
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