Contemporary March in Madrid

Contemporary March in Madrid

This month we recommend two exhibitions in art galleries in Madrid: 

At Gallery Silvestre (39 Calle Doctor Fourquet), the Israeli artist Ella Littwitz is showing her project called "Everybody knows that the boat is leaking" and it's your last chance to visit it (until March 22nd).
"The raising of Lod's mosaic revealed a trace: that of someone who was there in the third century, taking care of setting the tiles that adorned the floor of that patrician house. The bed of the mosaic, found by chance, showed the negative of a foot. There literally appeared a trace of the process, which was revealed as an open book. Here a scroll shows in this room the letter of a lay: in situ, ex situ, non situ ... Both figures are prepared to transport of a possible reading to another, from the roots to the tips of a story a thousand times told, and started again. A story we all know and seems to have no beginning or end."

Also to be highlighted, the exhibition at Gallery Combustion Espontánea (20 calle Amaniel). It is called "The Fourth Wall", related to the fictional reality of Din Matamoro & Alan Sastre and it runs until April 1st. 

pic @combustionespontanea

Museums:

In Caixa Forum, we recommend the retrospective of the works by the American photographer Philippe Halsman. He is known for the portraits he made of celebrities like Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe during the 20th century. 

London March Art Guide

London March Art Guide

Marine Tanguy gives us three recommendations for an arty month of March in London!

- Royal Academy of Arts: Not just for the Royal Academy of Arts members' garden (the nicest hideaway) but for its two current exhibitions. In a time when society is divided, the Royal Academy of Arts is showing 'America After The Fall' - an exhibition discussing America in the wake of the Wall Street Crash bearing anxiety, nostalgia and pessimism - next to its second exhibition 'Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932', which completely in contrast, depicts artists and people in hope of a better society. In both exhibitions, artists capture and record the mood of the times and these moods evolve: while the USA will soon recover with jazz and a world of colours, the Soviet Union artists will lose their freedom of expression and idealistic visions. 

- Jennifer Abessira, Camden Collective: My team and I have spent quite a few days in overalls painting a room entirely pitch black (from floor to pipes to ceiling!) to feature the next project of our artist Jennifer Abessira. Jennifer loves movies and refers to her favourite screened moments in her art. We wanted to recreate this full vision in a room of its own. It hopefully carries a little Tel Aviv back to grey London. Drop me a line if you wish to visit it! 

- Get out of London! Jump on a train and head to Fareham to see the studio of artist Alexandra Lethbridge. You will encounter an endless archive of found photographs, archival imagery and constructed images of her own making. You will be inspired by her playful and experimental approach and you lose track of fiction and reality. Heaven. 

Giuseppe Penone Show At The Fendi White Space

Giuseppe Penone Show At The Fendi White Space

The exhibition “Matrice” by Giuseppe Penone is presented by Fendi in its headquarter at the Palazzo della Civiltà and is curated by Massimiliano Gioni, the well known italian director of the New Museum in New York. The famous luxury brand Fendi is now beginning a new art commitment, opening its white marble large space to art shows and events. The “Palazzo della Civiltà” is a 1930-40s spectacular building that has been recently rented by the fashion company as a great symbol of its roman origin. The result is amazingly powerful, impressive and meaningful.


First of all Penone is, without any doubt, one of the purest artists we ever had in Italy: his research on the vulnerability of nature and on natural shapes was persued since the beginning of his career in the 1960s (when he took part to the avant-guarde movement of Arte Povera) to the present. 
The most spectacular artwork of the exhibition called “Matrice” is a 30 meter-long sculpture in which the trunk of a tree has been carved out following one of its growth rings, bringing to surface the past of the tree as well as its evolution and crystallized by a bronze mold which freezes nature’s flow of life. The romanticism of Penone’s art is even more evident in the delicate “Acacia Thorns-Contact”: a canvas where the image-shape of a person’s face is drawn with hundreds of thorns, sticked on the canvas surface. It represents traces of men absence, like footprints, but way more evocative. That’s why the union between Penone’s evocative works and the large white and bright square-space of the building is a great description of an allegory, of absence. 


What I mostly loved about the exhibition is the contrast between the smoothness of the white marble all over the space and the organic ruggedness of Penone’s materials like wood trunks. The same contrast between the bright glow of the space and the opacity of the sculptures or between the geometrical perfection of the walls, windows and rooms and the curvy fluidity of the branches coming out from Penone’s tree-shaped sculpture. That is metaphorically the same contrast between time and nature or between human history and natural transience. 

London February Art Guide

London February Art Guide

February is cold, rainy and a little melancholic over here in London. An artistic escape is definitely needed to make it through this month! 
 
Put your trainers on and follow this list of four across my favourite city:  
 
David Hockney at The Tate Britain- #davidhockney almost crashed my Instagram feed last week but how nice to see so many vivid colours, bold compositions and familiar people on his huge canvases! Hockney is a strong inspiration for us at MTArt as he proudly supported the thinking of art engaging everyone, not just the few who form part of the art world. Sometimes mocked for this statement, and what was perceived as naive simplicity, he deserves this ambitious retrospective. 

Mohammed Qasim Ashfaq at Hannah Barry - you will face an enormous five metre orbital drawing, black, in graphite and made by the artist's hand. The black graphite challenges your experience of the space and absorbs all surrounding. This is exactly what I love in contemporary artists from our generation - they understand and react to the wider context of the work, that is, its architecture. I feel it's about time for architects and artists, or someone curious in both fields, to show how important this dialogue is to the creative field. 

Rob Branigan’s Studio - I cannot spend a week in London without visiting a studio. This is where I source most of my inspiration and where I have my most insightful conversations. The studio I would currently recommend is that of artist Rob Branigan - a 'geek', as he describes himself, who understand both the pure technical side of his works (the execution is near perfection) but also the playful search for a meaning in everyday materials. His art holds what I most love about surrealism, a valuable escape from our serious and gloomy world. 

National Gallery, Room 41 - Bathers at Asnières by artist Georges Seurat.
I spend every Saturday morning at The National Gallery, always going for different works, times and rooms. This month, and from the need of sun in this time of change, I recommend looking at George Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières. This painting is very meaningful to me personally as I see both an artist trying to innovate technically (this painting marks the very birth of pointillism) but also challenging the status quo: portraying the working class over the bourgeoisie and giving them a say via his art -  voicing the voiceless. 

What to wear in the street? Art, of course!

What to wear in the street? Art, of course!

During Men’s Fashion Week in Paris, Louis Vuitton presented its Ready-to-Wear collection which included the anticipated collaboration with NYC-based street-wear brand SUPREME. 

Vuitton, a veteran of the luxury industry, has paved the way for collaborations between art and fashion. This modus operandi has become integrated in the brands DNA, and has led to collaborations with artists such as Takashi Murakami and Cindy Sherman, and to the opening of the “Fondation Louis Vuitton” in Paris. Vuitton supporting contemporary art so avidly creates a win-win situation – the artists gain fame and recognition and Vuitton appear fresh and relevant. 
Vuitton’s recent collaboration with SUPREME, is unprecedented in character and may mark a pinnacle in the growing influence street culture has on the established institutionalized world of fashion. Art and fashion are two worlds ever close to one another. This change in fashion could be due to the same influence being made in the art world.

While Vuitton has collaborated with iconic fashion designers in the past, they were mostly luxury designers. This is the first collaboration with an existing fashion brand, and a street-wear icon nonetheless. And while the connection between street art and street culture to the fashion world has many representations, this is a whole other level. 
Many street artist dabble in fashion. Not only street art tycoon Shepherd Fairy has fashion merchandise, here in Tel Aviv, you can find sunglasses and socks by Pilpeled, T-shirts by the BFC crew and iPhone covers by Dede. And yet, however popular a pair of vans sneakers are on the streets they remain foreign to the runways of Paris. That is until now. The fashion world, like the art world, is surrendering to the real-life action in the urban space. 

Shepard Fairey

Shepard Fairey

PILPELED

PILPELED

BFC

BFC

The fact is that the art establishment has been, and still is, gradually accepting street artists as valid members of the art sphere, exhibiting, selling and re-selling their work. This allows them to expand from the urban space to the studio. This expansion pushes them to achieve status and influence new audiences, etching their art into our time and our culture, so much that the great Louis Vuitton has splashed a big red SUPREME logo on a luxurious leather bag to make it, what we now consider, cooler than ever. 

Want to know everything about Tel Aviv's urban art and culture scene? Join our Florentin graffiti tour on Friday, Feb 24th at 3:30 PM. Please click here for details and registration.

- by Yael Shapira and Cobi Krieger