His passion for drawing is almost innate; when he was a child, indeed, he practiced with his pencil while always keeping alive his interest for art history. However, his artistic education essentially followed autonomous drives as an autodidact, although his study of restoration, which is very close to art, actually contributed to the development of his meticulous and trial practice.
His first contacts with Street Art – which he however finds to be an inadequate label to describe his practice – date back to approximately 2001 in a very spontaneous way: “I just happened to work down the street in a particularly exciting, natural and easy moment”.
After posters and stickers, he decided to experiment with stencil, which is nowadays his distinguishing character to such extent that he would rather use the words Stencil Art instead of Street Art to describe his work, since he believes the technique to be the characterizing element of his artistic language. The only thing changing is support, which can be either an external wall as well as a canvas in a gallery. “I think Street Art is everything that has an artistic dignity and which is done in the street and follows certain definite reading and interpretational rules; the illegal aspect is one of the possibilities of expression in this movement, some people make it a philosophy of life, some others ignore it, I feel to be in between. I don’t feel so presumptuous to bring the street into the gallery, outdoor and indoor works have much to share, but at the same time to depart.”

Hence, he doesn’t personally believe this to be a contradiction because he thinks the street and the gallery are two very distinct entities, which inevitably involve two completely different kinds of approach. As the chameleon can change color every time, the artist is versatile to adapt his contents and language to the different situations he encounters: first of all, in the outside dimensions and enjoyment possibilities vary, than the image is more plain and immediate and can be perceived also from a distance and quickly when in a hurry: “I believe that when you work down the street, you have a great responsibility toward the public and the chosen spot, so it is up to the artist’s sensitivity to decide how to act toward those who live the city every day. I always try to be very critical and imagine the reactions of those who might potentially see my work every day going out; I always do my best to integrate my work with the surface and history of the area, I try to go beyond a mere wall decoration. When works are respectful, most probably they will be respected.”
The works for the gallery, instead, come to life from the intimacy of his studio: these works are more pondered and finished exactly because they are made for a different more specific public which decides to go in and look at the artworks certainly with greater attention.
Regarding his style, at the beginning it was much close to not only pop art for both colors and choice of characters, but also to hyper-realistic painting and photography for the attention to detail, which is constant in his works. Indeed, through continual exercise, investigating every aesthetic possibility, he was able to get very singular results with the stencil technique: by cutting out very elaborate half-masks, which are put one on top of the other in different colored layers, the stamped drawing turns out to be incredibly rich in detail, even in those very tiny particulars which sometimes make the works almost photographic. Despite duotone, indeed, the artist is able to also convey tonal transitions through a masterly use of chiaroscuro. Besides precision and attention to detail, which are almost obsessive, Lucamaleonte’s work distinguishes itself from other works realized with the same technique by the choice of the subjects. Usually, he favors portraits; however, his expressive research has been recently focusing on ancient imaginary reworked through contemporary schemes and with drawing playing a fundamental role: “I am trying to convey contemporaneity through the language and symbols which belong to the Italian historical and artistic tradition; with my works I usually tell about my vision of the world through symbols and codified images […] taken from anatomy, botany and social sciences books and proposing them mixed together and decontextualized.”
Inevitably, by drawing subjects from these sources, the artist ended up with learning also its specific style, which is no more serigraphic or comic, but rather close to the pure world of illustration; the obsessive approach to repetition is something which roots in archive documentation, a sort of cataloguing of icons belonging to the shared imaginary, a personal collection of artworks which aims at being a collective archive: “The role of the Internet is nowadays fundamental, since it allows the artists to reach a wider audience, offering their works to collective memory and making them eternal, something which urban art cannot be by definition.”

Back from This is Rome – the big Roman collective for Urban Art and audiovisual experimentations – the artist’s agenda includes work on several walls in Rome, which will come to life by the end of next spring, and two personal exhibitions.

Credits: the artist

Piero Manzoni

The volume is edited by Johan & Levi editor.

Pattini d’Argento – courtesy the artist and Piccolo Artigianato Digitale – Milano

Franceschini has always been working with video; the investigation of space through the movie camera lenses allows her for deconstruction from a peculiar viewpoint showing us new worlds, new visual, interpretational and emotional possibilities. The unveiling of new worlds through fragmentation of what is commonly visible is experienced as a journey into personal intimacy, memories and memory. Franceschini is attracted by fragments better for their signifier quality rather than for their significance: “I believe  the function of fragments is parallel to that of anecdotes: little devices helping memory stabilize, flow and fill all the gaps”.

Pattini d’argento – courtesy the artist and Piccolo Artigianato Digitale – Milano

By looking at Franceschini’s works, one can feel how every work comes from meetings with places, objects and people, which are finally raised to the state of a homogeneous work. The identification of the subject to be shot does not imply a choice – which is experienced by the artist as a mournful and painful act -, rather it comes out of a kind of methodological and conscious approach searching for a shifting order: “Choosing implies constriction of the visual field, blocking of horizons and loss of that kind of happiness one feels, sometimes, when confronting with the infinite possibilities of different universes. I try not to choose, I rather put things in order, go on consciously, piece by piece, and keep thinking that there exist infinite encounters, innumerable situations, multiple changes”.

Casa Verdi – courtesy the artist and Invisibile Film – Milano

The human figure – expect for those works as Pattini d’argento (2007) or Casa Verdi (2008) – is always missing from her videos, as if objects prevail. And it is thanks to the ‘activating’ quality of these objects – “by objects I mean a plethora of ‘things’: situations, places, interactions, artifacts and also living beings” – that the relation artist-outside world starts off, a relation which is probably also assisted by previous experiences, which are more or less conscious and more or less far in time.

A siberian girl – courtesy the artist and Ex Elettrofonica – Roma

It is probably with videos like It’s about light and death (2011) or The siberian girl (2012) that this evocative relation with objects gets materialized more clearly and profoundly. Both works, indeed, come from a collection of objects; the concept of collection is equal to that of editing in the sense that they both join fragmented elements together by juxtaposition (objects on the one hand and sequences on the other hand). This time, Franceschini works on groups of collected objects not to select them through the camera, but to reveal their new and more intimate narrative power in a dynamic and fluid flux with an always positive and evolutionary tension.

it’s about light and death – courtesy the artist and Vistamare/ Benedetta Spalletti – Pescara

Anna Franceschini graduated in Television, Cinema and Multimedia Production from IULM University of Milan; her background in film studies, which is not fundamental to understand her artistic career, effectively illustrates the will for confronting herself with the film language, bending the grammar and syntax of cinema to her own will power.

Early works, indeed, show more clearly her background in film studies: objects and people are part of a narrative. It is  with Untitled (Almost Lost) (2009) that Anna seems to be changing direction: in addition to the employment of Super8 film, she discovers a new narrative process which materialized into more powerfully abstract but at the same time evocative works, as if video would turn into a moving canvas.

Untitled (Almost Lost) – courtesy MNAM / Centre Pompidou – Paris

Starting from 2010, she has been working mainly with Super8 and 16mm, producing images which might sometimes appear dirty or saturated, though with an incomparable output thanks to the quantity of information retained by that kind of film. “I like the relation you have with the film when shooting: there is a tension because every waste (money, time, opportunities) is crucial; therefore, the level of attention is higher, there is indeed a chemical-physical change of matter and this is interesting. However, stocks all over the world are running out of film”.  The employment of Super8 film and 16mm is assisted also by short-term works.

Casa verdi – courtesy the artist and Invisibile Film – Milano

Video is the artwork that by its very nature allows the artist to define the duration of fruition, imposing a minimal time which is that of the viewing of the complete video. Usually works last for about 5-6 minutes on average and are screened in a loop. This time in Anna Franceschini’s works is defined partly by chance because of the necessities imposed by every different work and is partly established by Anna’s reflections which she describes as “comparative – more than stylistic – reflections around fruition of a film at the movie theatre and fruition of one or more films, or video, in a space dedicated to art”.

A siberian girl – courtesy the artist and Ex Elettrofonica – Roma

Her mastery of the technique and the research on poetry merge into Anna Franceschini’s videos contributing to the creation of unique works, which emancipate from the static quality of the screen impressing the retina and involving the senses through their strong evocative power.

It is about this December American edition of Vogue, where photographer Annie Leibovitz and stylist Grace Coddington produced a particular service where model and actress Jessica Chastain is playing the role of the protagonists of eight works of art.
The ability of the photographer in reconstructing the compositions, studying lines, colors and lights is summed up with the stylist’s sensitivity, which was able to find the most apt high fashion attire, with the result of a series of shots worthy of competing with the charm of the original works. The selection of the paintings, splendidly reinterpreted by Vogue, is exceptional and alternates more famous works with pieces less known to the public.

The actress, who is Oscar candidate, appears in all her splendor and, wearing high fashion clothing, is able to perfectly identify with the atmospheres of these wonderful art pieces: her diaphanous skin and fire red hair enhance her delicate look which seems to be recalling that of a Pre-Raphaelite muse. Indeed, the cover starts off exactly with a painting which is considered by many as the emblem of such art movement for its form, colors and iconography: it is Flaming June (1894-95) by Frederic Leighton, one of late Victorian Age masterpieces. The slight make-up and lips with a vague smile bring back all the ethereal naturalness of the original muse who lays down on a red drape, wearing a perfectly modern and suggestive calendula yellow dress by stylist Olivier Theyskens.

In the article opening page, warm colors prevail once again with tonal modulations in the model’s hair, who is lying in an room with an Oriental ornamentation, on a low-rise mattress, while she is absorbed by her thoughts and lifts her arms up to let them rest on her head. Although she is framed from a different perspective, the setting, the prurient and dreamy pose follow those of Henri Matisse’s Odalisque in Red Culottes (1869-1954). Also, the dress, which is by Marc Jacobs, is close to those Turkish trousers which give the name to the painting.

The whole atmosphere, instead, change completely in the next shot where the color scale goes from sky blue in the background wall to the dark cerulean blue in Alexander Wang’s dress, passing by a shiny aqua green in the young actress’ eyes, penetrating as those of the lady in the painting Le Retour de la Mer (Back from the Sea) (1924) by Félix Vallotton.

Wearing a gray dress by Oscar de la Renta, Jessica identifies with the interpretation of American President Grover Cleveland’s wife, who was portrayed by Anders Zorn in 1899. The distinguished beauty, the marble candor of the setting, the background grooves bring us back further in time: she is a statute in a Greek temple.

For another stunning shot, the actress plays the role of Ria Munk, who was portrayed by Gustav Klimt after her tragic death between 1917 and 1918. It is one of the most beautiful female portraits by the brilliant Austrian painter, as well as one of his last works. Leibovitz’s shot combines all the charm of the technique, Klimt’s iconography and style, which is still the favorite inspirational source for fashion designers (please look up the photographic series made up by Steven Meisel for December 2007 Vogue Italy and called “Vogue Patterns”). Vera Wang’s chiffon dress, decorated by hand, perfectly reproduces the unfinished quality of the painting (the dress and the floor are just sketched with charcoal); the background is extremely rich in floral motifs and comes alive as a real blooming garden.

Through a skilful play of colors and lights, photography is also able to reproduce Vincent Van Gogh’s confused brush strokes. In 1888, the Dutch artist portrayed a young woman from Arles and gave her the name of Mousmé, as the Japanese girl from Pierre Loti’s tale, which particularly enthralled the painter. Compared to the painting, the photograph is horizontally placed; however, it is still traditionally arranged with the model standing over a monochrome background. Clothing is designed by Alexander McQueen and reproduces the very same decorative play of the long row of red buttons in the vertical stripes coat, which gets lost in the cloud of a big polka dots skirt.

The only photograph in which the model is not wearing any dress is paradoxically the one which is inspired to Magritte’s La Robe de soirée (The evening gown) (1955). We know that Magritte’s titles are always misleading and apparently very far from the submitted subject. The shot as well remains enigmatic for its obscurity: the red hair stands out from a stretched light blue background within a turquoise sky and a quiet sea: the moon, which holds from time immemorial the reference to night in a free meaning association, stands for the unknown and mystery.

The last shot is inspired by Julia Margaret Cameron’s photos: she has been producing intense and profound portraits following the stylistic language of Pre-Raphaelites painters. Leibovitz reproduced this distinctive character: that use of focus, which is sometimes even stretched to the “out of focus”, disregards clearness and aims instead at researching plastic effects, which are possibly close to Leonardo’s sfumato.

“Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed”; hence, this is a law of physics which we can apply also to art history, to the evolution of representational culture, to the ensemble of icons which constitute our shared visual imaginary.

Credits: www.vogue.com

In this way, Pink Project was born as a photographic performance which was started one year ago, a story which tells the intimate relationship of a woman with her femininity in such a dramatic moment as the diagnosis of breast cancer is. Everything is far from being tragic or painful; instead, pink warmth releases an energy which gives photographs the aura of positive lightness. Francesca, as the protagonist of all the shots, chooses to dress up with memories : the dress is the one her mother wears in many of the pictures with Francesca as a child, the wig instead is a necessity but also a way to make the path to healing more hopeful. Her identity is now that of a goblin, an almost cartoonish and pop-surrealist character which goes all around the world to spread an optimistic message charged with life and hope: a thin pink thread ties all women starting from those who are closer to her, her mother comes first, followed by her daughter, Dora – her grandmother’s name – who was strikingly born at the end-stage of the disease. Pink is femininity; hence, it involves not only sweetness and tenderness, but also motherhood: starting from the pink wig to the pink bow, the basic idea is, indeed, that of a growing project which might completely embrace the symbolism of pink as a color standing for the fight against breast cancer.

Aiming at both making people aware of this issue – which is often considered as a taboo because of its psychological implications – and at supporting research and prevention, this series was exhibited in the occasion of a show combined with a photographic set at Si Fest in Savignano. The project is now looking for sponsors to go all around Italy taking pictures of the greatest possible number of women and becoming an actual found-raising activity supporting the cause: “Who agrees can be photographed with a pink wig becoming testimonial. I am not the protagonist, all the women participating are the protagonists”.

What did the color pink represent for you in the past and what does it represent now?
F.T.: My pink is pop! I have always thought that this colored character going all around the world might become a comic strip.
Pink is today the color of my personal photographic project and the symbol of my fight.

How did your relationship with photography change?
F.T.: My love for images goes back up to my childhood: I had an exercise book with ring binder where I kept all the pictures I liked, all the pictures I tore off magazines. My first Reflex is the one I bought for myself at the end of chemotherapy. Photography and disease are two very close things because the birth of one meant the end of the other. This does not mean that I feel “safe”, I am just trying to live in the best possible way the time I will be given.

How did this creative task influence the fight against cancer?
F.T.: Focusing on creative thoughts helps putting aside negative moments, even if it is just for a little while. Many accounts show us that being committed to any cause helps living a better life!

What does this project represent for you and how would you like for people fighting for the same cause to perceive it?
F.T.: Pink Project was born as a message of optimism: I told my story because I wanted to make young women aware of prevention. Disease, a terrible experience and a taboo in our society, might turn out to be an opportunity in time. Today, I am more conscious, more energetic and happier. Probably, I wouldn’t be the same person if cancer wouldn’t have entered my life.
If with Pink Project I can give a little hope even to one single sick woman, this is a victory for me!

www.francescatilio.it
Pink Project

Her artistic practice refers back to the genre of staged photography, a contemporary photography trend which is aimed at presenting constructed scenes as real according to the dynamics of cinematography.

A fundamental character in her works since 2008 is literature, which inspires the artist to create shots with imaginary and suggestive settings, though still in a very traditional fashion.

Every shot portrays the mise-en-scene of a key fragment which is taken from famous literary works and  interpreted in a very personal way. These works speak about her life: the favorite setting is Tolfa, a small city in the province of Rome where Valentina grew up, the characters participating in the reenactment of the story are her friends, relatives and other inhabitants of the town (the newsagent, the postman, the school janitor), while the composition of the mise-en-scene is strongly influenced by Asian cinematography and scenic design, which Valentina studied in-depth during her academic career.

The result is a photographic production which is coherent, touching, and able to catch the viewers’ attention to guide them through a completely personal reconstruction of the recreated event.

Photography is then for the artist a creative necessity: by using this tool, she is able to give life to literary  images. And she does so with the very same knowledge of those who are  fully aware of how to make a movie: this happens in one of her first series “The Princess and the Pea” (2009). With the employment of seven images, Valentina Vannicola brings us back to the main sequences of Andersen’s  fable. The story is set in the Maremma Laziale and characters interpreting the different roles are her friends and relatives. The artist took care of the entire project, starting from the reading of the fable and following with the draft of a “storyboard” made up of preliminary sketches which hold the idea of the final shot composition. The collective participation of those who volunteer to be shot is extremely important: as a real work team, everyone strives to find “scenic” materials and to choose the most apt location, offering their viewpoints on the project, which turn out to be fundamental for the artist herself.

Hence, every photographic shot comes from an intimate and personal  study and creation stage, followed by the practical collective stage of the mise-en-scene. The photographic narrative summarizes with seven sequences the story of a princess who was able to prove her “regality” by realizing the presence of a pod hidden in her bed under a pile of twenty mattresses. Coming from the same period, the series Escape (2009) is inspired by Cervantes’ “Don Quixote de la Mancha”. The operational rules of personal study and active group participation are the same. In this case, the ironic element of the images is stronger than before, thanks also  to the protagonist of the shots, who is a bored housewife captured while reading the picaresque novel while having a hot bath or riding her exercise bike, plunged into the protagonists’ bizarre adventures.  The reference to Monicelli’s irreverent atmospheres in “L’Armata Brancaleone” is immediate: the woman imagines a scruffy hero confronting a flock of sheep, a fantasy which is in a way attached to her everyday life in a small town in the countryside.

In “Alice nel paese delle meraviglie”(Alice in Wonderland) (2009), the protagonist is a mature woman, closer to the “mom” model we all hold inside, and different from the character imagined by Carroll. The characters’ grotesque quality is very strong and always ironic, so that the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter as well are embodied by adult inhabitants of Tolfa, who play along with Valentina Vannicola, allowing her to tell us something about her life, introducing to us characters and places she grew up with. The atmosphere, which is at times comical, sometimes clouds, making the setting more grotesque.

The series ”Inferno”(Hell) stands for Valentina Vannicola as a great challenge: in 2011 she decided that Dante’s masterpiece, a cornerstone of Italian culture, would work as a source of inspiration for her shots. Her study was long and strongly in-depth; the artist’s operational scheme is the same as for her previous series: analytical study of the text, draft of a storyboard during which her imagination takes shape, search for the right setting, characters and materials. Once more, Tolfa and its inhabitants are the protagonists of the shots: the chosen areas are those of the Maremma laziale, Santa Severa coast and the striking caldara in Manziana. There will be fifteen shots which the artist has been thinking about for a while, there are images and thoughts that little by little are taking shape from her mind in the form of sketches which almost spontaneously gather among her personal papers and which only after one year would finally come to light in such a complex project.

The beholder’s viewpoint takes Dante’s place, the narrator who guides us in the discovery of the afterlife waiting for sinners: we then find again the door to hell with damned souls resigned to their fate, the limbo, the indolent, glutton, avaricious, wrathful, apathetic souls, other than famous characters such as Farinata degli Uberti, condemned in the circle of heretics, and Paolo and Francesca in that of lust. Every image is always accompanied by Dante’s tercet from the poem which inspires the shot.

“Living Layers III” is the first project realized by Valentina Vannicola which does not refer back to literature. It was born in collaboration with Marco museum and the Roman gallery Wunderkammern and it does not portray the artist’s native town as its setting; rather,  it focuses on the working-class neighborhood Torpignattara. Although the starting point and the setting constitute a novelty to confront with, the artist’s planning scheme stays almost the same.

The first step is then an in-depth study of the area and neighborhood, both from a urban-planimetric and human point of view, made up of walks to discover people inhabiting Torpignattara every day.  The discovery step generates in Valentina Vannicola’s mind paradoxical images according to which a tree might grow from the tiles of a terrace, a whale  might plunge into the depths of earth, opening asphalt as if it was a dense and dark sea, a boat might navigate a sea of grass  and so on. This dreamlike element  is associated to a strong emotional element, which is expressed by the characters portrayed: everyone is profoundly lonely. Isolation, apathy, resignation are all part of the anxiety coming from city life, especially in a big city such as Rome which presents scenarios of marginalization in the outskirts.

In her most recent project (2012), Valentina Vannicola goes back and imagines a completely personal version of great novels, this time confronting herself with a work coming from Italian contemporary literature by Stefano Benni (1976) and titled “Bar Sport”. The cornerstones of the narrative are the characters embodying the Italian stereotype of the habitué at the provincial bar, including card players, the beautiful cashier, old wives, the playboy and the “attractions” of the bar, such as the pinball machine, the billiard table, the telephone and the raffle. This series is made up of the episodes told by the clients at Bar Sport, stories which always  oscillate between fantasy and reality and which are once more played by the “actors” from Tolfa. Valentina Vannicola is represented by OnOff Picture agency and Wunderkammern gallery in Rome.

Among the most interesting realities offered by the Roman contemporary sphere, there are certainly foreign academies, which were born to host and support artists, researchers and scholars coming to Italy to deepen their knowledge of archeology, art, history or classical languages and which today host scholarship holders in humanistic studies.

Anybody who has ever entered one of the many foreign academies in Rome probably happened to get the odd feeling of being catapulted into a world apart, where nuances differentiating cultures of nowadays globalized world get emphasized, showing new possibilities for mutual understanding and revelation.

Entering the British School at Rome is not right as visiting the UK Pavilion at the 55^th Venice International Art Exhibition – where artist Jeremy Deller set up a sort of mythical pavilion putting together all those elements which usually build the concept of Britishness, the essence of what means, or it is supposed to mean, being specifically English.

Founded in 1901, the British School at Rome is to date an important research center for history, archeology, contemporary art and architecture, proposing every year a rich program of events, conferences, workshops and seminaries, as well as a publications program and a dense residency program. Every year, the BSR hosts scholars and artists from the UK and Commonwealth, nationally selected in Great Britain for the quality of their work. Chief aim of the Fine Arts and Humanities programs is that of supporting and promoting the intellectual exchange between Italian artists, architects and scholars and the residents at the foreign academies, “in a pluralistic perspective, never to favor a specific trend or kind of practice”, as the director of the Fine Arts program Jacopo Benci underlines.

Every year the Fine Arts program proposes three exhibitions where resident artists are invited to show their work. The choice of the works to put on show and the arrangement are up to the artists themselves: this is not only consistent with the figure of the artist/curator which is very common in the Anglo-Saxon countries, but it also allows for the creation of a real working group stimulating critical dialogue among residents. The outcomes of this mix are obviously always new and every exhibition becomes a sort of big bang, especially for those artists who get annual scholarships and have therefore the opportunity to participate to all the exhibition dates.

Some months ago, we had the opportunity to interview three residents form 2012-2013 Fine Arts program, Todd Fuller, John Di Stefano, Zed Nelson: what came out form their words was an interesting and articulated panorama showing how different the residency experience might be in the very same context. Todd, John and Zed also told about the research they did during the residency and the itineraries that brought them to present certain works during the exhibition Please Be Quiet, which opened from the 14^th to the 22^nd of June 2013 at the BSR gallery.

This year as well the British School at Rome has the opportunity to present to the city of Rome an extremely interesting group of artists, whose researches trace the route towards the future of Anglo-Saxon art and not only.

Besides Archie Franks (Sainsbury Scholar in Painting and Sculpture Fellow October 2013- September 2014), a painter focusing on the research around non-linear narratives, and Danièle Genadry (Abbey Scholar in Painting, October 2013 – June 2014), whose research mostly focuses on the way memory, migration and movement influence perception, there will be four artists at the British School during the trimester October-December 2013: Ann Marie James (Derek Hill Foundation Scholar 2013), whose work ranges from painting to drawing, sculpture and photography, making quotation the key element through which the elements in her works can recognize and confront with art history; Marius von Brasch (Abbey Fellows in Painting 2013), whose research aims at exploring the forces in the flux of things in the tension between manual production and new technologies, between strategy and emotion while doing art; Johann Arens (Rome Fellow in Contemporary Art 2013), a German artist producing video installations which make us reflect over perception and behavior in front of digital images; Julia Davis (Australia Council Residents 2013),  artist from Sydney whose site-specific works investigate perceptions and relations between objects, places and spaces. The artists will be participating to the usual exhibition date next December the 13^th… it is needed to get ready for a new big bang!

Info

• Title: Ti racconto l’arte del ‘900

• Author: Svjetlan Junakovic

• Editor: Artebambini

• Publication Year: 2011

• Price: 18,50 €

• Pages: 45

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