Art Tracker, discovering new talents. Interview with Clarissa Baldassarri.

Clarissa Baldassarri was born in Civitanova Marche in 1994. In 2013 she enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Macerata where she graduated in Decoration. In 2017 she decided to move to Naples, where she is now completing the Specialistic Biennium in Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts. In the same year she started working with the GMCG gallery in Livorno which exhibited her solo show "Eikòna". In 2019 she was one of the three recipients of the Combat Prize in the Art Tracker section that led her to participate in a collective exhibition, together with Anna Marzuttini and Giorgia Valli, at Lucca Art Fair 2020.

Sound data logger. installazione site specific Le Scalze, Napoli, 2020 Photo credit: Iolanda Pazzanese

How would you define your artistic practice and what are the issues you investigate?

It is difficult to give an absolute definition to my artistic practice. What I follow, rather than a well-defined modus operandi, is the dimension of listening. I think this is the right word. I always try to understand the message I want to communicate first, then the means and roads change accordingly. A guiding thread certainly lies in the voice that I try to listen to and which up to now has always led me to investigate beyond the surface of things, beyond what we see, hear or touch.

I have a call to the invisible and the imperceptible and what I try to do is to restore a physical, real dimension to what normally escapes, disappears.

When did you decide that you would have been an artist?

I didn't decide. It was an almost necessary path. Art was a necessity, a way to be undertaken in order to transform into something else what I was unable to keep inside of me. A cleansing ritual started about five years ago when I started having problems with my eyesight. That was the moment when I started to wonder about the reality that surrounded me, and about the desire to tell what I felt. Seeing beyond the physical dimension of things was an obligatory path, a feeling too strong that found freedom of expression in the image, regardless of the final form.

Appunti Carte Tintoretto. Installazione site specific Le Scalze, Napoli, 2020 - Photo credit: Iolanda Pazzanese

You have just finished your studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples: how has this specific context influenced the definition of your work?

More than the Academy itself, what influenced my work the most was the city of Naples. I moved to this city after attending the three-year period in Decoration in Macerata and they were completely different experiences. Here the weight of the urban context is felt and breathed in everything. It is impossible not to be overwhelmed.

Transferring here was a precise choice, Naples had been calling me for some time and after three years I can say that I found what I was looking for. The dimension of the sacred and the profane, human contact, the spirit of sharing, the dialogue that overcomes barriers. These are aspects that I wanted to know and are a visible trace in my latest works.

Ausiliare. Installazione site specific Le Scalze, Napoli, 2020 Photo credit: Iolanda Pazzanese

We started this interview in early February but then our world changed radically. How are you facing the current pandemic crisis and how has this emergency affected your practice?

Exactly, it was a great change and only with time we will be able to understand its real effects.

I certainly cannot say that I have lived badly my quarantine. Indeed, it was a period of long reflections where I felt freed from the frenetic rhythms of the clock and I was able to reconnect with my inner time. Paradoxically, I think that this physical distance made us experience another way of getting closer to each other, which crosses all borders, and it happened precisely because we all experienced the same temporal condition; that time that Peter Handke wanted to communicate through the concept of duration.

I developed new ideas during this period which touch on these aspects, but they still need further elaboration.

On the other hand, I was initially shocked by the sudden silence that fell on my city. Just before the lockdown I had just inaugurated the exhibition “Ausiliare”, in the Scalze church of Naples, curated by Marianna Agliotte and Rosaria Iazzetta. In the exhibition I dealt with the theme of listening in relation to the position that a person occupies in a given space and time, enhancing the concept of silence. Being in the position of really feeling these surreal sensations was like living a lucid dream.

Visone mostra Eikona Altarino 1° e Altarino 2°. gmcg gallery, Livorno, 2018 Photo credit: Francesco Levy

- CampoBase Team (Irene Angenica, Bianca Buccioli, Emanuele Carlenzi, Gabriella Dal Lago, Ginevra Ludovici, Federica Torgano, Stefano Volpato)

LUCCA ART FAIR - ART TRACKER

November 27 - 29 - 2020

Casermetta San Frediano, via delle Mura Urbane - 55100 Lucca

T +39 3311303702

E info@luccaartfair.it

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Opening times Friday 27 November, 5.30 pm to 8 pm

Saturday 28 November, 10 am to 8 pm

Sunday 29 November, 10 am to 8 pm

Tate Britain celebrates Aubrey Beardsley, icon of english Dandysm

Tate Britain’s major new exhibition celebrates the brief career of Aubrey Beardsley. This is the largest display of his original drawings in over 50 years and the first exhibition of his work at Tate since 1923.

Frederick Evans 1853-1943 Portrait of Aubrey Beardsley 1893 - Wilson Centre for Photography

Beardsley (1872-98) became one of the enfants terribles of fin-de-siècle London, best remembered for illustrating Oscar Wilde’s controversial play Salomé. His opulent imagery anticipated the elegance of Art Nouveau but also alighted on the subversive and erotic aspects of life and legend, shocking audiences with a bizarre sense of humour and fascination with the grotesque. Beardsley was prolific, producing hundreds of illustrations for books, periodicals and posters in a career spanning just under seven years. Line block printing enabled his distinct black-and-white works to be easily reproduced and widely circulated, winning notoriety and admirers around the world, but the original pen and ink drawings are rarely seen. Tate Britain exhibits a huge array of these drawings, revealing his unrivalled skill as a draughtsman in exquisite detail.

The Slippers of Cinderella 1894 Ink and watercolour on paper Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press

The exhibition highlights each of the key commissions that defined Beardsley’s career as an illustrator, notably Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur 1893-4, Wilde’s Salomé 1893 and Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock 1896, of which five of the original drawings are shown together for the first time. As art director of the daring literary quarterly The Yellow Book, the artist also created seminal graphic works that came to define the decadence of the era and scandalised public opinion. Bound editions and plates are displayed alongside subsequent works from The Savoy and illustrations for Volpone1898 and Lysistrata1896, in which Beardsley further explored his fascination with eroticism and the absurd.

Beardsley’s imagination was fuelled by diverse cultural influences, from ancient Greek vases and Japanese woodblock prints, to illicit French literature and the Rococo. He also responded to his contemporaries such as Gustave Moreau, Edward Burne-Jones and Toulouse Lautrec, whose works are shown at Tate Britain to provide context for Beardsley’s individual mode of expression. A room in the exhibition is dedicated to portraits of Beardsley and the artist’s wider circle, presenting him at the heart of the arts scene in London in the 1890’s despite the frequent confinement of his rapidly declining health. As notorious for his complex persona as he was for his work, the artist had a preoccupation with his own image, relayed throughout the exhibition by striking self-portraits and depictions by the likes of Walter Sickert and Jacques-Emile Blanche.

The Yellow Book Volume I 1894 Bound volume Stephen Calloway Photo: © Tate

Additional highlights include a selection of Beardsley’s bold poster designs and his only oil painting. Charles Bryant and Alla Nazimova’s remarkable 1923 film Salomé is also screened in a gallery adjacent to Beardsley’s illustrations, showcasing the costume and set designs they inspired. The exhibition closes with an overview of Beardsley’s legacy from Art Nouveau to the present day, including Picasso‘s Portrait of Marie Derval 1901 and Klaus Voormann’s iconic artwork for the cover of Revolver 1966 by the Beatles.

Aubrey Beardsley is organised by Tate Britain in collaboration with the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, with the generous support of the V&A, private lenders and other public institutions. It is curated by Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Curator of British Art 1850-1915, and Stephen Calloway with Alice Insley, Assistant Curator, Historic British Art.

Illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s Salome 1893 - The Climax Line block print on paper Stephen Calloway Photo: © Tate

- Editorial Staff

Aubrey Beardsley, Tate Britain

4 March – 25 May 2020 Supported by the Aubrey Beardsley Exhibition Supporters Circle, Tate Americas Foundation and Tate Members Open daily 10.00 – 18.00 For public information call +44(0)20 7887 8888,

visit tate.org.uk or follow @Tate

Lucca Art Fair 2020 moves to the heart of the city.The Real Collegio is the new venue.

The 5th edition of the event dedicated to the modern and contemporary art will take place from  15th to 17th May, 2020, at the historical and picturesque palace of Real Collegio in Lucca, inside the ancient city walls of one of the most important and artistic place in Italy.

The frescoed halls and prestigious spaces will host Lucca Art Fair to welcome collectors and art lovers from all over world for three days and live a new “artistic experience”, as a journey through art that will start from the beating heart of the city.

The monumental complex of the Real Collegio, arranged on two floors, will be the unique and exclusive frame of a journey among different artistic realities, where history and future generations communicate with each other.

Lucca Art Fair 2019 - Photo courtesy Nicol Claroni

"The choice of the Real Collegio as the new venue of the event - explains Paolo Batoni, director of Lucca Art Fair – wants to respond to the requests of an audience increasingly looking for a strong emotional and artistic experience. The new project proposal is to collocate contemporary artworks in a historic building in the center of Lucca: the aim is to exalt a virtuous contamination between contemporary and ancient. Special thanks - continues Batoni - go to all the staff of Lucca Crea ,

who has accompanied us in the last editions with professionalism and passion. We have shared a common love for art and we hope to have the opportunity to work together again in the future".

Lucca Art Fair 2019 - Photo courtesy Nicol Claroni

The Main Section has been reconfirmed with the participation of galleries consolidated on the international scene, to offer collectors a selection of artworks ranging from modern, post-war and contemporary art.

Art Projects is one of the news of Lucca Art Fair, a special space dedicated to emerging projects and galleries with an experimental profile, which will mainly present only shows and two shows in a spectacular context.

Among the other news of Lucca Art Fair 2020, the Spotlight section will focus on the art of the mid 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, a project dedicated to the "contemporaries of the past", which will explore the first representations on the truth - Macchiaioli in particular, to the historical avant-gardes of the early 1900s.

Lucca Art Fair 2019 - Photo courtesy Nicol Claroni

As the last edition, the VIP Programme will involve an important group of collectors, invited by the art direction and gallery owners, to create exclusive art appointments at the fair and in the heart of the city of Lucca.

The series of talks "Vissi d'arte" will be hosted in the splendid thirteenth-century cloister of Santa Caterina of  Real Collegio. The will be meetings with artists and art addicted who will share their experiences in the art world.

The Art Tracker will be also presented at Lucca Art Fair and it will be a special space dedicated to three under-35 artists, who were selected from the finalists of the Combat Prize 2019 to create site-specific projects for the art fair.

It has also been confirmed the appointment for guided tours of the fair, as an opportunity to exchange and approach the world of art collecting, involving the amateur and non-amateur public.

INFO

LUCCA ART FAIR 15 - 17 May 2020

REAL COLLEGIO - LUCCA

Piazza del Collegio, 13

ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE T.O.E. | T. +39 0586 881165 |  info@luccaartfair.it | www.luccaartfair.com

PRESS OFFICE Alice Barontini | press.alicebarontini@gmail.com | T +39 338 5437661