Ingela Ihrman talks about her exhibition Frutti di Mare at Malmö Konsthall
The title is in Italian, but to me, Frutti di Mare is something you call a pasta or a pizza where maybe some tinned clams and pre-peeled prawns swim in a sea of cheese. Frutti di Mare in Swedish is related to tutti frutti and Lasse Holm's canneloni macaroni hit. A 90s dream of something tropical to aspire to that might say more about those who long for it than the actual location on the Mediterranean or any other turquoise waters., says Ingela Ihrman about her ongoing exhibition at Malmö Konsthall.
David Elia and Rob Goyanes in Conversation
In October 2023 writer Rob Goyanes and David Elia met up for an online conversation about art, landscape and environment and sources of inspiration from the light of Rio and the south of France to Color Field painting and Jaques Tati - and surprisingly into Weird Barbie’s house in the lates film.
David Elia trained as a designer but has in last years focused more on painting and drawing. Still there’s much that connect his paintings and his design objects, he brings a keen interest in the environment, history and social questions into his work abstracted into grids and dots. Rob Goyanes is a writer and editor from Miami, Florida, living in Los Angeles. He works as an editor for book publishers, popular and unpopular magazines, fiction writers, artists, curators, and music labels.
I recognized the special light there [in the South of France] that artists often talk about. Cezanne and Matisse always spoke about how the light was very conducive to their work, that luminous quality. The light in Rio, it’s a different kind of light, it’s stronger, yet the sky is much darker.
(Photo: Mat Smith Photography)
Miguel Andrade Valdez in Mexico City
In Mexico City artist Miguel Andrade Valdez opens at the gallery Proyecto Nasal.. The exhibition premiers a new series of painting and drawing on canvas. It takes us back to the artist’s beginnings as a painter after having focused on sculpture and installations for many years, it also takes us into the body and mind. The exhibition is titled la peil which means ”the skin”. Exhibition text by Art Insider PR founder Sofia Bertilsson.
Between us and the world, our skin embraces us, protects us from evil and holds us together like a bag of bones, blood, guts and neurons. Our skin is the house our body built that our mind started to fill with memories, emotions, foibles, fads and dreams. Room by room, it stores and archives, losing the battle against clutter that piles up in the attic. Where to put our teenage dreams? The books we read? Physical memories of hands held, someone else’s skin?
World of Art and Design Fall 2023 Art Special
Fall is here and we’re highlighting artists from Scandinavia, via the South of France to Peru and Mexico. We love to hear artists talking about their work and the inspiration behind it - this newsletter is dedicated to the long read. Read the conversation between artist and designer David Elia and critic Rob Goyanes about art, landscape and environment and about sources of inspiration from the light of Rio and the South of France to Color Field painting and Jacques Tati - and weird Barbie, dots and grids.
With disarming humor and playfulness, Ingela Ihrman's work tackles questions concerning the conditions of one's own existence. By donning sculptural costumes fabricated by herself, the artist pretends to be someone else: a giant otter giving birth, a blooming giant water lily, a fig splitting in two. At the same time, the work brings forth the imbalance and the problems that have arisen ever since humans began to distinguish themselves as superior to nature. Hear the artists talking about her ongoing exhibition Frutti di Mare at Malmö Konsthall which she coincidentally envisioned as a giant pizza.
In Mexico City artist Miguel Andrade Valdez opens at the gallery Proyecto Nasal. The exhibition premiers a new series of paintings and drawings on canvas. It takes us back to the artist’s beginnings as a painter after having focused on sculpture and installations for many years, it also takes us into the body and mind.
Ingela Ihrman at Malmö Konsthall
Fall 2023, Malmö Konsthall presents the largest exhibition of the internationally recognized Swedish artist Ingela Ihrman to date. With disarming humor and playfulness, Ingela Ihrman's work tackles questions concerning the conditions of one's own existence. By donning sculptural costumes, fabricated by herself, the artist pretends to be someone else; a giant otter giving birth, a blooming giant water lily, a fig splitting in two.
Cathy Abrahams Here: the Ghost is Me at Kåseholm Castle
Art and design are showcased at a stunning estate in the lush landscape of Österlen in Sweden. The exhibition showcases Cathy Abraham's series titled Here: the Ghost is Me in which she explores the accumulation of discrete acts, emphasising the importance of repetition and meditation. Each painted mark holds a symbolic significance, with the artist's brushstrokes mirroring her spiritual journey. The exhibition is part of a collaboration between South African gallery THEFOURTH and Kåseholm, launches "Northern Southern Exposure" a project that aims to foster innovation and exchange in various geographies.
Finalists Announced for CHART Architecture 2023
Responding to the theme New European Bauhaus, each team applying to CHART Architecture 2023 has conceptualised an architectural project that foregrounds the three principles of sustainability, aesthetics and inclusion, as well as incorporating elements of universal design.
The CHART Architecture 2023 Finalists
Petal by Lasovsky Johansson Architects (Juras Lasovsky and Hanna Johansson)
Off The Shelf by Anton Boman, Jonathan Lindberg and Matthew Wilson
Komorebi by Joanna Maria Lesna, Thomas Enee and Miguel Sousa Rebelo
Ruin by Thomas Røn Jensen, Kathrine Vand and Sebastian Siggaard
Habitat by Martin Viggo Meincke and Astrid Marie Strandbygaard
CHART Architecture is a competition inviting teams of emerging architects and architectural studios to submit proposals for architectural structures to be installed in the iconic courtyards at Charlottenborg during CHART August 25 – 27 2023.
Heritage Craft and Contemporary Design from Peru - Taller Tarapacá
Taller Tarapacá combines heritage craft with contemporary design from Peru. Its collection has a strong focus on material and craft, combined with clean, architectonic lines and a minimal esthetic.
From the Chalkworks to the Eel Grass Meadows - Anna Ling at Lunds konsthall
Lunds konsthall presents a retrospective exhibition with the artist Anna Ling, born in 1971 in Gothenburg and since many years living in Malmö. In the exhibition, which is on view throughout the summer, we meet the artist’s strong interest in nature and our relationship to it, and works that are characterised by both beauty and serious effects of climate change. We follow Ling's observations, from coral reefs to a local limestone quarry, in large, ink drawings and films, and through the artist's long-term field studies we also see the effects of the measures taken to restore nature. Ling has exhibited at Moderna Museet Malmö, GIBCA, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, as well as at Lunds konsthall. The exhibition runs May 20 - August 27, 2023.
New Book by Artist Sophie Tottie Published by Art and Theory Publishing
SOPHIE TOTTIE: AiWHEtL (catalogue and related works)
The world is always inevitably changing. At the same time, we humans look for patterns and regularities. AiWHEtL revolves around doing and thinking as a process of understanding, in which the result essentially cannot be owned but remains in constant change. (Sophie Tottie)
In Sophie Tottie’s recent work re-workings of previous work, for example material and leftover products like paint and brush cleaner is incorporated and reused in new work. Tottie’s works function as prisms that weigh, measure, and materialize something that seem to belong to an inner, intangible reality but which manifest themselves in an outer material and physical existence.
(Photo credit: Emil Fagander. Courtesy Art and Theory Publishing)
What does it mean to be human? Ingela Ihrman upcoming show at Malmö Konsthall
In a playful way, Ingela Ihrman’s work explores what it means to be human. With humour and sincerity, she lifts questions concerning identity and belonging by looking at different life forms and how we relate to one another. She focuses on strong emotions connected to everyday life, such as lust, longing and loneliness. Where: Malmö Konsthall. Dates: September 30 2023 - January 14 2024.
(Photo: Ingela Ihrman, One Fig, 2020. Video still)
A Roman Journey at Antica Libreria Cascianelli
An artist obsessed with maps, flags, the footprints of space and time. An antique bookshop in the heart of Rome that looks as popping out from Balzac’s novel The Magic Skin. An art curator and travelling reporter who thinks that all the places you can imagine are real. The exhibition Journey Analogue comes from this combination of people and places. Luca Di Luzio artworks transforms Antica Libreria Cascianelli - just behind Navona square and beside the entrance of the archaelogical site of Domitian Stadium – in a contemporary wunderkammer, with the help of stage designer Valentina La Rocca (Libreria Cascianelli co-owner) and art writer Fabio Sindici. The title pays homage to Renè Daumal’s unfinished novel Mount Analogue, a surrealist chronicle of an impossible journey. The result is an art installation conceived both as hide and seek game and exploration in a parallel universe.
Annalee Davis Plants a Healing Garden for Sharjah Biennale
Barbados based Annalee Davis was one of the first artists invited to Focus Foundation’s newly established residency in the summer of 2022. Located in a historic farm building in the vicinity of Girona, Spain, Davis used her time at the residency to develop a project for Sharjah Biennale 2023 that links the use of medicinal plants in Barbados, the Mediterranean and Sharjah in UAE. In her work she explores how colonialism and slavery changed landscapes, and how disalienation can be achieved through craft and planting. Her garden becomes both a repose for the soul and for communities as well as a living apothecary of healing plants. Find out more about the work Pray to Flowers – A Plot of Disalienation, which is being developed for Sharjah Biennale 2023 which opens in February 2023, in the Q & A. Her project, a garden for Bait Al Hurma (A Woman’s House), is in line with the ethos of Focus Foundation, its multidisciplinary residency encourages artists to explore local craft, the landscape and community in their practices.
Merging Contemporary Design and Pre-Columbian Inspiration
Artists Miguel Andrade Valdéz did a solo exhibition in his hometown Lima, had his home featured in T Magazine and developed the design studio Taller Tarapacá. Look out for the webshop of Taller Tarapaca´opening 2023. Read the article by Michael Snyder in T Magazine, photo by Ivan Salinero.
New Residency for Creatives in Spain
Brugarol Group has launched Focus Foundation, a new art initiative in northeastern Spain. With the announced cultural activities directed by Pepe Baena Diví, Focus Foundation aims to foster cultural exchange and cross disciplinary creativity, and create opportunities for artists with diverse backgrounds and a meeting place where guests and visitors are invited to spend time in the particular landscape and community of Baix Emporda. (Photo Nacho Alegre)
Ukrainian Art Today – A Conversation with Alex Fisher. The Long Read.
We talked to curator and writer Alex Fisher, who co-organized the show Dedication. Traces and Tactics at Kristianstads konsthall, a municipal kunsthall in the south of Sweden, and invited seven artists and artist groups from different regions of Ukraine to participate.
Ukraine, on the border between east and west, and for a long time part of the Soviet Union and before that the Russian Empire, celebrated 30 years of independence in 2021. Prominent contemporary artists include photographer Boris Mikhailov, abstract art pioneer Kazimir Malevich, and from the Modernist period Sonia Delaunay, who, like several artists in the exhibition Dedication. Traces and Tactics, recently at Kristianstads konsthall in Sweden, had the experience of being born in an empire that disappeared during her lifetime. However, Ukraine was there all the time, as a shadow culture with a long history, under the layers of hegemonic rule.
The exhibition featured: 12345678910 Studio, Yaroslav Futymskyi, Nikita Kadan, Dana Kavelina, Lada Nakonechna; performances by Petro Ryaska and Blyzkist
Read on to find out more about the contemporary art scene in Ukraine. As Alex says:
“Dedication. Traces and Tactics comes to a close at a moment of severe stress for Ukraine and its allies, as Russia threatens to re-assert a sphere of influence reminiscent of that which existed during the Cold War, through various disruptive/deadly means. Ukrainian independence demands steadfast dedication, as its shape and scope are being tried and tested.”
Ewa-Mari Johansson's Strong, Liberated and Independent Women.
In the fashion photographer Ewa-Mari Johansson's exhibition Performance Freedom at Falsterbo Photo Art Museum, we meet strong, liberated and independent women, in photographs from the 1980s and onwards that were made for major fashion magazines and exhibitions. Ewa-Mari Johansson has worked as a photographer for 35 years for magazines such as Harper's Bazaar, DONNA, AMICA and Vogue Sposa and started out as an international top model with covers for Vogue Italia. (Image. Ewa-Mari Johansson, Harpers Bazaar Haute Couture Day Hallway. Photo & Copyright ©Ewa-Mari Johansson.)
Drawing as Sculpture in the Sculpture Park.
The Norwegian artist Marit Roland has buildt a unique installation on site at Wanås Konst, where the paper plays the main role. The three-dimensional drawing cannot be moved and is displayed exclusively at Wanås Konst until it is time to go to recycling. Roland is educated at the Art Academy in Trondheim and the exhibition will be her first in Sweden. The artist has built a unique installation on site, where the paper plays the main role that is shown exclusively at Wanås Konst.
A Female Entrepreneur Bridging Art & Tech
Swiss tech newcomer SmartStamp is headed by Juli Cho Bailer who started out as an art professional and museum curator in New York City. Find out more about how she navigates the different worlds of art and technology as CEO and co-founder and hear her talk about how tech can protect the work of artist and collections for the future as well as disrupt the trade with fake art and collectibles.
The inspiration behind SmartStamp is to be a 21st century smart ‘stamp’ for artists. In addition to the historical artist estate stamp or foundry stamp, or print studio’s chopmark, we now have a tamper proof digital stamp for new creations, but that can also help ensure the identity of cultural heritage objects of our past. We live in an age of fake everything — goods, news, money, videos. Smart tech can help disrupt the counterfeit trade! says Juli Cho Bailer, CEO and co-founder of SmartStamp.
(Image: Portrait of Juli Cho Bailer, CEO and co-founder SmartStamp. Courtesy SmartStamp.)
First Blockchain and AI Authenticated Edition Prints Thanks to Swiss Tech.
We welcome SmartStamp into our select portfolio of clients. SmartStamp uses computer vision and eco-friendly blockchain timestamping technologies to create invisible, immutable fingerprints for the $2 trillion art and collectibles markets. The Swiss tech newcomer recently teamed up with artist Gordon Cheung to create the world’s first Print 4.0 — blockchain and Ai authenticated, uniquely identifiable limited edition prints.
SmartStamp was the proud technology sponsor for internationally acclaimed artist Gordon Cheung’s debut exhibition in Los Angeles, Transfer of Power — presented by Coates and Scarry and the International Chinese Fine Arts Council, recently on view at C-Project. Read more in Editorial on SmartStamp's website.
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