ArtSEEN Plus First Anniversary!!

One year ago we thought of starting a supplement to ArtSEEN Journal as a solution for our constant changes on format and the difficulty it created for us to be able to sell advertisement in different sizes everytime.

That is how ArtSEEN Plus was born!!! We thought of it as an Art Guide, as a "Printed show" where artists, galleries and even art students had the chance to promote their work for really competitive prices, from first issue it inmedaitely revealed an excellent platform for artists and our biggest satisfaction was to hear that artists got invitations to show after putting an Ad in the Plus. 50% of the artists that have published in ArtSEEN once has repeated the operation so many of them have been in more than one issue in only one year!!

We went from 1000 copies to 5000 copies already in the second issue, that are distributed in major galleries as Continua in San Gimignano, Pierogi 2000 in New York, Traghetto Gallery Rome, Primo Piano in Lecce among others as fixed distributors and other galleries and institutions that asked to be listed in our calendar so it travels all over and everytime to different places.

We are pleased to announce the first Anniversary of ArtSEEN Plus, a free supplement to ArtSEEN Journal that makes possible the best art promotion and the publication of both ArtSEEN Journal and ArtSEEN Plus.

Thanks to all of you!!!

If you want to have more information on it or book a page please contact us.

After the SEEN

In the weeks after the SEEN is printed, we usually have a bit more time to dedicate to other aspects of work and life, aspects that nevertheless are continuous... Here’s what the three of us are up to these days, a self interview!
Andrew J: AJ
Gordana: G
Sandra: S

What are you doing right now?

AJ: Teaching a class in 20th Century Italian Art History.
G: Sitting at the computer, glad of the ventilator fan...
S: Working and thinking I would like to be somewhere else...

What are you working on now?

AJ: Continuing series of "Untitled – Interiors" (ink drawings), and painting – a series of monochromatic, floral motif paintings based on the work of the Dutch artist Van Beyeren.
G: I’m mainly working on ignoring all the things I have to do, until the last minute: all to do with house maintenance bills, and coping with general life bureaucracy…
S: Layout of a catalogue, graphics of my artist's business card, cancelling with pleasure those things I've already done from my long promemoria.

Where will you be in 2 weeks time?

AJ: Nashville, Tennessee
G: In Zurich, Switzerland
S: In Cartagena, Colombia, probably in the terrace of my father's colonial house in the historical center, having a refago (colombian cocktail, consisting in beer and a soda only produced there) hopefully with a book and not the laptop!!!

What will you do there?

AJ: Relax, see friends, hang out with mom...
G: Whittling. I aim to whittle down a little ladder. Or anything else that is whittlable and takes my fancy.
S: I'll see some of my family, will visit friends and actually will work out some contacts both for the magazine and for my own artwork and hopefully the most wanted vacation time.


Own art projects on the go?

AJ: Finalist of Arte Laguna contest; preparing work for auction for AMRAF (charity) in Rome in Autumn.
G: Still trying to finish my drawing! Have started and continue a series of mini videos (30 seconds), a collection of “moments” – from travelling, to sitting at home – a ray of sun light on the curtain, a butterfly, a rain storm. And one of my favourites, a nun sweeping the garden at 1.30 a.m.!
S: Planning a performance in Calcata (near Rome), working on an installation about "erosion" for a show in September, extending a piece for a show in Brazil in November, always in the healing rituals theme!! (and a lot of other little things)

Books read/reading?

AJ: The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield
G: Just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – after 9 years of following the adventure!
Also, Augusten Burroughs – Possible Side Effects.
Have practically re-read 100 books in the last two weeks since the Summer SEEN is finished!
S: Just finished all the catalogues from Venice Biennale, Dokumenta and Skuptur Project and just started the one AJ gave me for my birthday Under...

Other interesting observation?

AJ: It’s really hot! That’s key : July is too hot.
G: I never know how I am going to do all the things I have to do, until the very last minute!
S: Hmmm... yes.... it is a very creative moment for me, an explosion of illumination happening here, let's hope for it to be loooooooooooooooooooong____________________________

Quoted!

We've been quoted!
http://undo.net/Pressrelease/edit06/

In Italian only...

A view

Jason Mena, installation view

I liked this work so much, I had to steal it. I did ask permission before stealing it, and it was granted. So, here is the first legally stolen pic for blog!
xxxg

shhhh...fireworks!!!

As fireworks are sounding off in the distance, here is a preview of ArtSEEN 6!!!
The "proof print" - and...
I am very proud of all of us: Neil, Andrew, Elena, Marina, Martin, Sandra, Vittorio, Marco, Fede, Melissa, Ketty - me - for getting this issue together! Well done to us!!! Thank you all! Thank you to all the people behind the SEENs too: David, Gian, Silvia, Jason!
xxxxxxg

Slow but Steady

We are going to be out latter than we thought – the reason is we have, err, underestimated our communal capacity – we have some 70 pages of text, and some 100 pages of images!!! How did we do that kids? Well, it seems several of us just had to write more than 2000 words this time round.
We really don’t feel like cutting the images, and anyway, even if we tried to do 100 pages only, we’d have some 30 odd pages for the pics left… So, we are communicating with our fantastic printer, Alessandro, to find a solution …

Anyway, Martin is putting all your texts in Courier now, so you’re all being “courierd” – and from now on you are not allowed to use fancy texts for your original articles! Arial, 12 points, and no fancy build-up, like footnotes!
Melissa, Fede, and our new help, Ketty, have been working overtime to proof read all in time, including last minute time…
I guess at this point of our lives, if we print before the august holidays, we’ll be fortunate!!!

As Andrew J has the tendency to say: Hang on in there!

We’ll let you know when it's ready!

xg

Münster

If you can travel this summer, go to Münster. Go to Münster because you will see beautiful works there, installations in public space. Go to Münster because you will be really able to live the works that are there, the works from 1977, 1987, 1997, and 2007. You will walk through a town, and if you don’t have the little map with you which shows you which sculpture is where, you might just get confused and think that something is art – and doesn’t this border blurring between art and „art“ make everything more real? You can rent a bike and bike down to lake Aa, where you can meet the singing voice of Susan Philipzs under the bridge, where you can lie on the grass under the Antenna which Ilya Kabakov put up in 1997, and you can sit on the wood stairs of the Pier by Jorge Pardo (still 1997), staring at the water. You will see History of Art pass by, jumping from the past into the present, as Donald Judds sculpture, “untitled” (1977) coils itself on the grass, and where we suspect people will sit, and write their names (Hänsel loves Gretel… ) – traces of words and loves that may still be seen, scrubbed clean, but not invisible.

Under the Torminbrücke over the Lake Aa, listen to the sound installation by Susan Philipsz

Lie on the grass and read Ilya Kabakov's message against the sky

Donlad Judd's "untitled" from 1977 bears some traces of human cohabitation

If you buy one catalogue this year, buy the Sculpture Projects Münster catalogue. The only one in the collection (Venice Biennale, Documenta, and Sculpture Projects) that has artists writing about their work in it. The only one with an amazing glossary compiled by art historians, theorists and artists, defining, in a very different way, art terminology – a catalogue you will love to read.

From the Glossary (in brief):

Artworld - (…) On the one hand, Heidegger accords art the capacity to qualitatively inform an entire culture, while on the other making the art world responsible for why it cannot unfold this altering power and that works ultimately sink into the trivial, for in the art world they suffer “world-withdrawal and world-decay.” (…)
Wolfgang Ullrich – professor of art studies and media theory at the State Academy of Design in Karlsruhe
( Martin Heidegger, “Origin of the Work of Art”)

Collaboration – (…) The motivation behind today’s collaborations varies radically, almost in proportion to the number of different modes of working. A common explanation is the wish to practice generosity and sharing as an alternative to contemporary individualism and the traditional role of the romantic artist as a solitary genius. Self-determination in an ever more instrumentalized art world, both commercially and publicly, and a desire to be a more powerful force in society have also been mentioned as important motivations.(…)
Maria Lind – curator and critc

Desire – “Let yourself covet men’s culture, art, wisdom, honour,” postulated Friedrich Schleiermacher in 1798 as the tenth precept of his Idea for a Catechism of Reason for Noble Ladies. His enjoinment marks a manifold change of perspective on desire in the bourgeois era. (…)
Katharina Sykora – professor at the Braunschweig University of Art’s Institute of Art Studies

Migration – (…) Trans-border migration is not only constitutive for the nation and its borders; migration also creates new social spaces, relationships and family concepts, which normally are hardly ever noticed. Migration constantly contravenes national guidelines and border policies (…)
Marion von Osten – artist, author, and curator, professor at the Zürich School of Art and Design


If we say “do not judge the book by the cover” perhaps we can say “do not judge the exhibition by the catalogue” yet in this case, the amount of thought, care and knowledge that has been put into the Münster catalogue reflects the amount of thought, care, and knowledge put into the Sculpture Projects.