Michael Fliri
Stargazer (Self-portrait)
2020
Photography
Courtesy Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milano

THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART
99 WORDS WITH MICHAEL FLIRI

– I quickly held out my hand to him: “Done! it’s a deal, you have my shadow for the purse.” He shook my hand, knelt down in front of me without delay, and I beheld him, with admirable dexterity, gently free my shadow, from the head down to the feet, from the grass, lift it up, roll it together, fold it, and finally tuck it into his pocket –

The Wonderful History of Peter Schlemihl, Adelbert von Chamisso (1813)

Let’s reverse this novel. The self-portrait is extracted from the pocket like a haptic sculpture, detaching a transparent surface from it and, with “alchemical” interventions, it reaches a gradual dematerialization to finally manifest itself as an ephemeral image of light/shadow.

By analogical means “Stargazer (Self-portrait)” finds a speculative visual language that appears digital.

Laura Pugno
Dominante / Recessivo
2018
photographic printing, wood, glass and polyurethane
44x32x19 cm
Courtesy the artist

THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART
99 WORDS WITH LAURA PUGNO

Our envelope, as I have called it, the cultural insulation that separates us from nature, is rather like (to use a figure that has haunted me from childhood) the window of a lit-up railway carriage at night. Most of the time it is a mirror of our own concerns, including our concern about nature. As a mirror, it fills us with the sense that the world is something which exists primarily in reference to us: it was created for us; we are the centre of it and the whole point of its existence. But occasionally the mirror turns into a real window, through which we can see only the vision of an indifferent nature that got along for untold aeons of time without us, seems to have produced us only by accident, and, if it were conscious, could only regret having done so. 

[Northrop Frye, Creation and Recreation]

June Crespo
e para lá que eu vou
2020
Bronze and ceramic coat, 2 parts
cm.72x23x11, cm.71×23,5×9
Installation dimensions variable
Photo credit: Jesús Rodríguez
Courtesy the artist and P420, Bologna

THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART
99 WORDS WITH JUNE CRESPO

“Para além da orelha existe um som, à extremidade do olhar um aspecto, às pontas dos dedos um objeto – é para lá que eu vou.
À ponta do lápis o traço.
Onde expira um pensamento está uma idéia, ao derradeiro hálito de alegria uma outra alegria, à ponta da espada a magia – é para lá que eu vou.
Na ponta dos pés o salto.
Parece a história de alguém que foi e não voltou – é para lá que eu vou.
Ou não vou? Vou, sim. E volto para ver como estão as coisas. Se continuam mágicas. Realidade? eu vos espero. E para lá que eu vou.”

[Fragment of “É para lá que eu vou” by Clarice Lispector]

Shafei Xia
Profumo concerto
2020
watercolor on sandal paper mounted on canvas
cm 110×112 
Courtesy the artist and P420, Bologna
Photo credit: Carlo Favero 

THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART
99 WORDS WITH SHAFEI XIA

The great director Federico Fellini defined himself as a clown, he used to say that films were his circus. And life is Shafei’s circus.

Sometimes I’m a clown who brings joy to people. Sometimes I’m the tiger who has been tamed and has to jump through the ring of fire. Sometimes I’m the master of violence. I want to control everything.

My approach to life is a game and, as such, also the circus embodies this face: it makes others smile while preserving a universe of emotions and oppositions.

Gian Maria Tosatti
7_Terra dell’ultimo cielo
2016
Ambient installation, site specific
Courtesy Galleria Lia Rumma Milano / Napoli

THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART
99 WORDS WITH GIAN MARIA TOSATTI

I found by chance this old photograph taken on the days when I had completed my three-year effort for the “Sette Stagioni dello Spirito” project. And it recurs what always happens to me when I look back, review images or reread texts linked to works from the past. I think: «Is it possible that I already then knew so well what I am still looking for today?». Actually, this question measures a distance. The distance between the artist and the artwork. The work knows, understands. The work is a hundred times greater than the artist who discovers it and then, at times, forgets it.

Regina José Galindo
Die Feier
2019
Fotograma de vídeo
11:33 min.
Encargado y producido por Vienna ArtWeek 2019
Cortesía del artista y Prometeo Gallery di Ida Pisani

THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART
99 PALABRAS CON REGINA JOSÉ GALINDO

A quienes multiplican las verduras y
preparan comida para otros que también se multiplican
a quienes conversan con los grillos en noches de insomnio
y les cuentan sus miedos
a quienes viven un amor rosa en medio de tanta negrura
a quienes siguen bailando
a quienes cantan por las mañanas debajo de las caretas
a quienes siempre quisimos morir
y en medio de la pandemia nos dimos cuenta que morir no vale la pena
a quienes esperan que su padre recupere el habla y la vida
para volver a escuchar de su voz, su nombre
a quienes en la distancia lloraron con nosotros sin pudor
a quienes ya no pueden llorar
a quienes se han quedado incompletos
a quienes no pueden abrazar en los entierros
a quienes acompañan mentes que perdieron el juicio
a quienes escriben poesía cuando la ansiedad se inscribe en sus tripas
a quienes dejaron de contar las horas
a quienes juegan en el encierro
a quienes barren sus casas todos los días como quien espera una visita
a quienes les ha crecido tanto los pelos de las axilas que se los trenzan
a quienes siguen usando vestidos en la soledad
a quienes cocinan cien tiempos diariamente para alimentar polluelos
a quienes cosechan sus lechugas
a quienes riegan el diente de león que crece en sus banquetas
a quienes hacen pasteles y malabares como acto de rebeldía
a quienes aún se rebelan
a quienes no olvidaron la libertad
a quienes pensamos sobrevivir
a quienes nos sueñan sonriendo.

[Sin título, 2020]

Marianna Simnett
Hyena and Swan in the Midst of Sexual Congress
2019
Silk, velvet, wool, pewter, glass, steel, toy stuffing and polystyrene
230 × 150 × 230 cm
Installation view
Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ
Photo credit: Tim Bowditch

THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART
99 WORDS WITH MARIANNA SIMNETT

cloaca
clack clack
lackaday
clever clit
pseudo-dick
androgens
estrogens
and her
great bust
thrusting
and her
velvet coat
shimmering
and her
silver teeth
glistening
psycho screams
passed
between
two queens

Sarah Faux
Sleeping Arrangements
2019
Oil on canvas
80 x 70 inches
Courtesy of the artist and M+B
Photo credit: Brad Farwell

THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART
99 WORDS WITH SARAH FAUX

How to avoid painting a face:

Paint the head turned away.
Just paint a different body part.
Cut the body off at the shoulders.
Cut it off at the legs too, make it seem more natural, so it’s not just the head missing.

A torso can be a face.
A face can be a landscape.
Throw an arm over that face.
Draw a cartoon face where the face should be.
Only paint shadows.
Leave it blank.

Alice Tippit
Dress
2019
Oil on canvas
18 x 22 inches
Photo credit: Evan Jenkins

THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART
99 WORDS WITH ALICE TIPPIT

I often think about the physicality of a painting as akin to that of a seashell. Both are composed of layers of thin liquid that hardens with time. Consider the Xenophoridae, a class of sea snail that attaches objects, mostly other shells, to its own at regular intervals. The effect is not unlike a crown, with spikes that are unappealing to predators. Paintings have no such need to deter. Instead they extend an invitation, though what you’ll get out of it depends on what you bring with you. The attachments are of our own making.

Giovanni Kronenberg
Untitled
2019
Starfish, 22 k gold leaf
Courtesy the artist, Renata Fabbri Arte Contemporanea, Milan and Z2o Sara Zanin gallery, Rome
Photo credits: Cosimo Filippini

THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART
99 WORDS WITH GIOVANNI KRONENBERG

The problem is preventing art from becoming a promotion for anything other than its own surprising existence. The problem is to keep it indigestible as long as possible, to delay its use as a critical formulation. The problem is to leave art alone, to slow down its transmutation into rhetoric. Art aimed to break categories bus it finds itself establishing new ones quickly. Art is transformed into argumentation. It gets tamed, it loses its potential for disorientation; it reprojects us towards certainty, it reinforces certainty.