QUART ERLY - P.I. 21/07 /2017 Intern ationa l € 10, Spedizione in Abbon Chf 10,50 , UK £ 7,50 Poste Italian e S.p.a. amento Postale - 70% - LO/MI
J A D E I S S U E
JADE ISSUE - n° 11 - 2017 - € 10
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The Art of Sailing
Courtesy Galleria Salamon
[ ART ON BOARD ]
FIGURATIVE ART MAKES A COMEBACK Painting, photography and video. The visual arts reinvent the classics with brilliant “green” by Micaela Zucconi
I
n his recent book Nature Morte, Michael Petry, Director of MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) London, discusses how
21st century artists are revitalising still life, a genre traditionally associated with the 16th and 17th century Great Masters, rather than the contemporary scene. These new artists draw on centuries of
Courtesy Galleria
Salamon
tradition to reinvent the genre to produce works of great conceptual
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vivacity that also communicate profound emotion. A comeback that has affected figurative art in the broadest sense of the term. “The Art Price Report confirms that trend as there are seven figurative artists in the top 16 selling artists in recent months. That is excluding, of
This page, right, Gianluca Corona, Green, 2016. Below, Ruud van Empel, Study in Green #8, 2003. Bottom, Robert Wilson, Lady Gaga, Mademoiselle Caroline Riviere, 2013, Robert Wilson, Tales, showing until October 15. villapanza.it Opposite page: top left, Marzio Tamer, Rio Stagno, 2011. Below,
©Julian Mommert
Courtesy Galleria Salamon
©ruudvanempel
Gianluca Corona, Little Lettuce, 2016.
course, Great Masters of the likes of Picasso or Manet who, if you counted them, would bring the total up to 20,” explains Lorenza Salamon of the Galleria Salamon in Milan, which specialises in classic and contemporary figurative art. A specialist niche that includes not just still lifes, but also landscapes, nature, flora and fauna. The most successful Italian artists to embrace the new trend are Marzio Tamer and Gianluca Corona. The talented and poetic Tamer is renowned for his classical approach: he favours the egg tempera, water colour and dry brush techniques favoured by that great 20th American realist painter, Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009). Tamer’s main subjects are animals, nature morte and landscapes which he portrays with photographic precision yet somehow imbues them with an emotional soul. The equally-skilled Corona’s still lifes are inspired by the 16th and 17th century Great Masters but his approach is modern and his use of light lends a metaphysical quality to the work. Like Tamer, his techniques are traditional: board covered in linen or cotton which is then sized and gessoed. Nature has made a return too in the watercolours of the Spanish neorealist 113
©J.L.Montero
[ ART ON BOARD ]
Searching for Love, acrylic on canvas, 2013: an expression of the painter’s strong feeling for nature. Below, Yayoi Kusama with recent works in Tokyo, 2016. They feature in the Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors exhibition, Seattle Art Museum, running until October 10. Seattleartmuseum.org COURTESY OF THE ARTIST ©YAYOI KUSAMA, PHOTO: TOMOAKI MAKINO
Collection Miyoung Lee and Neil Simpkins, Courtesy of David Zwirner, NY, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore
Above, Pedro Cano, Calle, watercolour on paper, 2005. Left, Yayoi Kusama,
painter Pedro Cano who imbues his subjects with deeply-felt emotion. His
Biumo, Varese, until October 15). Dutch photographer and visual artist
technique is painstakingly slow, however. “I work in negative and I don’t
Ruud van Empel creates meticulous patchworks of photographs shot
sketch out first in pencil. It can sometimes take a day or two to do just a
at different times, crafting them into digital collages. “I want to create
single flower,” he says. Canadian Ron Kingswood, on the other hand, takes
my own personal world, a distillation of my imagination translated into
the nature of his native Ontario as his inspiration for his oils-on-canvas.
photographs,” he says of his Nordic woods, tropical forests and fantastic
His technique borders on the expressionist, yielding a new perspective
surroundings with children and animals immersed in an idealised natural
on the contemporary naturalism. In the manner of the Great Masters,
world that seems completely out of time. Overlays and transparencies
nature – as in landscape – can simply provide the background to the
characterise the photography of New Zealander Miriam Strong, winner
main subject. This is true of the video portrait, Lady Gaga, Mademoiselle
of the Sony World Photography National Awards 2017, a section of the
Caroline Riviere, 2013, by famous American artist Robert Wilson after
hugely important Sony World Photography Awards which is seen as a
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’s 1806 painting (Tales, Villa Panza di
springboard for new talents. One to watch.
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