MADE IN MIND #17

ISSUE #17 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Francesca Pirillo

DIRETTORE RESPONSABILE Dario Carotenuto

PROJECT COORDINATOR Heidi Mancino

CONTAINERS SECTION Forme Uniche

PROOFREADER Sharon McMahon

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER Marta Orsola Sironi Stefano Tomei

CONTRIBUTORS Lisa Andreani Irene Angenica Guy Marshall-Brown Gianluca Gramolazzi Ginevra Ludovici Marco Roberto Marelli Coral Nieto Garcia Giulia Perrucci Flavia Rovetta Federica Torgano

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Registrazione della testata al Tribunale di Cosenza N°2/17 del 10.02.2017

COVER #17 Kyle Thompson

SOCIALS madeInmindmagazine made_in_mind_magazine Madeinmind_mag All rights reserved. This production and its entire contents are protected by copyright. No use or reprint (including disclosure) may be made of all or any part of this publication in any manner or form whatsoever without the prior written consent of Made in Mind magazine. Views expressed in Made in Mind magazine do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editors or parent company.

CONTENTS

38 ANTHROPOMORPHIC

CONVERSATION WITH NICOLA MELINELLI

Lisa Andreani

06 KYLE THOMPSON

| Gianluca Gramolazzi

54 FOCUS

24 CONTAINERS

TONICO CALDO

INTERVIEW WITH TRETI GALAXIE

Irene Angenica | Giovanni Giacomo Paolin | Giacomo Pigliapoco

Giulia Perrucci

A COLLECTIVE AND FREEWHEELING CONVERSATION

BETWEEN ART AND CURATORSHIP

06 Kyle Thompson was born in Chicago in 1992 and he is currently based in Portland, Oregon. His work is mostly composed of self portraits, which he shoots using a timer and moving slowly in front of the camera as if it was a solitary performance. Thompson’s carefully staged photographs encapsulate an ephemeral narrative: it is more of a work of pre-production, than of any post-production.

He began taking photographs at the age of 19 after finding interest in nearby abandoned houses, sometimes even living in these houses for a couple of days to work on a particular shot.

38 Nicola Melinelli’s practice makes representation both abstract and anthropomorphic, stimulating references to art history and the natural world. From the simple form to its transformation into an architectural building, a drawing, a three-dimensional object, in a composition for a book.

In the following interview, starting from the last group show Pelle d’oca curated by Lisa Andreani and Simona Squadrito at Villa Vertua Masolo, his latest works are explored in these, only apparently, opposing positions and visions.

24 CONTAINERS is a section, curated by Forme Uniche, that deals with cultural “containers”: physical and virtual spaces, containers that welcome innovative projects, and that are told through the personalities that made them possible. For this issue Giulia Perrucci talks to us about Treti Galaxie, the tight artistic-curatorial co-working of Matteo Mottin and Ramona Ponzini.

54 We asked the curators invited to the 2019 summer edition of Bocs Art, Irene Angenica, Giovanni Giacomo Paolin and Giacomo Pigliapoco to tell us about their experience.

They decided to do it through a dialogue with the participating artists: the debate highlights the deeper aspects of this design methodology, which does not stop at the mere production of the work, but feeds on common comparison and experimentation; considerations emerged on the role of the artist residences and on the importance of finding new moments of dialogue and collective work, which led to an evolution of the project in its second phase, with the Estate, autunno exhibition at the State of Gallery in Milan.

Kyle Thompson Carcass, 2013 Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room

KYLE THOMPSON

_________ Gianluca Gramolazzi

Kyle Thompson was born in Chicago in 1992 and he is currently based in Portland, Oregon. His work is mostly composed of self portraits, which he shoots using a timer and moving slowly in front of the camera as if it was a solitary performance. Thompson’s carefully staged photographs encapsulate an ephemeral narrative: it is more of a work of pre-production, than of any post-production. He began taking photographs at the age of 19 after finding interest in nearby abandoned houses, sometimes even living in these houses for a couple of days to work on a particular shot. The work of Thompson was also published in important international magazines, such as National Geographic and Vogue Italia. Selected Solo Show: Open Stage, curated by Gabriela Galati, Reggia di Caserta, promoted by aA29 Project Room gallery (2018); IN-Visible/Diario di uno schizofrenico, curated by Federica de Stasio, aA29 Project Room Caserta (2017); Ghost Town, One Grand Gallery, Portland (2015).

Gianluca Gramolazzi: Hi Kyle, you started to shoot when you were 19 with no photography education, right? I think that it gave you more freedom. Could you tell me how you approached photography and what your first photo was?

Kyle Thompson: When I was 19, a friend and I used to explore these abandoned homes in rural areas near us. His mom had a camera, and he started to bring it with, and we would pass it back and forth and take photos of each other in the abandoned homes. Soon after, I bought my own camera and went to more of these locations alone, with a tripod. At the beginning I had no strong approach, I wanted to let the location speak; I wanted to find places that were so interesting that people could ignore that the photos might not have been very technically proficient at that point. It was freeing though.

Especially when I began to go out alone, and take my time to build up these moments. But the downside of

teaching myself was that it took over a year to actually learn the bare basics of technical photography (ISO, aperture, shutter speed, etc). I think I was a bit too stubborn to actually look it up, and I just wanted to learn by testing things out. I realize now I could have learned that all in a week if I had tried, but I was only focused on building the scenes, not capturing them properly.

G.G. What are your inspirations?

K.T. My inspirations are generally based on location, which causes me to search out places that could help inspire my ideas.

The locations are the most broad piece to define, and afterwards I start to narrow it down a bit until I’ve figured out each aspect. The location hints at the final mood, and can help guide me through the rest of the image.

Otherwise I just seek inspiration in subtle contrasts.

Using normal objects in an unusual way, or placing them in a context that they don’t belong.

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Kyle Thompson Capsule, 2019 Sinking Ship series Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room

G.G. Could you tell me about the shot you like the most in your production?

K.T. This is a hard question, since my favorite shot changes very often, but I think it would be an image I took of a couple on a mattress in a ghost town.

The idea was something I had in my mind for years, but always felt that the logistics of creating the image would be too complex. It all fell together though; I was on a road trip with a few friends, and I took them to an abandoned town that I had found years before.

The town has been an enormous inspiration to me, and is the basis of my new series, Sinking Ship. One of the abandoned homes was connected to a junk yard, which had dozens of old rusty cars in the yard.

I carried the mattress outside, and created the shot.

I love the quietness in the image. It’s simultaneously cozy and uncomfortable, and I love the contrast between the subjects and the surroundings.

G.G. Which are the main themes you’re interested in?

K.T. In a broad way, my work almost always considers the way our personal environment affects us, and the way we affect it back. That push and pull. I like to investigate these subtle man-made attributes and their connection to the natural world that surrounds it. In my newest series, Sinking Ship, I did this while exploring abandoned towns, and examining this archaeological litter that began to blend back into the grasslands. In my previous series, Open Stage, I

did this while searching for the last remaining natural areas in my city, and considering the small hints of the urban aspects that leaked through. In different ways, I’m always searching for that contrast.

G.G. In previous interviews, you defined your artworks as “surreal conceptual photography”. Could you explain that to me?

K.T. Yeah, the images have a touch of surrealism, but often don’t make it fully there in the classic sense of the word. But there is always something a bit off about the moments. They usually have these strange juxtapositions, and feel out of ordinary life.

With photography, the images require at least some sense of reality, which I think pushes surrealism to be a bit more common and relatable. The images usually begin with a concept; often overarching through a series, but also individually. Finding reason through the pairing of the objects, and some sort of purpose too.

G.G. Looking at your works, it seems that each one is connected to the others. How do you conceive a picture? What are your inspirations?

K.T. Throughout the day I’ll often think of small interesting juxtapositions and write them down.

Usually just small fragments of a concept that seem interesting. For these ideas, I’m looking for a specific feeling. These kind of quiet and uncomfortable

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Kyle Thompson Tides, 2015 Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room 10 | MADE IN MIND

Kyle Thompson Untitled, 2015 Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room MADE IN MIND | 11

moments. Having these fragments makes it much easier when I have an overarching theme to work towards.

G.G. Your settings are extremely curated. How do you arrange it in such grimy places? Is it the environment that suggests the photograph to you?

K.T. I’m extremely inspired by places. When I started photography, it was often an excuse to bring myself places I wouldn’t otherwise go, and that is definitely something that has stuck. I’ll often drive around a lot, or look on Google Maps for spaces that look interesting or unique. Lately I’ve been taking long road trips out to the American grasslands, which is the least populated part of the country. The towns out there and nature are always so inspiring to me. I’ll often have a long list of vague concepts I’ve written down, and then when I find an interesting location, I’m able to curate through that and figure out which moments could fit with this scenery.

G.G. As part of Millennials, do you think the instability we live in is a starting point to shoot abandoned places, lonely forests and boundaries? How does the environment influence your work?

K.T. I suppose so. I think living in a city makes me try to search out quiet places around me.

For a series I did previously, Open Stage, I spent time searching for these in-between spaces in the city. Small pockets of nature in between infrastructure; roads, highways, and buildings. Abandoned homes and forests are the same. They provide a space that is quiet and empty. Where I can place my own interpretations over the space without the constant quick change of the city, and properly build a moment that can reflect on that solitude.

Kyle Thompson Untitled, (detail) 2019 Sinking Ship series Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room

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Kyle Thompson Untitled, 2019 Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room MADE IN MIND | 13

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Kyle Thompson Paper Bag, 2018 Open Stage series Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room

Kyle Thompson Greenhouse, 2018 Open Stage series Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room

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Kyle Thompson Untitled, 2013 Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room 16 | MADE IN MIND

Kyle Thompson Untitled, 2015 Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room MADE IN MIND | 17

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Kyle Thompson Untitled, 2015 Ghost Town series Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room

Kyle Thompson Untitled, 2016 Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room MADE IN MIND | 19

Kyle Thompson Untitled, 2016 Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room 20 | MADE IN MIND

Kyle Thompson Untitled, 2018 Open Stage series Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room

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Kyle Thompson Withering, 2015 Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room 22 | MADE IN MIND

Kyle Thompson Untitled, 2016 Digital Photograph Courtesy Kyle Thompson and aA29 Project Room MADE IN MIND | 23

INTERVIEW WITH TRETI GALAXIE

_______

BETWEEN ART AND CURATORSHIP

Giulia Perrucci Treti Galaxie is the tight artistic-curatorial co-working of Matteo Mottin and Ramona Ponzini. Based in Turin, but set in a virtual third dimension, the ideas’ one, their project is actually a state of mind rather than a concrete place. The aim is to break boundaries between curatorship and art, choosing to investigate the spaces in between, developing a conceptual “galaxy” of intense collaboration and choice, focused on artists’ works, where ideas are enhanced to stream in both directions.

The duo doesn’t have a fixed and preferred location for the artists’ programs they decide to follow, but are used to tracking down venues that are more suitable from case to case. Whether definitions are usually strongly CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE

pursued, this time might be useless and unprofitable to enclose Treti Galaxie in a specific category.

It has recently closed the latest exposition curated by Matteo and Ramona, Giuliana Rosso’s show in Veda, Firenze, where a painted and turned upside down vault lays on what used to be the gallery floor; a floor which had been devastated in the 1966 flood of the Arno. The installation looks like the image of an ideal frescoed ceiling reflected on the surface of the water that once flooded the space.

Since we had the chance to interview Matteo and Ramona, we are going to let themselves better explain how their project had started and which are the main principles that stand behind their work.

Giulia Perrucci: How did you meet each other and how did the idea of Treti Galaxie come to you?

Ramona Ponzini: We first met during an opening at Norma Mangione Gallery, in Torino, in September 2015. We had never met before, but we smiled at each other and the very day after we met again, a sort of date, and that night we decided to create Treti Galaxie, began working together, became a couple.

It all happened really quickly, as love at first sight. At that time, Matteo was writing a lot of interviews and he had already curated two shows.

Matteo Mottin: The first one was at Barriera, Torino, the second was a secret show I curated in a subterranean cave in Sardinia. It’s still on, and it’s only meant to be experienced by the objects that are there, and not to be seen by human beings. Two months after I had met Ramona I curated another show at Museo Casa Mollino. In January (2016) we started working on what Treti Galaxie would become.

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What were you doing before Treti Galaxie, and what are your professional backgrounds?

Ramona Ponzini: My sphere of studies is actually Japanese culture, as I graduated in Japanese language and literature, and spent two years of my life in Tokyo. I’ve also been playing and carrying on an artistic research on music for a long time, related to the study of the musical potential of Japanese poetry, releasing many records and touring. Then I started working in the project management field.

Matteo Mottin: I am a mechanical engineer, with a Master degree in Materials Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Turin. Almost at the end of my studies I went for the first time to an art exhibition. It was a Francis Bacon show, and it was stunning. I stayed there for three hours, completely dazed. Telling the truth, I think it was the first time I saw a work of art in my life. After that, I just quit university, I was into this recent discovery, only

CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE Giuliana Rosso Only now, lost, they become real to me, 2019 Installation view Courtesy of the artist, Treti Galaxie and VEDA Photo by Flavio Pescatori

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interested in seeing exhibitions. I started doing several interviews. I learned all I know about art thanks to these conversations with artists, curators, gallerists. One of the most significant interviews for me was the one I had with the Brazilian artist Tunga. He was such a kind person and an amazing artist, building a complex but extremely CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE

coherent world, where every phase of his work was a focus on a part of the whole, and in the end everything works perfectly together. Speaking with him was a very dreamlike situation.

What is your idea of curatorship and how it dialogues with artworks?

Matteo Mottin: Curatorship, from our point of view, should work on the time and space that stands between the spectator and the work of art. We investigate the movement in both directions, there is not just one way. The spectator moves close to the artwork but also turns away from it, goes back home, has dinner, goes to bed. The time that it takes to forget the show is also part of our research.

There are actually three kinds of research: the practical and physical one in the place we are going to work in; the theoretical one, which happens after the project is done, so not to affect the artists, since we often understand what we have achieved in a project after it’s done. We prefer the artists to have an unmediated relation on the theoretical level, so that they can reach what they really want. The last type is the daily and continuous research, with studio visits,

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that is the base of everything. An essential point for us is to overturn the anthropocentric point of view - otherwise we will be stuck and soon destroy ourselves. We think art is self-sufficient, and it doesn’t need to be approved by other people. The public is not essential to determine a work of art. We don’t really know if what we do has worth for other people, but it is for us. Once, we had a show for just one person, selected at random, so we are not really into the commercial side. Things stay there anyway, if you can’t “hear” them it is a sort of problem of yours. We help you to experience the work of art, but it lives forever even though not seen.

Can you say something about the projects you have worked on?

Matteo Mottin: If you look at our projects, the thread that runs through them is the idea that artists in the future will move from doing artworks to creating experiences.

Our first project was with Valerio Nicolai, an amazing Italian painter from Gorizia. The idea came up during a dialogue with Valerio, we were totally drunk. I was reading a lot of object oriented ontology stuff, like Graham Harman, and thinking about how to overturn the perspective of an art exhibition. I remember Valerio told me “I want to see a bird moving on my canvas”, and we started from there.

The next show started as a joke, with Michele Gabriele and Alessandro Di Pietro. They sent me a vocal message saying “we have to do a show called Tiziano and

CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE Valerio Nicolai Permanent Transformation Of A Magician In Ant, 2016 Installation view Courtesy of the artist and Treti Galaxie Photo by Sebastiano Pellion Di Persano MADE IN MIND | 27

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Michele Gabriele Tiziano e Giorgione, 2016 Installation view Courtesy of the artists and Treti Galaxie Photo by Marco Cappelletti

CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE Michele Gabriele Tiziano e Giorgione, 2016 Courtesy of the artists and Treti Galaxie Photo by Marco Cappelletti

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Giorgione”, which was indeed our second show, set in Barriera. More than an exhibition, Tiziano and Giorgione is an intense dialogue, a sort of blood bond they signed, which is linking them still now and it will until they’ll die.

Both of them have a secret notebook with the will for the other one in case of death, as a kind of testament.

What persuades you to begin curating and following a project?

Ramona Ponzini: Before starting a new project, we ask ourselves if there’s really the need for the existence of CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE

another exhibition. Do we need another proposal among the ones that are there already? If the answer we give ourselves is yes, we try our best to do it.

Matteo Mottin: At the same time, we ask ourselves a question regarding the artist we’d like to work with. If all the people on the planet would disappear tomorrow, and this artist would be the only person alive in the whole world, would she or he still keep making art? We look for genuinely obsessed people. Since artists are people that dedicate their lives to create something that will outlive them, and since they wouldn’t know all the people that will outlive them, we think it’s fair to start from this perspective.

You mention Queneau’s Esercizi di stile in a previous interview for Flash Art in 2017, when speaking about your work, could you explain in further detail what you meant?

Ramona Ponzini: Esercizi di Stile was translated in 1983

by Umberto Eco. He’s a big reference for me, since over the years I have translated many books from Japanese into Italian. In that amazing book, Queneau writes the very same story, a quite banal event from daily life, in 99 different literary styles, as if experienced by 99 different people with 99 different backgrounds. So, 99 different glances on reality produce 99 different stories, and what really makes them unique is language. In that interview,

Alvaro Urbano I, 2016 Installation view Mole Antonelliana Courtesy the artist and Treti Galaxie Photo Delfino Sisto Legnani

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CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE Alvaro Urbano I, 2016 Installation view Mole Antonelliana Courtesy the artist and Treti Galaxie Photo Delfino Sisto Legnani

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CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE

Marco Tagliafierro was asking us what differentiates Treti from other art projects, and by quoting Esercizi di Stile we were just supposing that all the art projects he was referencing to in the question are immersed in the same time, and the output they produce may be the very same story, but seen from different perspectives. Like the prism in Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.

Ramona, how do you deal with your artistic work on one hand and the curatorial on the other?

Basically I reached art not because of my professional background, but through music, as I started playing many years ago, basically experimental music, whose genre is not confined. Throughout the years I have met musicians with similar points of views, who started to experiment themselves also in visual art. For example, Christian Marclay, whose work Record Without a Cover is exactly a piece of art: it’s concretely a vinyl, but you can touch it and experience it. It breaks the ritual of vinyl lovers (records must be touched the least amount possible!). But when you play it you can hear the result of the physical contact of people who have experienced the record. From him I started studying and approaching visual art. I had a break in producing music, then I met Matteo and we started the curatorial project, and later I felt the need to restart doing music, but in a different way.

Last month, I performed an homage to Salvo at Norma

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Mangione Gallery. I tried to communicate the painter’s work, but in a different way; what I did was basically a mediation, which is the work we are carrying on with Treti Galaxie; so I can say it definitely influenced my work as an artist.

Would you like to enlarge Treti Galaxie in reality, or do you think the dimension of the duo still fits your goals? What are your plans for the future?

Ramona Ponzini: I love the idea that a “baby” Treti Galaxie is going to grow. We don’t exclude the idea to have a fixed place, but it would be part of a bigger project. Things move too fast, and being a container for us looks like being in a trap, it wouldn’t be fair to the artists. When you have a place you can’t have all the other ones anymore, so if we will ever have a space, it would be a part of a larger whole. Since time and space are tight and relative concepts, if we’d open a project that needed a building, it would just be a piece of our puzzle. I’m not so sure about enlarging our team, it is very different to share the same point of views, which doesn’t mean we don’t argue.

Matteo Mottin: Concerning plans for the future, we are willing to organize a Robert Morris retrospective exhibition, gathering all the felts he made in his lifetime and installing them on the International Space Station, finally freeing them from the burden of gravity.

CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE Alvaro Urbano I, 2016 Selection process of the sole spectator Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino Courtesy the artist and Treti Galaxie Photo Delfino Sisto Legnani

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CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE Mélodie Mousset HanaHana Full Bloom, 2018 Installation view, Ex-MOI Arcades, Torino Courtesy the artist, Dear Onlus and Treti Galaxie Photo by Marco Cappelletti and Delfino Sisto Legnani 34 | MADE IN MIND

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Mélodie Mousset HanaHana Full Bloom, 2018 Installation view, Ex-MOI Arcades, Torino Courtesy the artist, Dear Onlus and Treti Galaxie Photo Marco Cappelletti and Delfino Sisto Legnani

CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE Clémence de La Tour du Pin Sept préludes, 2017 Installation view, Pastiss Underground Fortress Courtesy the artist and Treti Galaxie Photo by Marco Cappelletti and Delfino Sisto Legnani

Clémence de La Tour du Pin Sept préludes, 2017 Notes on historical-spin Courtesy the artist and Treti Galaxie Photo Marco Cappelletti and Delfino Sisto Legnani

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ANTHROPOMORPHIC CONVERSATION WITH NICOLA MELINELLI

_________ Lisa Andreani

Nicola Melinelli’s practice makes representation both abstract and anthropomorphic, stimulating references to art history and the natural world. From the simple form to its transformation into an architectural building, a drawing, a threedimensional object, in a composition for a book. In the following interview, starting from the last group show Pelle d’oca curated by Simona Squadrino and I at Villa Vertua Masolo, his latest works are explored in these, only apparently, opposing positions and visions.

Nicola Melinelli (Perugia 26.02.1988) is one of the founders (In 2011) of the project space INTERNO4 in Bologna.

He graduated in 2014 from the Fine Arts School in Bologna.

He participated in many interesting show, like Romantic duo group show organized by Arnaud Deschin Gallery, La Friche Belle de Mai, Marseille; Elephant Talk group show organized by Andrea Kvas, at CARDRDE gallery, Bologna; Artefiera40 storia di una collezione group show curated by Claudio Spadoni and Giorgio Verzotti, Mambo, Bologna; in 2019, Multipli e unici - REPLICA artists’ books archive exhibition, curated by Simona Squadrito and Lisa Andreani, Edicola Radetzky, Milano. Carbonio e Silicio, organized By Cuoghi e Corsello, ITG C. Pacinotti, Bologna. Le Petit Sejour, group show, organized by Pierre Poumet gallery in a private apartment, Marseille (FR).

Now he lives and works in Bologna

Lisa Andreani: On the occasion of the exhibition Pelle d’oca held in Villa Vertua Masolo (MB), three of your unpublished works were exhibited. These are works halfway between design objects, such as vases and sculptures. How and when were these works born?

Nicola Melinelli: It has been one year since I started working on the vases; the very first came out as simple cylindrical bodies with a perforated surface, finding inspiration from a formal interest I had started to develop in my paintings sometime earlier, where tubular shapes, like fog streams, or areation systems had already appeared. On my canvases those tubular shapes describe a movement, a possibility to cross the space.

There is also the idea of melting shapes, describing fluidity, the consistency of magma, black oil, or a piece of melted plastic. Starting from this set of ideas I had the intuition of creating these tubular bodies using hot glue. At the beginning, making vases was a kind of excuse to work with three-dimensional objects, since

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my practice had always been mostly painting until then.

Slowly these objects started to find their importance in my daily practice, and I started to study their shapes, textures and structures more deeply, as they became an exercise to study equilibrium or maquettes for oniric buildings, or even creatures, working on the edge between science fiction and plausibility. Today, I see in my vases a way I found to bring a more descriptive interest in my practice, almost on a microscopic level.

I see them as creatures - perhaps plants - that could inhabit the space inside my paintings.

LA: Continuing with your research into these objects, it seems that you are moving away from the idea of a vase, in fact, these objects seem more and more like sculptures, which no longer respond to their intended use as, for example, containers for flowers. Is this so?

NM: We can say that the flower vase worked as the starting point, the idea I started from. A water container

Nicola Melinelli Essere dentro il paesaggio / avere dentro il paesaggio, 2019 Artist book, 52 pages REPLICA artists’ books archive

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Nicola Melinelli Essere dentro il paesaggio / avere dentro il paesaggio, 2019 Artist book, 52 pages REPLICA artists’ books archive

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Nicola Melinelli Essere dentro il paesaggio / avere dentro il paesaggio, 2019 Artist book, 52 pages REPLICA artists’ books archive

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that allows flowers, branches or whole plants to live, far from their natural environment.

I have a strong interest in plants, I have been collecting a lot of them in my home / studio for years. To study their growth, to understand their behavior, attitudes to

humidity is slowly replacing all the effectiveness that is implied in using my objects like vases (water, flowers and so on).

light, and understand the evolution of their shape, but mostly to understand their meanings. A leaf with a large planar surface provides a large surface to store light rays, while a thread-like vegetation translates into a reduced need of photosynthesis, and so on. I am interested in the connection between a specific shape, and its function, and consequently, to its meaning. I like to think of a Demiurgo who creates forms of absolute pregnancy. In this regard, my biggest goal is to develop a practice that translates as faithfully as possible, the creative act of a seed that becomes a sprout and then a tree.

I like to think of my vases as the imaginary bulbs of the flowers that will fill them, or as creatures that are devouring them, or as a coral that having for a moment forgotten about the water around it, has adjusted some green in its damp mouths.

The possibility of using the vases, as you rightly pointed out, becomes more and more a secondary interest, in favor of a work on structure and textures, shape and weight. I believe that a more implicit suggestion of

seems possible to isolate different stylistic figures and quotations. Some of these vases, perhaps the most classic, seem to look back, for example, at the diatreta cup, that Roman vase in blown glass which is included in the Archaeological Museum Collection of Milan. Another type of vase instead recalls the impossible architectures of your paintings, a last one instead takes its form from the organic world: sea beds, corals, sponges, mushrooms, etc. Can you tell us more?

NM: The Coppa Diatreta is incredible, yes! I love that artifact. I love observing its apparent timelessness, it is such a refined and hand-crafted object that it is almost impossible to date. The grid that covers it, is an element of strong interest, that I recall in many of my vases. A feature that can also be found in a certain texture of corals or marine sponges, or in the growth of some fungus or molds, which proceeds for concentric movements, fractal evolutions, or due to successive symmetries.

However, as you say, the ideas are manifold, on the one hand there is an interest in the art of Roman glassmaking.

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LA: Looking carefully at your production of vases, it

Nicola Melinelli Surround, 2018 Pencil on paper 21x29 cm

Nicola Melinelli Fog tube crossing a grid, 2018 Pencil on paper 21x29 cm

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There are some examples of Roman vases that you could very easily mistake for Gaetano Pesce or Alessandro Mendini, considering how evolved the mastery and knowledge of the material of roman glassmakers was.

On the other hand there are the an-architectonic structures of my paintings that resurface; they are in fact objects in balance, some are based on slender threadlike structures, while others do not seem to be enclosing anything even if they appear to do. So a desire to mystify the gaze reappears. To offer one vision together with a second one that puts the first into question.

LA: Also in Villa Vertua Masolo, within the first exhibition of REPLICA, the Italian archive of artist’s books, one of your editions has been exhibited: Essere dentro il paesaggio / avere dentro il paesaggio (Being inside the landscape / having the landscape inside), this is a small artist’s book that recalls an articulated notebook of notes of your research, it is in fact a book of drawings and projects. Do you want to tell us something about this edition?

NM: Let’s say that each of my paintings is the result of a long process of drawing and study, each painting is a bit like the result of a mathematical problem, but we could also say that all my work derives from a large quantity of drawings and projects. I see this edition as a way to bring this drawing phase into the work itself, a graphic pseudoscientific way of talking about the proper physics of the spaces you see in my canvases. There is the question Nicola Melinelli Mushroom vase, 2019 Hot melt glue, wood, glass, iron Pelle d’oca exhibition Villa Vertua Masolo Curated by Lisa Andreani and Simona Squadrito Photo Martina De Rosa

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Nicola Melinelli Pelle d’oca, installation view Villa Vertua Masolo Curated by Lisa Andreani and Simona Squadrito Photo Martina De Rosa

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Nicola Melinelli Red Run, 2019 The useless land, exhibition view Lajone Castle Curated by Irene Sofia Comi and Elda Maresca

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Nicola Melinelli Red Run, 2018 Palazzodellaquercia, exhibition view Roccagloriosa Residency Photo Pesce Khete

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of the landscape, the greenhouse, the garden and the window; the glass, and its reflections. So greenhouse projects, or buildings dug into the landscape, are the way to investigate bodies that take their shape from the landscape itself, that are already there, that follow its natural conformation. The greenhouse is an interior that wants to be an exterior: its limit, its skin, conceptually does not exist. Being inside the landscape / having the landscape inside is an invitation to observe the space we live in, and analyze its dynamics as a starting point to understand the landscape and be able to own it conceptually, and therefore make it part of us, have it inside us.

“Therefore, through our genetic adaptation in the environment, the so-called beauty of nature is apparently closely connected to the concept of necessity: the beauty or ugliness in nature is not present, there is a necessity that justifies every one of its figures.

We ourselves are part of that general system of necessity, and our aesthetic sensations react to the order of natural harmony in the same way as the instinctive repulsion for all the disharmonies that are artificially introduced in reason of that necessity, the conformity or not, with the general mechanisms of this adaptation.

Following this way, humans will be able to insert themselves into nature, only by understanding its intimate necessity, and if they will be able to artificially continue its behavior, and complete its work, by interpreting its volition and integrating with its figures.“ Giulio Rupi - Alle radici dell’architettura Nicola Melinelli Fog tube crossing an orange grid, 2018 Oil on canvas 30x40 cm

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Nicola Melinelli Untitled, 2013 Cascate d’acqua, exhibition view CAR DRDE gallery Bologna 2015

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LA: What is the relationship between Essere dentro il paesaggio / avere dentro il paesaggio (Being inside the landscape / having the landscape inside) and your pictorial practice?

NM: The drawings in Being inside the landscape / having the landscape inside are like notes for my paintings. They are like studies. I want to find a way to open a portion of my paintings and see their properties and characteristics scientifically illustrated. The flayed bodies we see in the classics of scientific illustration open their own skin to show the conformation of their own muscle bundles. In the same way, that book of drawings, exposes the internal physics of the spaces of my paintings, the sensations I experience in making them, and the events they describe.

A cloud of smoke passes through a pipe and suddenly its trajectory is blocked by a grid. I like to think of the moment when the smoke passes through the grid, and is cut into many small squared solids of smoke, and then gets blended into a single shape, after passing the grid.

Being inside the landscape / having the landscape inside is a way to question myself about the meaning of the shapes composing our space and the resulting feelings; the - OTHER - images that they recall.

LA: Extrema Captivatio is a large drawing (430x200 cm) made over several years with the artist Giovanni Copelli. A constantly expanding divertissement that recalls the Garden of Delights by Hieronymus Bosch but in a contemporary punk key. Can you tell us how this project evolved and if and how you plan to continue this work?

NM: Extrema Captivatio, as you mentioned, is a four-hand drawing I made together with Giovanni Copelli, artist and friend, that we Nicola Melinelli Untitled, 2015 Oil on linen 20x25 cm

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Nicola Melinelli Untitled, 2015 Oil on linen 20x30 cm

Nicola Melinelli Untitled, 2015 Oil on linen 30x40 cm

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Nicola Melinelli Rovesci sparsi, 2016 Exhibition view A+B gallery, Brescia

started in 2016. It began as a divertissement of collaborative drawing: we both constantly changed and completed each other’s drawing and therefore the narrative initiated by the other, weaving together our graphic capabilities and our different expression approach. On the occasion of the Pelle d’oca group exhibition, in Villa Vertua Masolo, curated by Simona Squadrito and Lisa Andreani, we were invited to participate both as individual artists, and also with this drawing we realized together. So we decided to expand the drawing by adding more paper on each side, until it became 430x200 cm, starting from the 200x150 cm version from 2016.

From the beginning the drawing was planned with the intent of expressing an excess of narratives, a swarm of figures, creatures, objects, and spaces, constantly intertwined. While you observe the drawing, the narration is made more and more complex, deepened and changed, because the more you go into the details, the more you notice elements that were not immediately there. So it’s a long story, a whispered tale.

A Universal Judgment, an Apocalypse, not without a strong ironic touch, where quotes from the history of painting, recurrent themes, and iconographies from different periods, find their place in a single large cabaret, where the narration unfolds in the same way as traversing a maze. There are many possible trajectories, and meanings. It is an invitation to cross through an image, without necessarily having to find the exit.

And yes, we consider it a work in progress, meaning that it is possible to expand it by adding paper, and continue its tales, and we expect to do it as soon as possible.

Nicola Melinelli Cascate d’acqua, 2014 Exhibition view CAR DRDE gallery, Bologna Nicola Melinelli Oltre il pensiero, 2013 Exhibition view Palazzo delle Cossere, organized by A+B gallery, Brescia

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TONICO CALDO

_______

A COLLECTIVE AND FREEWHEELING CONVERSATION

Irene Angenica Giovanni Giacomo Paolin Giacomo Pigliapoco

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With the show Estate, autunno the group formed at BoCs Art Cosenza, last July’s residency, presents itself in a new guise with a strong vitality of the connections developed in that time. This chapter set in Milan is the result of research born in Cosenza and developed through the following months.

The curators invited to take part are Irene Angenica, Giovanni Paolin and Giacomo Pigliapoco, they also involve the same artists of the residence for a new exhibition stage. Pietro Ballero, Jacopo Belloni, Paolo Bufalini, Giovanni Chiamenti, Davide La Montagna, Nicola Lorini, Matilde Sambo, Patrizia Emma Scialpi, Davide Sgambaro, Marta Spagnoli, Gabriel StĂśckli and Alberto Venturini faced a collective work experience during the residency period in Cosenza, that concluded with the show A JUMI. BoCs Art meant being part of a community, making an experience of inclusion, creating a shared process and a dialogue still ongoing among its participants.

Aware of the fact that the process of creation of the works could not be formalized in just two weeks of residency, the whole group felt the need to work on a second exhibition appointment to discuss the evolution of different research without wanting to join them in a single conceptual and thematic strand.

Giacomo Pigliapoco: Well, here we are again after Estate, autunno in front of this table for the special celebration of exactly six months since our first meeting during the BoCS Art residence in Cosenza last July.

For this special dinner all together, where it is objectively rare to be gathered together considering the respective cities where we live, we tried to also replicate the dishes and the alcohol to remember and remind us of old times.

something

in

between

Irene Angenica: Like Mrs. Anna’s kitchen?

Jacopo Belloni: Gosh no, like Francesca’s t-shirts!

I would like to see them in our exhibition/showroom.

I think Aretè may appreciate them. Those t-shirts are evergreens. No cyclical seasons đ&#x;?–ď¸?đ&#x;?‚

Irene Angenica: It will be a gluten-free pizza then!

We should also think about the title to give to this article‌Once again, find a title...What a pain.

Davide La Montagna: Just the thought of Anna’s pasta both for lunch and dinner still haunts me I’m still sweating. My stomach has been literally destroyed - it was good though. Speaking of destruction, I wonder what happened to the destroyed blue sofa I used for the show in Cosenza‌

Alberto Venturini: This group show was so nostalgic and the title reminds me of something close to Boys Boys Boys by Sabrina Salerno.

I think the title of the article has to be something visceral and living, in my hometown we use

Patrizia Emma Scialpi: I was wondering the same thing about the DIY stadium bench recovered for the exhibition with Jacopo. đ&#x;’˜ Another title?

Help! I don’t mind the suggestions Sabrina Salerno / Francesca’s t shirts

Davide Sgambaro: I’m pretty sure that Estate, autunno is also the name of a pizza.

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“carnazza� to define barbecue and porn.

BoCs Art is Cosenza’s artistic residency which is located within the architectural complex desired by the city council in 2015. The wooden study boxes that follow one after another along the bank of the Crati river are inhabited by different groups of artist every season. Since 2018 Giacinto Di Pietrantonio has been the curator of the annual program and this year during the summer slot He invited Irene Angenica (Catania,1991), Giovanni Paolin (Dolo, 1989) and Giacomo Pigliapoco (Senigallia, 1991) who were each asked to invite artists to share with the residency.

FOCUS / ART PROJECTS AND RESIDENCIES

State Of is a new contemporary art space hosted by Aretè Showroom and located in Milan, inside the residential neighborhood of Porta Romana. Estate, autunno has been the inaugural exhibition of its program, now held by Manuela Nobile and Luca Zuccala, focused on creating a muldisciplinary platform exploring the numerous languages related to contemporary art practice.

Collective work Tonico Caldo (Real Estate) Installation view BoCs Art Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Jacopo Belloni MADE IN MIND | 55

anyway… Ah! Someone remember Anna’s husband’s t-shirt? Maybe we took a picture…

Davide La Montagna: It was something like “don’t bother me” but in a very “classy” way? What about a title like “Lost (in Cosenza) & Found (in Milano)”. too much?

Patrizia Emma Scialpi: Venturini, in my place “carnazza” is used to say “fuck” in a funny way...for the sausages I think.

Irene Angenica: I know what “carnazza” is from, the Skiantos’ song “Io ti amo da matti” (Sesso & Karnazza)…But let’s try to say something that makes sense also for the readers now. I guess I might ask you something like “how was your stay in Cosenza?” or “what expectations have you had about BoCs Art?” For most of you it was the first art experience in the deep south…

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Davide Sgambaro: “How was your stay in Cosenza?”

Hot and wet.

“What expectations have you had about BoCs Art?” The nearest sea.

Perhaps we can use one of those answers as a title, it could include both proposals from Patty and Da. Matilde Sambo: Well, talking about food, I started a new chapter of my life there! ‘Nduja’ and all the food of “Cantinetta” (was this the right name?) made an end point of my six years as a vegetarian. But well, I think that everything happens for a reason. There is always a cycle that at some point needs to be closed. I think it could be cool also asking ourselves: “What do I miss from those days?”

Dogs, staying up all night talking and watching (stripes) movie, sharing alcohol, hot days in the pool, hugs, gazes of complicity, crosswords, the sensation of freedom and relaxation when some of us went to the woods and to the lake. It was like starting to breath again after days inside the BoCs/box.

I didn’t have so many expectations, the whole last year was a little tough for me, so it has been a while since I try not to go to places and to people with expectations, but from the very first time, when I arrived there and started to meet all of you… well, I felt like home! No shame, just being myself, and being accepted no matter what.

Everyone had their own rhythm and after a while

Davide Sgambaro Things that happen Installation view BoCs Art Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Jacopo Belloni 56 | MADE IN MIND

Davide Sgambaro Non posso stare senza te Installation view BoCs Art Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Jacopo Belloni

we created a collective one, made by the crossing of energies, respect, sharing and free talking.

Something that I think we also brought and built during Estate, autunno in Milan.

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Alberto Venturini: The experience in Cosenza has worked up my curiosity with its different shades of ambiguity: by contrast, like seeing the Calatrava bridge and the beautiful old bohemian historical city center that collapses, or by similarities, like having an aquarium as a studio literally on the street, the same on which prostitutes worked until recently. Locals didn’t pay much attention to us and we were forced to live in a community of artists in which many of us had the same vibes and this allowed me to concentrate on my work and people I was living with, also because I was trying to tattoo most of them... I really loved the inflatable pool with waterfall we all bought together! Chiamenti in that pool, with his moustache, was like Magnum P.I. to me! This group was super cool! The only missing thing was an orgy, for this reason I insist with “carnazza” as a title!

Giovanni Chiamenti: If I think about our experience in Cosenza the first thing that comes to my mind is “TONICO CALDO” that should have been our title for the final exhibition, but became the one for our collective work, the beloved inflatable pool.

The title describes perfectly the sinergy we had as a tight-knit group and it describes our evenings together drinking hot gin & tonic from the same bottle. Also, even if we approach art in different ways, we respected each other and listened. I think we all took something back home from our companion’s thoughts during the evening presentations.

I have been to different residencies but I’ve never found a group like this, with this kind of strange energy where everyone seems to be at home and has no filters from the first day of cohabitation.

Probably we were all so close because at the end we are a group of stray dogs wandering around… searching…

Jacopo Belloni: “Inflammable pool” could also be a nice title!! (I know, I’m really sick about searching titles).

However, I think these moments where a group of artists and curators are all together sharing opinions and feedback are really rare after the academy period. It’s for that I was surprised to find this kind of generosity between people who, most of them never having met each other before. I think this mood of mockery between peers and, in the meantime, take care of them and their

Davide Sgambaro Parappaparaparapappapara (906G1HAGP4OD) (921B1HAGP4OD) Installation view BoCs Art Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Jacopo Belloni

Davide Sgambaro Parappaparaparapappapara (924F1HAGN60) Installation view State Of, Milan, 2019 Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Francesco Spallacci

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FOCUS / ART PROJECTS AND RESIDENCIES Alberto Venturini Tattoo shop Pop up shop, temporary store Installation view BoCs Art Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Jacopo Belloni 58 | MADE IN MIND

research was the most important aspect of this residency.

I can resume that our perceptions were switching continuously between sharp lucidity and blurry leisure (due to the warm gin and Anna’s kitchen)

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Giacomo Pigliapoco: And then suddenly, in a midsummer night, half toned and half hot as just said by Jacopo, our bodies were in unison conveyed into the solution regarding the title of our, at that time first and only, exhibition chapter.

After an idiosyncrasy towards countless aspects, concepts, anecdotes and various cultural references, the epiphany on the title was complete. I remember freshly all details about the nights spent supposing the title: for example it’s vivid in my mind, a certain point of one night when Belloni and Chiamenti stood up saying: Tonico Caldo. Do you remember?

After laughing a lot we agreed about a dialectical expression typical of the city of Cosenza that referred to the river where the residency is located: the Busento river. A particular river, silent and dangerous at the same time, like people who have something to hide, often guilty of misdeeds and snares.

Through our words we wanted to break that negative aura, so the title result was a small extract from this byword: A jumi cittu un ji a piscà. A JUMI. Giovanni Giacomo Paolin: ...and after GP can only come GGP! How are you fellows? I really think this is the right way to approach an article on this experience, in the end the entire residency was based on our words, whether they were wise, dumb or simply altered.

For me - and I think it comes out from the first part of this dialogue - the real moment that changed everything was the first meal all together, during that we could actually feel involved in something as a group. Unfortunately I don’t remember the instant in which we decided to work together for a group show, could someone help me? In my memory this was a very fluid and natural decision that no one opposed.

The only few problems during the residency came when something was forced or obliged. It’s clear from our experience that we have to talk about something more than the mere artistic encounter and focus on the atmosphere during those days.

Davide La Montagna: I don’t actually remember the exact moment where we chose to do a group show instead of a classical open studio - considering the fact that the open studio was the classical format as a residency restitution -, but I do remember talking with Irene after a lunch, walking towards Lungofiume 3 saying that there was an idea of organizing a group show. After that, everything turned out as a whirlpool where all of us started a huge and quick brainstorming, that ended up with the collective work Tonico Caldo (Real Estate).

Alberto Venturini Così vicino Installation view State Of, Milan, 2019 Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Francesco Spallacci

Alberto Venturini Così vicino Installation view State Of, Milan, 2019 Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Alessandro Lenzolari MADE IN MIND | 59

Davide Sgambaro: I believe that the idea of ​​working in one place, and therefore with the form of a collective open studio where the works interacted with each other, had come out of a need for comparison.

I remember that initially my group was in the farthest boxes and from there we felt the need to work more closely.

I guess it’s the only way to face a short-lived residence and in fact I FOCUS / ART PROJECTS AND RESIDENCIES

think it has paid off.

I also enjoyed having the three curators work together. This aspect has been masterfully managed and I think it came very naturally. It was certainly easier for us to devote ourselves to research and work.

Furthermore, I was very critical of having an entire box each to be filled and used as a “showcase” after only ten days of residence where at least two were used for the trip, not to mention the lack of budget for production and coverage.

Irene Angenica: I remember that before arriving in Cosenza I was already assiduously talking by phone with Giacomo and Giovanni (poor them, sometimes I do admit I can be really annoying) to organize screenings or other activities to encourage dialogue between the various members of the group. I mean... for me working in a collective sense is something very spontaneous and natural, especially after this year of total sharing within a curatorial collective, however, it was also very stimulating to work with two curators with whom I had never collaborated before. We set up a very synergic and in-dialogue way of working, we actually are very complementary... in a certain way it was a very different experience of living the curatorial approach in a choral way compared to how I had lived (and am living it) with CampoBase.

In the end we all worked a lot and it has been a very productive time for everyone, from which we learned a lot from each other. The only thing that I regret a little that we took few trips together, we should have all gone to the sea more often!

The artists have always been very focused on the production of their works. I guess it was very stimulating for them to be so free and to have so many people listening (even though the no budget situation was a big deal). I remember that super warm afternoon when after a huge lunch I did studio visits to all of them with Giovanni and Giacomo.

It has been so fun and interesting to see the research of each of them with different curatorial perspectives, and find details and nuances that alone I would never have noticed.

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Jacopo Belloni Sorry Installation view BoCs Art Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art

I’m thinking that at this point it could be very interesting that each of you can also tell a little about your research and how you worked on your production.

Pietro Ballero: If I have to write about my research and production in Cosenza I must make one premised. Due uomini e uno Sgambaro was the turning point of my BoCs experience; Ire, Gio and Giacomo proposed for us to present our research and our works in a sort of public program open to all and focused on knowing us better. My answer: ”Brilliant idea! But please, please, please don’t get me started”. Of course I was scheduled in the first “round”, together with Jacopo and Davide. Usually I get nervous quite easily, in this case I was panicked: it was my first time ever in a residency, I was surely the artist with less experience of all, I already knew and admired the works of many of them and I trembled at the thought of being unable to get accepted in this community… I survived the presentation and this agitation has become one of the subjects of my research during those days.

Gabriel Stoeckli: Hello beautiful people, sorry, now I’m here ehehe... I left for the residence with few ideas, but knowing that I wanted to take a summer break, meet new people and FOCUS / ART PROJECTS AND RESIDENCIES

maybe start new works. Playing the Petanque is relaxing, communal; a good start for reflections. Eat well, drink, walk, adjust the air conditioning in the room, compare yourself with others… it was a beautiful experience.

In Milan I presented a new work born from those times, but with other values; a play set for collectors? :P Davide La Montagna: Well, if I have to be completely honest, I wasn’t concerned at all about the production. I do have endless notes written in my telephone and on various notebooks with projects and works that I will produce for the right situation. Looking at the wool sheets in the wardrobe immediately triggered me, since I was thinking of that series of works for a pretty long time. So, I remember that I felt a bit frustrated because, as Irene said, everyone was pretty keen to work religiously in their respective bocs - like Matilde for instance ahah -, and I basically wandered around reading poems instead. But hey, that experience helped me to understand that my way of creating work is basically ‘’situational’’, allowing myself to let my guard down a bit too. In fact, I do believe that a studio for me is quite unnecessary, unless it’s used as a deposit. Besides that, the evening presentations were a pretty accurate idea, also because many of us were reasonably scared of talking in front of an audience.

Marta Spagnoli: Exactly Davide, the comparison was the driving force of ten days of review and deep analysis, starting from the presentation evenings, in which at first I wasn’t at ease, considering my circumspect and cautious nature that leads me to experience new things in a watchful way. For this reason, the residence has been nourishing

Jacopo Belloni Le vulnerabili Installation view State Of, Milan, 2019 Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Jacopo Belloni

and extremely vivifying to me: I happened to observe how

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FOCUS / ART PROJECTS AND RESIDENCIES Davide La Montagna Untitled (Lovers Amassed on the Square) Installation view BoCs Art Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist Photo Jacopo Belloni

Davide La Montagna Not Yet Titled (Come Closer) Installation view State Of, Milan, 2019 Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Francesco Spallacci

Davide La Montagna Talk To Me (Like Lovers Do) Installation view BoCs Art Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist Photo Jacopo Belloni

Davide La Montagna Untitled (Heart) Installation view BoCs Art Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist Photo Jacopo Belloni

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my “savage” shyness was tamed in favor of a great need for interrelation and exchange. At the beginning of the journey my intentions were to simply make a large canvas and to be able to work all day long. But most of the “work”, equally important, consisted in getting out of our own habitat. It was liberating, and the initial displacement was immediately replaced by a compelling desire to know and understand all the people that, like me, sank a small root in Cosenza.

Davide Sgambaro: In fact, for my research, residences are very important because they give you time to reflect overtaking the problem of how to pay the rent for that particular month.

Another thing I find important to do is to isolate yourself.

In Cosenza, isolation was almost obligatory, partly for the geographic area and partly for the climate during the day.

Even work approaches tended to distance us in two macro groups, from those who always worked manually to those who worked conceptually from the inflatable pool (which is why I pushed to buy it).

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Nicola Lorini: Hey Hey All! I apologise for being late, as usual It’s quite interesting to see this “epistolary” exchange taking place, long-distance, after the physical proximity that marked out our time together. It seems like a sort of after match assessment, that of course can’t avoid dramas, frictions and spectacular twists.

I love the fact that doing a residency is like crossing a “portal” to another world, where micro systems and subtle relationships exist and perform only in a specific spatial and temporal framework.

When departing from Cosenza the security at Lamezia Airport took my ‘nduja’ (LOL) for questionable safety reasons. In my mind that act sounded like a statement, “this belongs to here and needs to stay here”, almost like if I was stealing a baby lion from his original habitat. That mass of fatback and roasted hot peppers somehow incorporated the exclusivity of the time spent at BoCs. It might have been exciting, disastrous, maybe productive but it was certainly relevant in its own constitution.

Going back to Irene’s question about the approach to the residency in terms of research and production I feel my main focus was to let my current interests unfold within an unknown context. In this sense the work I developed while working in Cosenza was a pretext to understand that specific cultural, social and natural sluggish exuberance within a process of negotiation between mine and other perspectives.

Jacopo Belloni: Referring to the project I developed in Cosenza, I realized few months later how important it has been to my research. I could consider it a turning point where I could develop some of his fundamental aspects better than before: the vulnerability of the human body and its transformations, the dichotomy between aggressiveness and care, between public and private space. I arrived in Cosenza with a plaster cast on my left arm, already part of the project I developed for the ten days of residence.

During the whole period at BoCs I gradually added excrescences and horned elements on its surface, as if it

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Patrizia Emma Scialpi Avevo 13 anni Installation view BoCs Art Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Jacopo Belloni

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were a coral or a shell of a growing shell. The sculptural element changed my perception of space and my relationship with the other participants, taking the form of a biological extension of the body that ideally prevented me from producing a work for the residence, forcing me into an annoying idleness. The care turned into a work.

Patrizia Emma Scialpi: I was interested in several things about Cosenza before I arrived at BoCs but, when I walked my first night with you to the old Cosenza, I decided that it would be the perfect opportunity to develop a specific interest about Ultras. This interest comes from my hometown, Taranto (object and subject that eternally returns in my artistic life). At the beginning I was inspired by the connections between Taranto and Cosenza, but later I moved my investigation mainly to a historical group of supporters of Cosenza Football Club. The post-lunch moment with Giovanni (Paolin), Davide, Jacopo, Luca (a friend of Giacomo born in Cosenza), Venturini and Sgamby was fundamental for me; that little moment of relax, coffee and crosswords has naturally become a comparison of stories, references, iconographic and musical research on

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Patrizia Emma Scialpi Coro Video 2’43�

BoCs Art, Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo the artist

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Patrizia Emma Scialpi Un giorno all’improvviso, difendo la città Installation view State Of, Milan, 2019 Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Francesco Spallacci

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fans’ movements: The Bologna F.C., The Taranto F.C., Basketball fans, the banners from the Hooligans, the local punk scene, the stadium choirs, the contacts with the ultras, the pub. That day Luca told me about the Pogues!

I agree with Davide La Montagna about the bocs especially in this case and so my “studio” were the Ultras’s places such as bars, the Pogues, the stadium, the slogans on the walls and my work has materialized thanks to the continuous comparison between us during the presentation evenings and in many other moments, in a swimming pool or during the “last” cigarette at 4 a.m.

Pietro Ballero: Before my arrival I was genuinely scared about the production. With such a short time and the need to make a point. I thought I should work hard day and night… I definitely didn’t leave Torino with the idea to go on vacation (and I even carried a printer on trains and buses from Turin to Cosenza ). But I learned from this experience that a residency offers artists the opportunity to look at time as a friend: during the residency period we are obliged to stop in a determined place, to put aside all the commitments and finally have the opportunity to do those simple things essential for the growth of an artist, but not always achievable in the Matilde Sambo Installation view BoCs Art, Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art

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middle of everyday daily tasks. Just watching the others at BoCs I realized how an artists practice can be prolific without necessarily feeling anxious to do something.

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Giovanni Chiamenti: In order to answer Irene’s question I’m gonna talk about my car’s trunk before leaving for Cosenza with Giovannino. I wasn’t sure about what I would have produced during the following days and so I brought with me every sort of material I found in my studio.

I usually do this thing when I go to a residency to have the possibility to find new solutions or to give birth to new projects and that is exactly what happened. At BoCs I started a new research that has grown in the following months during two other residencies I took part in and it led me to the creation of a new series I’ve called NUMEN. Each residency has its own peculiarities and its own duration so, as an artist, you have to be prepared to get the most out of it. At BoCs every one of us worked hard from the beginning to plan something different from the classic final open studio and that has led us to another level of comprehension of other companions’ research.

Giacomo Pigliapoco: A JUMI, at the end has been all of these aspects conveyed together in the small show in Cosenza but there was more: a tiny little thing, maybe insignificant for someone, but not for all of us, I think to speak for all of the group, isn’t that right? Something had grown inside and among us during those days full of fragments shared together and we didn’t want to lose any of it once we got back to our daily commitments. So, just before we left during the last brilliant and energetic breakfast made by Anna the cook, we promised each other that this would only be a temporary departure and we’d be able to work together again in the future, allowing a wider range of people to become acquainted with what was created during the residency. A few days later we’ve decided to keep all the vibes alive in a think tank mail group to organize our bodies and our minds. After a few dinners, aperò, meetings, Skype calls, and gin tonics (without ice obviously) we’ve planned to open a second chapter, starting from the same research developed in Cosenza, in an almost common and familiar city: Milan.

Irene Angenica : So the new question is… who wants to start talking about Estate, autunno? <3 Pietro Ballero: To meet everyone again a few months later for Estate, Autunno it was a bit like the middleschool “pizzata”, when, after a long time, you see

Matilde Sambo Fervore operoso e ascetivo distacco, 2019 Installation view State Of, Milan, 2019 Courtesy the artist and State Of MADE IN MIND | 69

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Giovanni Chiamenti Installation view BoCs Art, Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Jacopo Belloni

someone out of that environment you used to live everyday.

Of course some of us have been meeting other times before that, but to meet again all at once with the idea to continue a path began together was exciting!

Irene Angenica: But I guess that all of you should have done a “translation” or “evolution” between what you had developed in Cosenza and what you presented in Milan, right?

Davide Sgambaro : My project was physically born in Cosenza where I produced an artist proof and then I’ve brought the first work of the series Parappaparaparapappapara to

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Matilde Sambo: It’s a bit strange to think about all of this now, after several months, it really feels like ages. After A JUMI I felt like Milan was a sort of extension of what we made in Cosenza.

With Estate, autunno we made a revisitation of A JUMI. And it is not so easy to find an equilibrium inside a group, and from the inside it is not so easy to have people that can curate every little aspect.

People move, change, go away or stay, but it is always cool when you find people that see the world in a very similar way of yours, meeting people that can see the outside, the aperto, those that are trying to live in those thin and various levels and shades of reality.

And you can understand movement of artists, and so, that came out from chat, readings, talking, drinking…f****** sharing!

Since I moved to Milan I have always had a shared studio, that could be intimate, a place on your own inside which you are always in contact with someone else, even if it is only a coffee or a beer. A place where you can have moments dedicated to the horizontal exchange, sharing doubts, books, music...

In Cosenza I literally covered every corner of the space with my stuff, every space where I was working. If I had to stay inside that bocs for more than 2 days I would be obliged to leave around objects of various nature and type; even my curator Giovanni was amazed of the tons of stuff that I took in those days, together with the big amount of wax I used and he contributed leaving a (really great) piece of iron outside my box one day.

Most of the works that came out from those days were exploration of materials that I’m using in artistic research now.

Let me say one thing: wax and sun are not best friends.

It took me one day to understand that I couldn’t leave any trace of wax on the floor, only the stairs were secure, because when the sun rose the entire bocs was a fire cage.

And yes, very cool, wax reacts to heat, changes its status, and so…but It was everywhere, the red wax was like blood.

Giovanni Chiamenti Numen #1, 2019 Installation view State Of, Milan, 2019 Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Francesco Spallacci.

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FOCUS / ART PROJECTS AND RESIDENCIES Milan. Cosenza seemed to me the right place to approach that kind of production focused on a suspended and playful temporality typical of the regenerating boredom of a holiday. When I returned to the studio, in Turin, I had already experimented with the technique for producing finished works, larger in size, but also better structured and controlled. Obviously in Cosenza it would have been quite uncomfortable to produce big works or in any case the dimensions I had thought of, both for a transport factor and also for the budget. It was a natural process, I didn’t even think so much about what to produce during the residency. It must also be said that initially I believed that this series could only be made in the summer because I wanted to use heat and humidity as agents to melt the m&m’s on the sheets. Then after some tests I realized that the visual return was certainly more funny if the m&m’s were wet before throwing them, thus they would also have left the trace of the passage on the white cotton.

So I decided to bring the first finished work of this potentially very long series to Milan.

For the Estate, autunno exhibition, on the other hand, we had to deal

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with a particular space, with some curatorial needs, and therefore that evolution of the work is certainly the result of another kind of approach. As much as the Milan exhibition was the reference to the experience of Cosenza, I noticed two very different situations.

There was an excellent curatorial work that allowed us to work with serenity, also there was a lot of tranquility in the air in preparing the exhibition, there was a trust already founded previously thanks to which we managed to work in harmony without worrying too much about restitution of the other artists. And finding ourselves after a season has been very funny!

Giovanni Chiamenti: Clearly the work has evolved during the last months. I’ve experimented with different materials instead of the ones used in Cosenza. For Estate, autunno I created a sort of altar on the top of which there was a sacred plant with multiple and undulant branches.

The installation for me had to represent a feeling, coinciding with the term numinous, that was coined by the religious historian and theologian Rudolf Otto who retained that it was the intimate essence of every religion, or in other words, the holy. The “holy” is manifested as mysterium tremendum e fascinans (fearful and fascinating mystery). The meaning of mysterium, taken in its universal and weakened sense, means merely “secret”, as in being foreign to us, not understood, unexplained, and it constitutes Pietro Ballero You Still Have Time Installation view BoCs Art, Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Nicola Lorini

Pietro Ballero The best fails of all time (so far) Installation view BoCs Art, Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Nicola Lorini

that which we consider a pure analogical notion, purely natural, without actually drawing on reality.

Paolo Bufalini: In my case there wasn’t an evolution, I exhibited the same work in Milan, Auspice, exactly as it was in Cosenza. To answer the previous question, for me the residence was an opportunity to develop a new line of research.

In fact, I worked for the first time with writing and sound. In the last year I haven’t had a studio, and the possibility of dedicating 10 days exclusively to the production of a new work allowed me to explore a new ground for me. I found it particularly suitable to my way of working the mix between the isolation of the single bocs and the proximity between us, as well as the alternation between long parts of the day dedicated to the solo work and the pre-established convivial moments (lunch, dinner, portfolio review). Speaking more specifically about my work, it is a dialogue between two ashtrays, who tell each other dreams and comment on them. Somehow the context had a big influence on the writing of the dialogue, where, for example, the dogs hanging around the bocs also appear. In general, the idea of staging a dialogue between two ashtrays refers to those intimate situations that sometimes take place in moments of relaxation, such as a cigarette break.

Patrizia Emma Scialpi: For Estate, autunno I developed the project started at BoCs. This time, however, there is no story, not a specific local group but several elements that refer to the Ultras: the football team is a symbol of love for the city.

At the beginning I wanted to make jackets for our BoCs bowls teams: Ticino and Riviera, a tribute to those moments born from Gabriel’s project in Cosenza. I was immediately intrigued by the possibility of playing with the spaces and structures of the showroom.

L’estate sta finendo / difendo la città are eight

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Placing natural elements like plasticine and terracotta powder alongside synthetic materials like polystyrene and polyurethane foam permitted me to get close to the contrasts that Otto used in order to describe this numinous sensation. It is a work about the Holy but it also criticizes the loss of the sacred vision of nature in our geological era.

Pietro Ballero LOL Installation view State Of, Milan, 2019 Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Francesco Spallacci Pietro Ballero LOL Installation view Conserveria Pastis, Turin Courtesy the artist and Associazione Culturale Azimut Photo Marco Ronca

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FOCUS / ART PROJECTS AND RESIDENCIES Gabriel Stoeckli Tabellone marca punti Installation view BoCs Art, Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Jacopo Belloni

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Gabriel Stoeckli Bocce Installation view BoCs Art, Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Jacopo Belloni

Gabriel Stoeckli Relax Installation view BoCs Art, Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Jacopo Belloni

FOCUS / ART PROJECTS AND RESIDENCIES Gabriel Stoeckli Pétanque Installation view State Of, Milan, 2019 Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Francesco Spallacci

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FOCUS / ART PROJECTS AND RESIDENCIES Marta Spagnoli Untitled Installation view BoCs Art, Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Jacopo Belloni

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FOCUS / ART PROJECTS AND RESIDENCIES Nicola Lorini Installation view BoCs Art, Cosenza Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art

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k-ways printed with the slogan of a stadium choir but also potential declarations of love to wear. The elements are all there: shapes, slogans, colors, fog, the soundtrack of the choir - borrowed from a famous performance by the Ultras of Naples. I scenically placed colored LEDs and clouds of smoke that enveloped the k-way to read in the fog.

Pietro Ballero: During the reading of L’età dei Muri, a historical essay in which Carlo Greppi analyzes the worrying “new religion of the exclusion” that characterizes our cultural moment, I came across a description of a photo taken in 1941, depicting a balloon seller placed inside the Warsaw Ghetto. It was the biggest Nazi ghetto and at the time when the picture was taken the restrictions imposed on

Matilde Sambo: Well, the evolution for my research is something already written and inside the materials that I’m using for a while; wax, soya’s skin, bronze…

The step forward I took after Cosenza was to rethink the way to install (using an aluminium structure that was already in the space) and put in dialogues some of the works that I made during the residency, with

FOCUS / ART PROJECTS AND RESIDENCIES

the Jewish people caused more than two thousand deaths a month. The presence of a balloon seller in such a contest appears unbelievable.

The photographer wrote: “In all past years, until this picture was enlarged, if someone had asked me if I had seen balloon sellers in the Ghetto I would have said categorically not. The idea would have struck me as absurd and I could have sworn on oath that I hadn’t; however the picture is proof: in the beginning there were still balloons in the Warsaw Ghetto”.

LOL, the installation that I presented at Estate, autunno, explores the theme of memory through the medial and digital declination. Three digital prints depict a WhatsApp conversation in which some enlargements of the picture in question are shared. In front of them a forest of helium balloons accompanies the viewer to the work.

Balloons and party imagery are the elements that refer to my works at BoCs. In Cosenza I had invited the viewer in an atmosphere linked to that gloomy precise moment of a just ended birthday. Between a deflated balloon and smashed popcorn, some elements trigger a short-circuit, inviting the viewer to think about a consumer and performance society.

Nicola Lorini Sand, Sad, Sleep, 2019 Installation view State Of, Milan Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Nicola Lorini

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other little sculptures that I’m working on, and a video, that I made barely a year ago, speaking and presenting some points of my research on the relationships between humans, the sublime nature and death.

In my work I consider every element as fragmented...

I always find pieces that need to be cured… with the consciousness that everything is unstable, and all human acts are merely transitory… but only when you can feel emptiness you can try to absorb it and transform it into something that leaves a trace, even if it is infinitesimal... this, I think, is a human necessity for feeling alive.

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Davide La Montagna: My work definitely changed, as well as we did. Or, at least, I did. As Matilde said before, I do believe that studio visits or simply talking with colleagues or other artists helps us to get closer, to understand where the works really come from. It’s a sort of psychoanalytic session with a therapist. In fact, I do remember the evening presentations and how things immediately made sense in my head. It makes even more sense now that I know everyone better than before. It might look naive, but maybe the ‘’urgency’’ of making might come from a common place, where our lives intertwine with each other.

Artists are egomaniacs in a way, isn’t it?

In order to answer Irene’s question, the two sculptures I showed in Cosenza were pretty different from the one I showed in Milan, basically because of the materials I used to make them. In Cosenza, due to the lack of budget and

Paolo Bufalini Auspice Installation view BoCs Art, Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Jacopo Belloni

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Jacopo Belloni: The work presented in Milan was a natural continuation

Paolo Bufalini Auspice Installation view State Of, Milan Courtesy the artist and State Of

Giovanni Giacomo Paolin: Chat time has expired! We really hope this conversation could give some food for thought to anyone that has the patience to read it, we talked about a lot of topics and we hope to give our contribution for a new way to approach artistic projects.

I think the most appropriate way to sum up our point of view can be referring to our project Tonico Caldo and its sense of conviviality and active idleness: a residency, an exhibition, as well as a 30 euro plastic pool can represent a collective work carried out by 15 fantastic people all together.

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resources I asked everyone to lend me one of their wool sheets, since every single bocs had one into its wardrobe. The destroyed sofa was kindly transported by Sgambaro & Venturini directly into my bocs.

This means that these works are deeply connected with the specific place where the objects are abandoned/found: Not Yet Titled (Come Closer) was, in fact, the mix of a ‘’milanese’’ worn-out furniture and a wool sheet I bought in Turin. Now that I’m writing this answer down I do also believe that the same work will change anyway if shown in another context, because of the context itself. In Cosenza the dialogue between the two works and the place where they were shown recalled a haunted house, or a scene after a move. In Milan, even if the attitude was the exact same one as Cosenza, it looked like something else, because of the empty space, or the ‘’white cube’’ let’s say.

of the BoCs Art project, although formally it may seem very different. The idea of the vulnerability of the body and the relationship of objects related to its care remained alive in my mind. So I tried to increase the dichotomy between an innate fragility of the human being and the simulation of an aggressive attitude. The project realized for Estate, autunno was a series of raku ceramics that reproduce the internal prostheses that replace the joints of upper and lower limbs. In the medical field these prostheses have an offensive form, similar to blunt weapons that hide in the body to cure and preserve it. The series therefore reproduces ambiguous objects, apparently sharp and aggressive, but with a therapeutic function. Also the technique used is equivocal; raku is a firing for oxygen reduction that blackens the surface of the ceramic giving it a carbonized effect. The use of the “terra sigillata”, a very oily liquid ceramic that I applied to the pieces before firing, has made it possible to create metallic effects similar to burnishing.

Apparently the material seems aggressive and strong too, but it turns out to be extremely fragile. The display instead wants to resume a sanitary aesthetics similar to surgical devices, which in this case turns into a sort of reliquary to accommodate fragments that replace the body. This idea of body replacement is a point that incredibly fascinates me. Ideally all the work is based on terracotta ex-votos that in ancient times, throughout the Mediterranean basin and beyond, were offered by the worshippers to the gods to ask for the cure of a sick part. The reproduction of the body is extremely linked to the fear of its loss.

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Collective work Tonico Caldo (Real estate) Installation view, detail BoCs Art, Cosenza, 2019 Courtesy the artist and BoCs Art Photo Jacopo Belloni