Perugi artecontemporanea
Blaise Drummond: Forest Park Kensuke Koike: Stretching For Dummies
curated by Alfredo Sigolo
Perugi artecontemporanea opens the new exhibition season with the first solo show in Italy by the Irish artist Blaise Drummond. Drummond works with installation, drawing, painting and sculpture. We might define his work as a fascinating and curious mingling (or contamination) between an Anglo-Saxon based Pop and an almost bucolic Irish or Anglo-Saxon culture. The Irish character can be seen in all its vigour in Drummond. It certainly didn't need us to discover the quality and interest which the new generation of Irish artists are generating (we only need to think of the fantastic pavilion at the last Venice Biennale), but we believe that Drummond gives us a glimpse of original and powerful aesthetic and conceptual developments, making us consider the new generational directions for Irish artists, ready to present themselves on the international contemporary art market in a way which is original, independent and convincing. Drummond will present a single large wall piece for his first Italian exhibition. It is difficult to define it as just a painting, it would be limiting and embarrassing. Drummond has exhibited in numerous international galleries (Rubicon in Dublin; Aliceday in Brussels; Lovenbruck in Paris; Mary Goldman in Los Angeles) and in Irish and French museums.
With the first solo show by Kensuke Koike (Nagoya, 1980) the galleria Perugi, ever committed to the exploration of the new generation of the 1980's, turns its attention to video art. Keep your eyes peeled to spot the trick! Koike deals in trickery, but he stands up to the slick and sophisticated special effects of cinema using a dirty technique, apparently crude and with an amateurish flavour. In the age of the pervasiveness of the media, making things spectacular is a form of language.
Therefore it is necessary to find a place for it on the everyday plain of the surreal. This approach of weak video and low-cost production critically interprets the planetary phenomenon of amateur rofessionalism: using equipment which is portable and technologically advanced, an army of pro-am artists daily fill sites, blogs and hard discs with photo and films. Stretching for dummies was born from the possibility to video-document unusual athletic performances using simple trick techniques from second-rate films. I can do it. Well enough.
The power of gravity and physical limitations do not present an obstacle in a daily life where the medium is the message (McLuhan). Koike offers practical instructions on how to easily set up fake exhibitions, all-stories to show off to your friends- indeed for dummies, for non-experts and non-athletes, for normal people, possibly awkward and rigid like mannequins. Playing with the meta-linguistic drift, stretching returns to the meaning of the verb to stretch, lengthen, put in tension: with a post-production like style Koike re-constructs the set of the famous Portrait of the Painter's Mother (1871), by the American James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Lover (after Mother) is a distorted version of the original with freakish and grotesque effects.
0pening: Saturday 30th September 2006 Until: 20th November 2006 Address: Perugi rtecontemporanea via Giordano Bruno 24 b, 35124 Padova Italy Hours: monday -saturday 3.00 - 8.00 pm - mornings and holidays by appointment Info: Ph. and F. +39 049 8809.507 www.perugiartecontemporanea.com
# Jannis Kounellis at Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro in Milan Characteristic of the Milanese engagement is connected to his ability to make use of the particular space of the Foundation, an ex turbine factory, through his unmistakable material lexicon, often made up of living elements, built with an aesthetic that is both tenacious and lucid, going beyond painting and sculpture and which allows him to obtain a drama solid and pregnant of meaning.The exhibition displays many of his 'historical' works, which are closely interconnected to these large installations. Until 11 Febrary 2007. http://www.undo.net/cgi-bin/press.pl?id=1158918838
# Carlos Garaicoa "Yo no quiero ver mas a mis vecinos" (They wish to see me no longer): seventh contemporary artwork at Castello di Ama, Gaiole in Chianti (Siena). A labyrinth of low, scable walls built of various materials (from stone, to cement and iron) faithfully reproduces 9 of the walls that once cut off, or continue to do so, one segment of humanity from another. After the Berlin Wall, for example, one confronts the Great Wall of China, then the security wall of Ramallah, and the bleak wall dividing the two Koreas. Garaicoa was preceded by: Michelangelo Pistoletto (2000), Daniel Buren (2001), Giulio Paolini (2002), Kendell Geers (2003), Anish Kapoor (2004) and Chen Zhen (2000-2005). A collaboration with Galleria Continua. http://www.undo.net/cgi-bin/press.pl?id=1158919688
# Startmilano On Friday 22 September the galleries participating in Start launch their artistic season with openings starting at noon and ending at 9 p.m. and thus begin 3 days of Contemporary Art in Milan. Start-milano reiterates its effort towards the increase of attention that is paid to Contemporary Art in
Milan and is helped in its effort by the Provincia di Milano, in collaboration with the Circolo Filologico Milanese and the MiArt. It will be possible to find artworks by renown personalities, or recently shown in museum but also site-specific installations and a rich selection of Video works.