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Category: Art and Photography

Yolanda Andrade

Posted on by nr

Dios es bisexual, Oaxaca, 1994

NR 17 Global Virtue · Spring Summer 2023
Published · 032

Feature · Yolanda Andrade
Words · Sara van Bussel

Street photography and cultural identity

Yolanda Andrade (b.1950) is a Mexican photographer and one of the most prominent figures in the artistic landscape of Latin America. After graduating from the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York, in 1977, Andrade developed a career as a street photographer, experimenting with both analogue and digital photography, gaining international recognition as one of the few artists capable to capture the identity of a specific city and culture.

An accomplished teacher of photography, Andrade has taught since 1992 at the Escuela de Fotografia Nacho López and Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City, as well as the Instituto Tecnológico of Monterrey, Mexico. Among other accolades, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts in 1994 as well as grants from the Mexican National Endowment for Culture and the Arts to fund her publications and projects in 1993, 1997, 2000 and 2003. Her work has appeared in more than ten photographic books, including Los velos transparentes, las transparencias veladas (1988) and Pasión mexicana / Mexican passion (2002).

Atras del escenario, 1991

Your work fits in the broad category of documentary photography, or as you prefer calling it, street photography. Can you tell me about how you started and what prompted you to photograph in the first place?

I started taking photographs at an early age. I enjoyed photographing my cousins with an old camera, which I was the only one to use. I remember that I went to the camera store to have the film developed and asked to have a new one installed. I started working when I was 15 years old, when as a gift to myself I bought a Kodak Retinette IA. It was a fine camera, manufactured in Germany, and you had to set the shutter speed, the lens opening and the distance. I learned the basics reading the instruction manual, and following what the film box said about the conditions of light: sunny, open shadow, shadow, etcetera. I started by capturing vacation shots and simple moments taken from my daily life. 

Afterwards, until 1973, my interest was to study theatre and movies. I attended an acting workshop for about three years. That was the year when my mother died and I had a series of changes in my life, which made me lose interest in what I thought was a vocation in theatre art. I needed to find a new interest related to the creative fields besides my daily job, so I turned my eyes again to photography. In the lab of a photo club in Mexico City I learned how to develop film and how to print in black and white, with the aid of photo magazines. In 1976 I decided that I wanted to make my passion a true profession, so I went to study photography at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY. It was at this institution that I got to meet the most important street photographers of the time, like Robert Frank, Walker Evans and Lee Friedlander, among others, whose photo books made a great impact in my later work as a street photographer.

El fusil, CDMX 1987

Looking at an overview of your pictures there is a clear switch around the year 2000, in which you suddenly leave black and white analogue photography for digital and colour. Could you tell me what prompted this change in your practice and in what way it affected your work?

Switching to digital cameras and colour was going to happen sooner or later. I think that for some time I was reluctant to make the change, but with an invitation that Mexican photographer Pedro Meyer made to a group of photographers to make a digital book in one day, which meant to shoot the images, design the book and upload it to internet the same night, prompted me to buy my first digital camera. At first, it was a slow process because I had to learn a new technique, but after a while I became fascinated by the colours in my pictures and finding a new way of seeing. This was the beginning of a new phase for me; traveling abroad became more frequent and photographing other places besides Mexico City was a refreshing new start as a photographer. Walking the streets of new cities, discovering new surroundings made me feel as excited as when I printed my first black and white photograph in the darkroom.

Cebras Tijuana, 1998

Talking about your working process, it’s clear that you think in terms of series, every single picture is part of a broader thematic umbrella, in the attempt to tell a story or simply to convey the impression of a specific cultural phenomenon. Your passion for photo books is therefore explained: they allow you to deliver your work to the fullest. Thinking in these terms, when do you know when a work is finished?

I would like to add something to your previous question. My interest in photo books started when I was studying at the Visual Studies Workshop, where there was a whole library and research centre that allowed us to explore the best photo books in the history of photography. But to have a book of my photographs published was a complex issue. The new digital technology opened to me the opportunity to play, explore, design and publish small, limited edition photo books on digital press. This way of editing my own books allowed me to publish a second edition, gave me the freedom to change the sequence or decide to let out some photographs or add new ones. To answer your question, I think it’s hard to know when a work is finished, as you keep producing images from recent shootings or you rediscover some pictures from reviewing old work. 

Modelo de fotógrafos, 1993

In general, the medium of photography is the attempt to freeze time: how does this practice relate to memory, and the time passing in an ever-frenetic world that constantly changes?

Every image, at least in my work, is a fragment of a memory of what I’ve seen and experienced in my life. One single photograph, even in the fast passing of time we are dealing with in our contemporary world, contains several layers of information about what we remember, what we observe in the actual taking of a photograph, and what we add when we edit and process the image. These actions are actually like a blending of the past, present and future.

Guerrillera gay, CDMX, 1994

“What intrigues me more about photography is to freeze an instant in the flow of time, and turn it into an ever-lasting image.”

Relating to this, we talked about social media and the way we perceive images nowadays, consuming enormous amounts of visual information at a high speed. I am curious to know, how do you think this new fruition method impacts social work?

Artefacts like cell phones, with high quality cameras to take photographs, are evolving at a fast pace every moment, offering automatic programs that produce perfect and beautiful images at the hands of millions of people around the world. They are the equivalent of the first Kodak cameras made for the amateurs. Perhaps, in this case, the themes are the same as in the past: family shots, vacation, social gatherings, sunsets and outstanding landscapes, but far away from the work of photographers, who are dedicated to build a body of work.

“In my opinion, the over production of ‘good’ or ‘beautiful’ images by amateurs complicates the comprehension of photography by the general public, especially when they are exhibited in galleries or museums.”

In a previous interview, while describing the first years of your work and the photographs you took in Mexico City, you stated that:

‘Life in the streets of Mexico City is the common denominator of my photographs. What I propose is the presentation, from a personal viewpoint, of different aspects of Mexican culture: images of death, religious processions, political events, social life, street theatre, popular culture, sexual identity and the combat against AIDS. The sum of all these themes also constitutes a visual autobiography.’

In what ways does your work constitute an autobiographical reflection? How do you combine the individual with the collective?

All my photographs reflect my interests, my ideas, my way of thinking, as well as my experiences and my personal history. All together they are a sort of autobiography where the personal and the collective come together, creating one single story. 

Lorca, 1994

Credits

Photographs · Courtesy of Yolanda Andrade

Ziyu Wang

Posted on by nr

NR 17 Global Virtue · Spring Summer 2023
Published · Print Page 374

Credits

Photographs · Courtesy of Ziyu Wang

Gabriele Galimberti

Posted on by nr

NR 17 Global Virtue · Spring Summer 2023
Published · Print Page 174

Feature · Gabriele Galimberti
Words · Billy De Luca

Recording society and its patterns, arrangements and faces is Galimberti

Homes are provisional. Society lives within borders and over bones. Recording society and its patterns, arrangements and faces is Galimberti. The Italian-born Gabriele Galimberti is an internationally renowned photographer and visual storyteller. With a committed gaze, he observes and recounts scenes of being with a practice that is as creative as it is concrete. Entering his subject’s private world, he captures images of people at their jobs and in their homes, with their belongings, families or certain possessions to research and align intra-human patterns across the world. Exhibiting on a global scale, Galimberti works across commercial fields, collaborates with National Geographic and maintains a steady production of his stories. 

His lens is nearly within touching distance of subjects, and the product is an analogue of involved intimacy and exposed vulnerabilities. His techniques render a symbolic, slightly unsettling representation of subjects as being behind one-way glass in another room. His approachable character and honest intentions allow him to engage with his subjects and become a part of their lives in the intimacy of their homes. Galimberti’s work offers perspectives in a clear-cut, highly-descriptive form. Everything he captures is sharply focused, developing an image over time. 

One might say, therefore, that Carter has rapidly evolved into the photographic equivalent of a visual statistician. Indeed, Galimberti’s projects emphasise a fine-tuned address of social, economic and cultural contexts without departing from the documentary tradition of photography. He sits down with NR to discuss his practice, thoughts and intentions for his ongoing work. 

The image of America has many iterations. Emanuel Leutze’s Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way (1860) and John Ghast’s image of the land as a holy ground in American Progress (1872) had a sharp promise of infinite beauty and pushed the land into one which was a spiritual resource. Then, in the 19th Century, Matthew Brady brought photography to the table with his documentation of the Civil War. Suddenly the land of the free appeared spoiled, the sunset decolourised, and soldiers soiled. His images changed the image of the US and, as put by Robert Hughes, changed the idea of what war was, ‘like TV for Vietnam’. Similarly, Gabriele Galimberti shifts the focus of reality into a newer, more contemporary slide. His work echoes conceptions of place and person in relation to their purpose as human beings and the meaning assigned to the products that surround them. He highlights an exquisite variety of human life in the most intimate of locations: a home is a spiritual resource, possessions act as conduits for human expression, and Galimberti changes the idea of who we are. 

You completed your project, The Ameriguns, three years ago, but you were just in the United States a few days ago. How did it feel to be back? 

I was in Washington DC for National Geographic, which is based there. They were having their annual meeting, so I stayed for five days before going to Los Angeles for a few meetings. Work-wise, it’s a good city. I always find good connections there, especially since I’ve been working for NatGeo since 2016; in their building, you can meet a lot of really interesting people who go in and out, whether photographers or explorers. When I started being a photographer, I wanted to work for National Geographic, so when that happened a few years ago, it was incredible. 

Do you travel there a lot? 

I actually come to the states pretty often, and I’ve been back a couple of times since I took my last picture of the series (in January 2020). I’ve been going there for the past 20 years, and it’s the place I’ve been to the most outside of Italy — I’ve probably been there more than 40 times. On my first road trip to America, I went to Houston and drove to Austin, and on the drive, I probably saw 20 gun shops on the sides of the roads. That stuck in my mind. I would see McDonald’s, and then a gun shop, and then Mcdonald’s and a gun shop. 

The late writer and critic A.A. Gill wrote in his book, To America with Love that ‘Guns in America’s story are a constant, a plot device, like coffee cups in European films. Guns are Hollywood’. Your work depicting Americans with their firearms sparked considerable conversation. How did that all start? 

I was in Kansas for a National Geographic shoot four years ago. On one of my days off in the middle of November, I was driving outside of Kansas City and saw a huge gun shop in the middle of nowhere. For the first time ever, I walked in. I was curious to see what was inside, and when I entered, I realised they didn’t just sell handguns but war-level firearms. I started to speak with some of the customers, and one of the customers was at the counter. I asked, ‘Is this the first gun you are buying?’ to which he replied, ‘no, of course not, I have more than sixty’. It came to me to ask, ‘can I come to take a picture of you and your guns’. The first photo was completely natural, without the project of Ameriguns in mind. A few days later, it happened again in Dallas, and I decided to do some research and immediately found out the numbers. 

Your images in this series conveyed these numbers more than just people and their guns. What numbers did they show? 

In America, there are more privately-owned guns than people. There are 1.3 guns per person in America, but then you discover that only one-third of Americans own guns; that means there are five guns per person who owns a gun. Then, counting all the privately-owned guns in the world, 48% of them are in the USA, which constitutes 4% of the global population. It’s a lot, so I thought, I want to photograph these numbers. 

You quite literally put the statistics and the facts on the floor. What were your intentions for the series? 

I wanted to understand more, so that’s what I did. After mass shootings, there would be waves of popularity for my photos, going onto Twitter and on the media. Mass shootings are a huge problem in America, but it’s not, in my opinion, the biggest problem related to firearms. Analysing the 2018 statistics, there were nearly 40,000 gun-related deaths, and 77 people were due to mass shootings; the larger number of people (more than 100 people dying every day from gunshots) is almost normal. But, with mass shootings, especially in schools, the media talks about it. 

Out of the 500 people I contacted, I ended up photographing around 50 people. I went pretty much everywhere in America and photographed in 32 states. There are many things I liked and photographed in the country, so it wasn’t the only project I made there, but one of the aspects of American society that triggered my curiosity was their relationship with guns. 

This bare-bones bluntness to the concept has translated throughout many of your series, including your work with National Geographic. How does this line of work with National Geographic differ from your personal practice? 

It’s really stimulating working for them. I’ve taken three assignments from National Geographic, and you work alongside the photo editor. You create a conversation with them, and when you reach an idea of how you want to create the story, then you go and shoot it. It’s one of the best work experiences I have had in my life. It is a magazine that cares a lot about photography and the quality of work they publish. The people there know what they do, and the whole team are great. 

Many of your compositions have an intimacy that glazes over nostalgia and incarnates a realism in subject matter and context. When did you begin formulating your distinctive style? 

The love I have for photographing people in their homes started in 2009-10. Over those two years, I was working for the Italian Magazine La Republica. I made a project, Couchsurfing, where I travelled for two years all over the world — over 50 countries, I think — and I used the Couchsurfing social network (a sort of Airbnb for free). I was hosted by people in 58 countries, reporting stories for the magazine from a person’s home, and every week had a new chapter in a different place. The story was about the host and their life for a week. I would take photos, maybe go to work with my host or visit the school with them and take photos. 

You take photographs that are about something. They are more than what they are of and step outside the realm of literal relation into a heightened contextual language. How did your view as narrator come into the picture with Couchsurfing? 

It was amazing because I got to do this work across Africa, Asia, Alaska and everywhere. That was the first time I pointed the camera towards normal people and normal lives. Beforehand, I was always looking to find special stories that were of interest and the media’s interest, but when I did Couchsurfing, I thought, wait for a second, this is interesting; it’s interesting watching normal people’s lives because you can learn a lot of things from them. I was super lucky to have the opportunity to do this project for two years in so many countries, meeting people from different religions, different cultures and different everything: each place gave me a different piece of something. I was so curious to see how these people lived, and I wouldn’t take my camera with me all the time; there were days I wouldn’t bring it with me because I was just living with these people. I never take pictures of somebody without knowing them, I need to understand something about them to photograph them. 

Does this stripping down to the essentials create a narrative? What makes you most engaged with your work? 

What I really love to do is photograph people where they live. I like to enter people’s houses and take photos of that person where they live in their environment, and that’s the common line in all my projects. But I also like to work in advertising and creating sets from zero. Sometimes, I’ve shot a few campaigns for clients where we created scenes out of nothing. In that case, it’s more of a collaboration where I am there as the photographer, and then there are set designers who fill the scene. With people in their homes, every time I do a project, I tell my subjects that they have to be patient. I’m not going there to take a snapshot, I’m coming to take one or two days of your life. It’s always a collaboration between me and the subject. 

Do you believe that your work is emotional? Is the human reaction simply an outcome of images created to solely inform? 

Yes, I think some of my stories are emotional. Everybody can have an emotional reaction to every story, so it depends upon the person. When I present my work, I always see people getting close to my work, and they do react. I’m happy to see people being emotional about what I do and what they say. Whether they are reading my books or at my presentations, it’s nice to feel that what you do has a sense of meaning. It means you are going in a good direction. 

What project makes you most emotional? 

My grandmother’s book, In Her Kitchen: Stories and Recipes from Grandmas Around the World. I grew up with my grandmother, and there are lots of memories related to that book. The reason I made the book was that, while I was travelling for my Couchsurfing project, my grandmother was extremely worried about the food I was eating. That was her only concern, and so I said, don’t worry, ‘I am going to have dinner with other grandmothers because they know how to feed me for sure’. So, I started taking these photos of recipes and of the grandmothers every week, and I was sending these photos to my mother and my grandmother. My grandmother would relax. And at the end, I looked over all these images and recipes and thought I could make a book out of them, so I did it. I think it’s my greatest success because they printed 25,000 copies of the book in English, and it sold out, and then we had 14 different editions in different languages. It’s weird because the book is a cookbook and not a photography book, and there are photos in it, but if you look for it in a shop, it is in the cooking section. I made it because it was a homage to my grandmother. I remember going back home to her and telling her about my trips and the food that I tried, and sometimes I would cook some of the recipes for her to try. 

Honing into your series Home Pharma, what was the impetus to capture the relationship between person and pill? Is this a very personal relationship? 

It’s personal because when you show the medicines you use or have in your house, you have them because you have certain needs or fears. It really opens the door to intimacy. That was a project I worked on for National Geographic when they were preparing an issue about Health. I proposed the idea of going to 20 countries and looking at what medicine people had in their homes. It was easier to ask people to show me their medicines rather than guns, but when you show such a thing, you say a lot about yourself and where you live. Certain countries had people that tended to rely on medicine a lot, but other countries had less trust in them. The places where I found strong relationships between medicine and people were France, Switzerland and the United States. It doesn’t happen as much in Africa or the Caribbean. 

Is it hard to find a balance between the intimate subjects (and their possessions) with their presentation? 

It was interesting to see that while I was shooting, people would lose their shyness and end up bringing out more and more of what they had in their medicine cabinets. It was a step-by-step process as people can be protective and not want to show you everything. It is an interesting way to measure shyness and fear. 

Your images are uncondescending and honest. Does their formal composition shift often? Do you still experiment? 

There’s a certain type of photography that I am very confident in, but I’ve worked on a few things that are outside of that. I worked on a project with National Geographic on the concept of ‘Genius’ and what it means to be a genius. The story was split into three chapters, divided by Albert Einstein, Picasso and Leonardo Da Vinci. How do you make stories of these people? You can’t take photos of them, so together with my photo editor and another photographer, we worked as a team to create a narrative with these three characters. It was really challenging, but I find challenges really fun. 

The photographs, as compositional and separate entities from their subjects, convey respect for the scene. The light and angles in your style express a vantage point that leaves room for clear sight and observation. For instance, the eye level of your subjects transfers between adults and children. Do you spend a large amount of time preparing for an image? 

I don’t take many photos. For a project like Couchsurfing, once I had the right picture, I could leave my camera at home and not take it out with me. Once I am satisfied with the portrait, the focus is on the story. I take photos of what I want and need for the story. When I find out what the image will be, I go looking for it, and when it’s found, I’m happy. With Ameriguns, I needed six or seven hours to create the scene; every single gun has to be in the right place, I needed to sort out the lighting, and then maybe I take 50 photos but build up the picture. 

How do people feel when they are placed on the scene? 

It’s a bit of a surprise for them. Most of the time, they are having fun. Something weird and unusual is happening, and they feel like they are a part of it. Most of the time, people think that when you ask, ‘can I take a picture of you’ it will be a quick snap, but when they have to do it with me, it’s a completely different thing. Some people don’t care if it takes five hours because they are having fun, and they like to be included in the process; for example, while we are setting up the picture, we could be having a conversation. In the process of creating photos, many things are happening and it’s a process with people together. 

You have been in more homes than, well, most people. And you are quite well travelled. Is immersing into lives and places fundamental for your current practice? How does it feel to be allowed to probe and surround yourself with varying lives? 

I’ve noticed that photography now is a language that connects people from everywhere. Everybody speaks that language, and you can look at an Instagram of somebody in China, not speak Chinese but understand something about that person. When I am with my subjects, and they see the lighting and process, they are curious because they also take photos every day, but they find it interesting how a professional does it. I like to interact with people in this way because I need to keep them happy to be there, especially if the shoot takes five hours. 

Do you use assistants for your projects? 

90% of the time, I’m by myself. I usually have a lot of equipment with me. When I shot Ameriguns, I had an assistant with me for 50% of the project, and he came with me for 20 days. We shared ideas sometimes on scenes and compositions, and I liked having somebody that was a part of my life already. In that case, it was because the scenes were very big. It wasn’t like Home Pharma, where everything was on the table, and I could do everything by myself. 

Does this change with commercial jobs? 

With commercial jobs, I always have one or two assistants, and on most of these jobs, there are quite a few people on set. It’s fun, but when you work on a set like that, 90% of the people are people you only just met. Even if I’m good at communicating with people, sometimes it’s not the same for others, and sometimes I have to work with people I don’t know for a few days, which is not as natural for me. But it’s part of the job. 

Do the impact of your photographs tend to raise a level of controversy? The Balenciaga scandal looks to have been clarified, and you are now finally absolved from culpability. How does that feel? 

It’s a sad story. It was the first time I made a campaign for a fashion brand, and it went so poorly. I was accused of being a paedophile for over two weeks everywhere in the world. They didn’t do anything to protect me, but now a few things are happening; I’m working with some of the media and talking to Balenciaga. I was trapped in something that was not my fault: I was there as a photographer. What they did with the second campaign (with the Supreme Court documents and books) was pretty weird, but a lot of people think I was the mind behind that too. I was not even there. For the first shoot, I was there for two days to take six photos of kids and objects; two of these objects were teddy bear bags. I don’t work in fashion, so when they gave me these bags, I thought they were ugly, ugly like punks. I didn’t see anything weird, but what happened later was incredible: I received over 5000 death threats and people calling me in the middle of the night. I was getting covered by shit, and nobody said a word about it. Now, it’s flipping over and is going in the other direction. I got a lot of positive attention from the major media, with interviews about it and people approaching me about documentaries discussing what happened. But it’s flipping to the other side. 

When it comes to the media and the public, it is quite interesting how even the credits on a shoot can scale a misleading representation of what a photographer’s role is. 

The problem was that they wanted my style of photo for the campaign. Children and toys and children with objects are something I have been shooting for 15 years, so it’s something that is clearly me. So with that vision, it is a lot more ‘me’ than Balenciaga in the eyes of the public. So, when the scandal came out, I think people needed to find somebody to blame, and since these photos are so close to what I have been doing for 15 years, they thought it was my mind behind the bags. When people had these reactions, Balenciaga erased everything from Instagram and the website and then published another campaign made together with Adidas, which was even worse because it felt like it somehow confirmed that there was a message behind these campaigns. It was unfortunate because everybody thought it was me behind the documents and both campaigns, even if I didn’t decide on a single detail about that campaign and was only at the first shoot. 

How does a commercial shoot run? Did the Balenciaga set involve you being the only one controlling the image? 

I was there with 25 other people around me, including the parents of the kids. Everybody was having fun and was there. I thought, OK, I trust these people, so I’ll take the picture. I didn’t see anything weird going on, and I can’t decide to take a photo of something just because I think it was ugly. I was already in Paris, and I already signed the contract. They said, ‘I want you to make the same style of photo for us but with kids and our collection’, so I said yes, because I knew they had bags and sunglasses and it was a commercial. So the first time I saw the collection was after I signed the contract and went to Paris. I had never seen it before, so I was there and saw these punky bags and everything else and the 25 people around me, and if they say the set is OK, then I trust these people and take the picture. I didn’t see anything weird. When something like that is put in front of you, you think, ew, this is ugly. But that’s it. It just looks like a little monster. My nephew is seven or eight years old and plays with monsters, and they are super ugly, but if I put that monster together with Balenciaga’s bags, they would look alike. 

How do you feel about the idea of cancel culture and people being influenced by mass media? 

The media played a big role because many major media sources created stories that were a lot bigger than what it was, and they triggered an atomic bomb. Balenciaga made a huge mistake, especially with how they handled the whole thing. It was weird because they sued a company, then the set designer, and then admitted it was wrong, and they wouldn’t be suing anyone. Even the communication with the scandal was weird, they stopped communicating with me during these days, and I was trying to reach them as I was getting death threats and wanted them to do something. Anyway, it was a sad story, but it’s luckily over at the moment. 

Works

  1. Kitija Shiroma, 29 years old – Honolulu, Hawaii. Kitija Shiroma, Mae to her friends, owns the biggest firing range in the Hawaiian Islands. She owns it with her stepfather, a former military man whom she thinks of as her dad. It was he who instilled in her a passion for firearms. She was 10 at the time and had just moved to Honolulu from her birthplace, Thailand. “I used to watch Hollywood movies. Like any kid, I wanted to learn more about what I saw, so my father would take me hunting with him, up in the mountains. People hunt a lot around here. There are deer and pigs—it’s a rich land. That’s when I started shooting.”  
  2. Noel Hawthorne, 5 years old – South Dallas, Texas. Noel is 100% Texan! His ideas are already very clear, he wants to be a pilot! Play only with airplanes, of all sizes and sometimes with the playstation but only with a flight simulator. His favorite game is to put the little men in lego with the big boing that his father gave him and then make them slide to the bottom of the garden where there is a small pond. He imagines taking the legos on vacation to the lake, then after giving them a bath he puts them back in the plane and takes them home.
  3. Taha, 4 years old – Palestinian Fields, Beirut – Lebanon. Thaha is Palestinian but was born in Beirut, Lebanon where both he and his family have almost no rights. They live in a kind of shantytown with a thousand other people and they all come from Palestine. In order to have water and electricity, the people who live there are forced to illegally connect to the systems that pass nearby, because even these rights are denied to them. Taha doesn’t have many games and when I asked him what his favorite was, he had no doubts and replied: the racing car.
  4. Allenah Lajallab, 4 years old – El Nido – Palawan Island, Philippines. She was born and raised in El Nido, a small town north of the island of Palawan in the Philippines. There are no hospitals in El Nido and she was born at home. Her games are just puppets, her favorite is the orange rabbit, but only because she loves color, while what she doesn’t like is the white bear because it gets dirty too easily.
  5. Floyd and Lesia McMillin, both 49 years old – Topeka, Kansas. Floyd and Lesia McMillin’s enormous home is a showcase of hunting trophies. Stuffed deer, squirrels, ducks and geese, eyes frozen in time, stare as visitors pass through each room. There are quite a few—more than one per room, so at least 20. The sole exception is the bedroom, hung with portraits but otherwise strangely bare. It is here, however, that we find the guns that were used to hunt the animals. Most aren’t loaded, the couple say. Only one or two are ready to be fired at a moment’s notice, “in the defense of the family.” Their collection consists of 65 pieces, and there’s always something new. Each month, the McMillins spend roughly $2,500 on ammunition, accessories and new additions. Their passion for guns has been in their blood since childhood. Both come from families of hunters, people who would spend every moment of leisure time escaping into the great outdoors in search of prey. Floyd first shot a gun with his father, when he was 6 years old. At age 12, he was already spending much of his time pursuing game. At 17, he began participating in shooting contests. Lesia, on the other hand, had never fired a weapon until she was 46, when her husband bought her a Sig Sauer 380 and taught her to use it at the firing range. Until then, while on hunting trips firstly with her father and then her husband, she had only ever given tips and instructions. The McMillins own a very busy gun shop. “65% of our new customers are women who’ve never shot a gun before. Many have gone through something that’s made them want to learn how to defend themselves. Most of them say that, between the time they called the police and the time the officers got there, the worst had already happened. A gun gives them more power, more security.”
  6. Latoya Piper, 32 years old – Huntsville, Alabama. Not many people can say they stopped a mass shooting, but Latoya Piper is one of them. It was the night of December 31, 2018, and she was working as a security guard at the entrance to a club. Two men began to argue, then one of them went back to his car, took out an AK-47 and tried to go into the club, shooting. Latoya responded swiftly. She fired once and he shot back. Then she fired again and was able to stop him. The man did not die. It was Latoya herself who called the first responders who took him to the hospital. That episode only strengthened her convictions about the importance of carrying a gun. “I encourage victims of violent crimes to learn to use guns, to buy them and practice with them. It only takes one bullet to stop a mass shooting,” she says with confidence. Latoya’s familiarity with firearms runs deep. She practically grew up in the sheriff’s office where her father worked. She was 11 when he taught her how to shoot. At just over 20 she was in Iraq, serving in the military. Today, as a veteran, she believes there should be no distinction between ordinary citizens and members of the armed forces. “There’s no sort of firearm that people should be banned from buying. Anything the military has, individuals should be able to have, too.”  I like military-style weapons because they are more powerful. You’re the one who controls the explosion in your hands, the one who directs it. It’s having the ability to control something that powerful with my own two hands. If, tomorrow, the government decided that some of my guns were illegal, I don’t think I’d turn them in. I think I’d ask them to come and get them, and I doubt that they would.  If I don’t have a gun with me, I feel naked.
  7. Dimitri Procofieff, 22 years old – Geneva, Switzerland. To reach Dimitri’s family’s home, a sort of sanctuary for the ecologically-aware wayfarer perched high in the mountains above Geneva, travelers must first traverse over 6 miles of dense forest. It is a very large house, constructed almost entirely of wood and set on the shore of a small lake with a clear view of Mont Blanc. There are no neighbors, no connection with the rest of the world. Everything is zero-environmental-impact, recycled and sustainable. Their energy is produced by wind turbines and solar panels, rainwater is collected and circulated into the house and heat is generated using wood from the nearby forest (but only from trees that are ready to be cut, of course). It’s thanks to that wood that I ended up couchsurfing with Dimitri and his family. Every year they organize a get together, three days when friends, acquaintances and couchsurfers recruited from far and near help cut all the wood needed to heat the house through the winter. Think of it as a sort of jamboree, where you work during the day and at night you party with people from just about everywhere. Dimitri’s also a photographer and, because our paths had crossed once before, I knew about his family’s summer tradition. So it was that I decided to go and claim one of the numerous mattresses he puts out for visiting couchsurfers. Their home may be simple, but it’s very big and Dimitri, his mother and her partner open their door to whoever passes through. Dimitri’s incredible hospitality may be, in part at least, a consequence of his own nomadic history. Born in France in 1989 to a family of Russian origin, he spent his first 15 years moving from one place to another: Paris, Moscow, Tbilisi, Sri Lanka and Belgrade Ð the place where finally, at the age of fifteen, he started to feel at home. He doesn’t have many memories of his early years, apart from the fact that, for some strange reason, his family’s kitchens always seemed to catch fire. When his parents went to live in Senegal, he headed to Geneva, which is where he lives today, surrounded by friends and couchsurfers. As he tells me, “The thing I’m most proud of is having maintained real relationships with friends whom, unfortunately, I only rarely see.”
  8. Eric Arnsberger, 30 years old and Morgan Gagnier. 22 years old – Lake Forest, California. During his eight years in the Army, Eric Arnsberger was deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosovo, Russia, Vietnam and several different countries in Africa. He’s been a policeman in New Orleans, one of America’s most violent cities, and he grew up in Florida, where gangs were rife and very mean. “When I was a kid, I experienced all kinds of violence. I was stabbed, beaten up, robbed. Then I went to war. I saw what happens when someone else points a gun at you. I had to shoot at people and they shot at me, hundreds of times.” Now, back in the civilian world, Eric teaches people how to handle guns and shoot them safely. He lives in California, and he knows very well that many of his neighbors disapprove of his lifestyle and of what he does. “When I go off to work dressed in a certain way, I can see that people are judging me.” Morgan, the woman with him in the portrait, is not one of them. She’s a trainer in a gym, and she fell in love with him through following him on Instagram.  Eric never goes out unarmed and has a predilection for military-type firearms. “I’ve never bought a complete gun. I always buy the parts, then make myself a custom piece. I learned how to build guns in the Army. One of my jobs was to test and assess firearms, and that’s how I fell in love with them. If some new law made my guns illegal tomorrow, I think I’d break them down, hide them and go off somewhere else.”  First weapon: .22-caliber rifle.
  9. Boonlom Thongpor, 69 years old –  Bangkok, Thailand. Six big photos with all the members of her family keep Boonlom company every time she prepares a new delicacy among the cookers of her kitchen. A 69-year-old mother of two daughters and grandmother of the young Mai (in the photo between the hi-fi speakers), all her life spent in Bangkok, Boonlom considers herself the best cook of her neighbourhood. Until a few years ago she used to run a small street restaurant, the typical kind you find everywhere around the South-East of Asia, where people eat simple and quick (but often very tasty) dishes, standing or sitting on stalls on the street borders. At present her restaurant is run by one of her daughters, who has changed it slightly: in what functioned as their old garage, her daughter has arranged four squared tables and people can finally eat properly, sitting at them! The average cost of a full meal at her restaurant rarely goes beyond two euros!
  10. Wholl-Lima Balthazan, 56 years old, her mother Silemoieux Charikable, 76 years old, and her son Lozma Astrel, 20 years old, in their house, Port au Prince, Haiti. Wholl-Lima works as a secretary for a Haitian cultural organization called Fokal. She uses traditional Haitian medicine to cure herself and her loved ones. It is mainly leafs that can be found in local markets or provided by a ÒMedsen FeyÓ, a leaf doctor.
  11. Julia Enaigua, 71 years old Ð La Paz, Bolivia. Julia was born more than 70 years ago in a little village on the shores of the Titicaca Lake. In her family everybody was, and is still now, a fisherman or a farmer. Indeed, she grew up first playing and then working in the fields, too. When she was 25 she got married and moved to La Paz, the city where her husband came from. Since that moment her job has changed: from a farmer into a seller of vegetables. She has got a small stall in one of the many markets in the city. Every day she wakes up very early, takes a bus to go to the countryside outside the city, buys huge bags of vegetables from the local farmers, goes back to the city by bus and, after arranging her stall for the day, she is at the market until she sells almost all the vegetables. Unfortunately, nobody is waiting for her home now, her husband died a few years ago and her children live in another house. However, itÕs a pleasure that every weekend they both gather at her house and she can cook for them and her 5 grandchildren. 
  12. Jean Toussaint, 28 years old, is a policeman in the National Police Force of Haiti. He has built the house where he’s photographed in the suburbs of the city of Jacmel, Haiti. Like many Haitians he does not own many medicines and usually buys the single pills from street vendors if he needs them. He has here some cough syrup and some Paracetamol.

Female Pentimento

Posted on by nr

NR 17 Global Virtue · Spring Summer 2023
Published · 212

Feature · female pentimento
Words ·

Female Pentimento conjures mystic portals that lead to personal wonder

Female Pentimento summons liminal portals to apocalyptic ecstasy, fairytale daydreams and irreversible escapism. They blast saturated white beams more powerful than a spotlight; more sacred than a burst of sunlight at the end of the rain. They draw from human experiences, seemingly projecting the artist’s personal encounters at times, and lend support to viewers by digitally opening new doors for their worries and fantasies. Female Pentimento’s nurturing principles have harvested a tight-knit community whose eyes for art are satiated, ears for wise words quenched, and minds for optimism fed. 

The New York-based visual artist positions herself as virtual holy water solidified by her purpose in this lifetime to impart beauty and hope through words, images and music. She finds her self-design in bringing positivity into the double-tap realm to be a constant spring of inspiration for her followers to lap up. Her unearthly visuals reap the seduction for optimism. Her floating palm-sized butterflies pocket luck that guides people out of their limbo thoughts and toward a deep sense of calm. Her multi-winged phoenix brings the prophecy that whoever holds their gazes at its orb of light shall be gifted with prosperity, in a way that it has never entered their lives before.

Every image she creates even comes with a short caption that offers itself as a mantra for manifestation. I protect my inner landscape from all harm, forever. I no longer scare myself with my own thoughts. The most miraculous things happen to me, and I am in awe of all the incredible experiences that enter my life.And when the sinews of my thoughts tear, the miracle I need comes gently into view.

For NR, she lets our readers in on her light-filled purpose and life that ranges from art to music.

What were your earliest memories of art?

I think on some level I’ve always wanted to do something with the arts. As a child, I was mesmerised by the piano, and later down the line, painting. I didn’t truthfully grow up with a ton of art influence around me though, outside some of the obvious avenues, like cartoons and anime. 

My earliest memory of encountering fine art is when I was in 6th grade and my mom brought home prints of Ansel Adam’s work. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but that was likely the gateway to me dialoguing with artwork in a more critical and meaningful way. 

How did you come up with the moniker ‘Female Pentimento’?

For me, the power of having a stage name is that it gives me permission to explore a new heart dimension without being constrained to what I already think I know about myself. My ultimate intention is for the name to touch on this idea of revealing hidden aspects of oneself, just as a pentimento in art refers to the reappearance of earlier layers of paint.

In this context, the female’ aspect of the name emphasises the idea of a feminine presence, revealing parts of the self that were previously hidden. I hope to others ‘female pentimento’ suggests a sense of uncovering and reemergence with a focus on the experiences and perspectives of a feminine energy. 

As for the history behind it, I was brainstorming ideas of what I wanted my moniker to be and I kept returning to Picasso’s ‘The Old Guitarist’. In the work we know today, we see the iconic, downtrodden figure of a man in anguish — however, underneath the image is an original underpainting of an unnamed woman breastfeeding a child in a much more lush, idyllic scene.

“I always thought that relationship made for an interesting metaphor around my own gender identity and mental environment.”

Tell me about your journey to light becoming your source of visual inspiration. 

Over time, light has just become an instinctive element I’ve been drawn to. Since I started focusing on photography, I’ve been interested in all sorts of different natural phenomena including sunlight, lightning and rainbows.

I love how symbolically loaded these elements are throughout cultures and art history. I find light (and nature) a universally understood language that doesn’t have all the conceptual red tape that other subject matters have. One could look at a photograph of a wildfire stretched across a landscape, teeming with wildlife, and know instinctively how to feel about it.

Many, many creatives have influenced my present work, and the lots of visionary artists that come immediately to mind are Agnes Pelton, Hilma af Klint, Belkis Ayon — the list goes on and on. 

How was your environment growing up?

Growing up, my environment was a bit chaotic. I was raised in a single-parent household in a small southern town in Virginia. We moved around a decent amount as my mother was a minister, and the church relocated us regionally every couple of years.

I imagine anywhere I grew up would have been a challenge for me. When I was young, I was a very sensitive and shy child. I used to see those attributes as more of a liability, but as I get older I revere the tender and reserved parts of me the most.

Do you see your works as touching upon religion, faith, or both?

I think the first part of the question is for the viewer to decide. What I can tell you though is that when I’m creating, I borrow a great deal of inspiration from different religions and spiritual practices like, but not limited to, interconnectedness, spreading kindness and advocating for mindfulness.

As for my personal practice, I’ve been describing myself recently as a biospiritualist, which is an ideology that posits that the biological is inherently intertwined with the metaphysical. 

How does nature empower you as an artist?

It’s the catalyst, the subject, and the artist in my mind. I don’t think I’ve created any recent work that doesn’t bow deeply to the natural world.

“I see our earth as the ultimate wellspring of inspiration.”

What’s your inspiration for making portals that seem to be passages to unearthly worlds?

Portals are probably one of the most magical elements I experiment with in my images. Sometimes, they border on the fantastical (or unbelievable) end of the spectrum, but I think living in a para-reality is often the job of an artist. That is, thinking beyond what you know to exist and imagining a world of what could be. I like the idea of living in that space of potentiality full-time; it keeps me curious. 

Do these portals symbolise a form of escape from reality?

Certainly. In some instances, portals convey the idea of transitioning from one realm to another, offering a way out of the physical world. In others, I find it fascinating to reimagine myself as the light source or portal, and to consider what it would be like to exist in a non-corporeal form. 

How do you come up with the often inspirational and reflective captions behind your visual works?

The captions I attach to my images often stem from phrases and ideas that I feel compelled to remind myself of. They are often direct affirmations that I use to uplift and empower myself. Through these words, I hope to offer others a similar source of comfort, hope, and inspiration.

I’d also add that I’ve been deeply influenced by authors such as Jack Kornfield, Louise Hay, and Marianne Williamson to name a few, who have shaped my understanding of the power of affirmations and positive thinking. They have inspired me to craft mantras that not only accompany my visuals but also uplift and empower those who encounter them.

Do you see yourself as a guardian of light, both visually and linguistically?

Over the last few years, I’ve felt strongly that my calling in this lifetime is to impart beauty and hope to the world.

I trust in my ability to live up to that goal. I know I can do it.

“Whether through words, images, or music, I think my greatest purpose may be to bring positivity into the lives of others and be a source of ongoing inspiration.”

Credits

Artworks · Courtesy of female pentimento

Chantal Elisabeth Ariëns

Posted on by nr

NR · World
Published · Online

Feature · Chantal Elisabeth Ariëns
Words · Matthew Burgos

“It is in the nature of the mind to make something out of nothing, so an empty state allows the mind to rest and opens doors at the same time.”

It might have taken Chantal Elisabeth Ariëns ages to pull herself out of the state of chaos and into the utopia of emptiness, but such a transition defines what she produces today, from photographs to prints. Relieving certain emotions to provoke certain memories ushers the multidisciplinary artist into conjuring her most reflective essence, giving a home to the works of art she treasures the most.

From her reverence for water as a distilling element of life to the reminiscence of her sister’s youthful time, Ariens personifies the glory of existence: the stillness in dancing, the melancholy in capturing the relics of a passing, the times when realizations ask her to carry on.

I would love to learn more about your career transition. You first worked as a dancer, having studied at a ballet academy in Tilburg. You also modeled and assisted photographers. Why did you switch to photography? When did you realize it was time for you to hold the camera yourself?

I grew up with classical ballet and studied at the ballet academy, so my whole life was surrounded by ballet. But

“my dream to dance in a company like the NYC ballet fell apart.”

I started to look for something that could replace my passion for ballet. This was the quest. For a period, I started working as a model, where I got inspired by photographers I worked with and started to assist some photographers.

I am also a print-maker. I felt the need to create with my own hands, to give my prints more depth. I went in search of a craft technique that would allow me to do so, and this led me to the photopolymer etching technique. I love the tactility, the structure, the scent, and countless shades of black. The work itself is very intense and slow; it brings me to a more quiet part of myself and makes me more aware of how gratifying craftsmanship can be.

Delving deeper into your photographic philosophy, how did your ballet, photo modeling, and assisting experiences help shape your photography? What nuances from these backgrounds do you use in your practice today?

Dancing had been a way to express myself since a very young age. This was replaced by my love for photography. My father was a gifted photographer and a photo teacher in addition to his day job. He taught my sister and me how to print our own photos.

“Working as a model became the second part of my photographic education.”

It was wonderful to be able to learn from so many photographers, through their own ways of creating images, especially in the fashion world. Then, my process became different after working for magazines.

I felt the need to create from within after my younger sister passed away. I had to let go of concepts or themes to find out where my journey would take me. Gradually, I realized how everything turned out to be personal, including my relationship with the models I work with. I like to create an intimate atmosphere for the models to make them feel comfortable and be themselves.

I prefer to work with models with a background in dancing as they often move freely. It is important for me to make real contact in order to create images that move. They become personal from the moment I started to create my own world from the inside.

The inspiration of your works stems from the subconscious, a state of emptiness. How do you perceive an empty state? Is it meant to be filled, or just be left their void? 

In the past, it was not easy to enter an empty state of mind overnight. It took me years to be able to let go, meditate, and practice. It is in the nature of the mind to make something out of nothing, so an empty state allows the mind to rest and opens doors at the same time. This is where it became possible for me to dig deep and create my personal work, by letting it be void with all that will come up in a natural way.

As you have written: these images arise by giving space to emotion and exploring where the connection lies between emotion and memory. Emotions and memories are stored in the subconscious. For you, what is the connection between emotion and memory? What kinds of emotions and memories do you want to evoke?

For me, memories come with certain emotions, so bringing up certain memories can evoke certain emotions. I try not to evoke these emotions as I prefer them to arise in a natural way. It is by giving space that they will find their way. For me, photography is about connecting to the landscape, the people, and myself. It is about creating my own world.

Let us go through a few of your works. Where Are You reminisces about your younger sister, a time when you saw her everywhere. Would it be all right if you guide us through your state in this series?

Where Are You #1: The image is taken by the moonlight, imagery of Taoism, and the yin energy that brings the viewer within. The feeling brought me to remember the memory of my sister drifting away.

Where Are You #4: In my dreams, I was running fast to see glimpses of my sister. When I saw a figure running, I thought it was her.

Where Are You #11: I know it is not her, but it is the vague figure that is moving towards me that makes me think it is her.

Where Are You #20: Ever-changing clouds, floating on air.

Where Are You #18: The sea, the waves, the clouds, the sun behind the clouds, the rays of light coming in. Here, there is a play between the dark and the light, the light and the dark. I was fascinated by it: it moved me in ways, it made me feel emotional, it lulled me into it, and it connected me to the ones I lost.

Unfinished #2: Here a teststrip of Marijn, I started photographing with her and still do, she became my muse.
In this image she reminds me of my sister, Nathalie.

Monologue Intérieur seems to be a photographic conversation between who you are and what you feel, an inner monologue associated with thoughts, fears, and emotions that come and go. Have you ever latched on a single emotion and found it difficult to let go? 

The inner monologue is often associative. Thoughts, moods, feelings come and go. I try to catch these in order to be moved by the image. It is not only about my feelings, but my models’ as well.

Nude photography can be a complex subject to me. It is about finding the purest and most liberating expression of strong femininity. It is combined with the inner monologue, transforming the images into layers of stories.

Water as a purifying, transformative, and healing gift of life. In Healing or drowning, water becomes the symbol of existence, the power of connection, softness, surrender, and forgiveness. When do you seek healing? Is it hard to surrender yourself to the flow of the universe? How do you forgive – by forgetting?

I seek healing especially in times of grief and turbulence like the last one and a half years, where we have all gone through certain waves.

“Surrendering to the flow of the universe is a never-ending challenge.”

For me, forgiving is not about forgetting. I think it is a process that experiences ups and downs, highs and lows like waves that come and go, trying to find the angle of compassion for others. I think these bring in the softness, the healing part, for others and myself.

You quote T.S. Elliott as part of your artist’s statement. “So the darkness shall be the light. And the stillness the dancing.” How do you relate to these words?

The words refer to my own process that started with the death of my younger sister. I went through deep grief, a depressing period, trying to find the light. This is why I started my series  ‘Where Are You’ with specks of black and bright white. 

If I had to go to a deeper layer of myself, I think I would uncover stillness while finding my way out, accepting that nothing will ever stay the same and that love never dies.

What’s next for Chantal?

I’m looking forward to some wonderful collaborations in Japan, Italy and Sweden and a period as Artist In Residence to be able to do research, experiment and deepen my work.

Credits

www.chantalelisabethariens.com/

Domenico Gnoli

Posted on by nr

NR · WORLD
PUBLISHED · ONLINE

Feature · Domenico Gnoli
Words · Matthew Burgos

“I never actively mediate against the object, I experience the magic of its presence”

As one enters the exhibit – the soft stumps of the shoes break the silence – the first instinct is to graze the fingers over the relics of Domenico Gnoli, to violate the laws Fondazione Prada upholds just to caress the paintings on display and test their hyperrealism. As the sensation passes, a new emotion washes over: the awareness of stepping into someone’s home and looking into their private lives, becoming an insider and an outsider at the same time. The artist may not have intended to cause such an emotion, but there it is in its youthful peak. From the shadow clothing over the fabrics and wave-like curls of the hair to the figures sleeping under the sheets, Domenico Gnoli mastered narrating the everyday life everyone tries to hide.

Fondazione Prada presents the exhibition “Domenico Gnoli” in Milan from 28 October 2021 to 27 February 2022. This retrospective forms part of the series of exhibitions that Fondazione Prada has dedicated to artists – such as Edward Kienholz, Leon Golub, and William Copley – whose practice developed along paths and interests that took a different direction from the main artistic trends of the second half of the 20th century. The exhibit marks an exploration of Gnoli’s practice within a discourse free from labels and documenting the international cultural scene of his time, all while understanding his art’s contemporary visual relevance and recognizing the inspiration he drew from the Renaissance to illustrate the value of his works. 

Conceived by Germano Celant, the exhibition brings together over 100 works produced by the artist between 1949 and 1969 and will be complemented by as many drawings. A chronological and documentary section featuring materials, photographs, and other items will retrace the biography and artistic career of Domenico Gnoli (Rome, 1933 – New York, 1970) more than fifty years after his death. The project has been realized in collaboration with the artist’s Archives in Rome and Mallorca, which preserve Gnoli’s personal and professional heritage.

A homeowner touring a sojourner in his abode encompasses the arrangement of Gnoli’s artworks at Fondazione Prada. The yellow seat covers form uniform patterns, so freshly washed and pressed for an elegant dinner party that Santiago Martin-El Viti – based on Gnoli’s portrait of him sitting in one of the sofas – would attend. A beige shirt soon appears on a yellow tablecloth with silhouettes of flora in green, the creases and folds of the shirt visible even without scrutinizing the painting. From the living room, Gnoli heads towards the bathroom where an empty bathtub awaits next to a branch of a cactus that adorns the minimalistic interior.

Author: Domenico Gnoli (1933-1970) Title: APPLE Date: 1968, signed and dated on the reverse Dimensions: 117 x 158 cm Medium: Acrylic and sand on canvas Inscriptions: on the reverse inscribed by Domenico Gnoli: D. Gnoli 1968 ” apple ” (1,60 x 1,20) Inv. Fundación Yannick y Ben Jakober no.51 Fundación Yannick y Ben Jakober

“Many things have changed for me: I finally feel I have shrugged off many constraints and prejudices,” Gnoli wrote in 1963 and a letter to his mother. “I paint as I feel without worrying about the current culture and my responsibilities towards it and I intend to live the same way: free and faithful only to the truth that I feel now. Life begins now; up to this moment I have been apprehensive of too many things: school, friends, modern painting, socialism, marriage, culture, maturity, responsibility. I have painted a whole load of imaginary characters: a large woman reading the newspaper, a gentleman peeing against a tree, an office worker, a poetic waiter with blue lips, and then numerous portraits, but with a difference: instead of people seen from the front, they are seen from behind. Because, I thought to myself, mountains are painted from every side and so are houses, flowers, animals, trees: everything. Men and women are not, however. They are the exceptions and are only painted frontally, in three-quarter profile or from the side. Why?”

Down the hall, guests find the elevator that will take them up to the private spaces of Gnoli’s home. As the doors open and the bell dings, they stumble upon the guestrooms where intoxicated guests may sink into one of the well-made beds. All the beds are available except the ones where Gnoli and a woman sleep. In a couple of his paintings, they break up and make up in a span of two canvases, implied by the joined and separated figures under the sheets that Gnoli’s art style highlighted. 

Author: Domenico Gnoli (1933-1970) Title: CURL Title during the exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery, even though it does not appear on the catalogue this painting was exhibited Date: 1969, painted in s’Estaca, Majorca, October 1969, last paining painted by D.G. Dimensions: 139 x 120 cm Medium: Acrylic and sand on canvas Inv. Foundation C. no. p23 Courtesy Fundación Yannick y Ben Jakober

From the exhibit’s text: “For many years Gnoli’s work was interpreted in relation to the forms of realism that arose in stark contrast to the abstract and conceptual currents of the 20th century. Gnoli was viewed as a pop or hyperrealist artist by contemporary critics, who nevertheless recognized the peculiarity of his poetic imagery and artistic production. Over the following years, art critics drove their attention to those paintings made from 1964, characterized by a photographic cut and a specific interest in the human figure and objects, acknowledging the inspiration that he drew from the Renaissance or underscoring his ability to create paintings capable of creating a dialogue with the observer.”

The connection between Gnoli and the viewers sizzles, the manifestation of the intended dialogue. From one alley to another, the transition in storytelling simmers in the next paintings. The house party is about to begin. The noise of the invited crowd on the ground floor filters through the master bedroom where Gnoli and the woman deck up. The private and public lives start to blur the more the viewers wander around to gaze at Gnoli’s paintings.

On his canvases, the selection of hairstyles – neck-length, braided, and curled – comes first before choosing the shoes to wear for the party – flats or heels, leather or synthetic. Next up, Gnoli’s artworks zoom into the details of the clothing to don: the folds of the shirts’ collars, the pearl buttons of the dresses, and the zippers of jackets. Almost ready, the artworks display a necktie and a bowtie, both in stripes, and an ironed suit with a pocket square. Gnoli and the woman close their bedroom door and head for the elevator, a huff to expel the breath of excitement and agitation before inquiring “Ready?”

In 1965, Gnoli expressed how he had always embodied his art practice, but it did not attract attention due to the abstraction’s moment. “I have never even wanted to deform: I isolate and represent. My themes come from the world around me, familiar situations, everyday life; because I never actively mediate against the object, I experience the magic of its presence,” he commented. Only then, thanks to Pop Art, that his paintings became comprehensible, the employment of simple, given elements that he neither amplified nor reduced. 

Three years later, the artist deemed his system as a vehicle of showing two scenarios in one space. “You begin looking at things, and they look just fine, as normal as ever; but then you look for a while longer and your feelings get involved and they begin changing things for you and they go on and on until you don’t see the house any longer, you only see them, I mean your feelings,” he penned. “For instance, take some of these modern pictures where nobody can tell what’s what; they are a mess because they only represent the feelings rumbling about without giving you any idea of why it happened.” At Fondazione Prada, Domenico Gnoli welcomes the viewers into his home and hands them an invitation to reminisce the legacies he left.

Anicka Yi

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NR · World
Published · Online

Feature · Anicka Yi
Words · Nicola Barrett

“If I had to guess I would say I was smelling the Machine Age, but honestly it was hard to tell”

I decided to binge Foundation recently, the Apple Original series based on Issac Asimov’s famous sci-fi novels. It’s a fantastic piece of television but in it there are a few throwaway lines that mention ‘the robot wars’. The series is set millennia in the future, long after humans have populated the galaxy, but that simple phrase sets the imagination whirring.

Quite often when scrolling social media you come across videos of robots that scientists are working on, some humanoid, some not. However one thing is constant, and that is somewhere in the comments people are joking that these robots will one day turn on us, and ‘the robot wars’ will become reality. This sentiment is unsurprising, especially from a generation brought up on media such as Black Mirror. But what if they didn’t turn on us? What if the ‘robots’ or the ‘machines’ become part of the ecosystem, benign artificial beings that live in the wild and evolve on their own?

Anicka Yi’s installation in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall explores such a possibility. As you enter the space you spot them, flying high above the crowds of visitors, like strange sea creatures with gently waving tentacles and whirring propellers. They come in a variety of pinks and yellows and some are transparent. Yi calls them aerobes, and in addition to sea creatures draws inspiration from mushrooms. The hairy, bulbous aerobes are called planulae, whilst the ones with tentacles are called xenojellies. “Combining forms of aquatic and terrestrial life, Yi’s aerobes signal new possibilities of hybrid machine species.”

Yi collaborates with a team of specialists using artificial intelligence to pilot these aerobes, and they all follow unique flight paths generated by ‘a vast range of options in the systems software’. The machines use electronic sensors placed in various locations around Turbine Hall as a stand-in for their senses and react to changes in their environment inducing visitors heat signatures. “This sensory information affects their individual and group movements, meaning they will behave differently each time you encounter them.”

Another thing you might notice upon entering the Turbine Hall is the smell. When I visited it smelled swampy, almost like a peat bog mixed with the smell of petrol and metal. This is intentional, another part of Yi’s instillation are smellscapes. Based on different times in history these smellscapes change from week to week. There are marine scents from the Precambrian period, coal and ozone from the Machine Age of the 20th century, vegetation from the Cretaceous period, or spices that were used during the Black Death plague of the 14th century. If I had to guess I would say I was smelling the Machine Age, but honestly it was hard to tell.

Overall the exhibition does feel a little sparse. The Turbine Hall is a huge space and it feels like the number of aerobes in comparison are rather small. One feels that in the world that Yi is visualising that these aerobes come in great swarms that fill the skies like flocks of sparrows. Reality is a little different, understandably but the concept remains and upon leaving the space you find yourself wondering what the world would be like if it was populated by herds of roaming robots or packs of floating synthetic aerobes.

Credits

Images · ANICKA YI
Info · https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/hyundai-commission-anicka-yi

Photos

  1. Anicka Yi, In Love With the World, Hyundai Commission, Tate Modern
  2. Anicka Yi, In Love With the World, Hyundai Commission, Tate Modern
  3. Anicka Yi, In Love With the World, Hyundai Commission, Tate Modern
  4. Anicka Yi, In Love With the World, Hyundai Commission, Tate Modern

Joselito Verschaeve

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NR · WORLD
PUBLISHED · ONLINE

Feature · Joselito Verschaeve
Words · Matthew Burgos

“sometimes you do not have the vocabulary to pinpoint your feelings towards a project, a place, an object, or a person”

The ambition to photograph the purity of isolation in nature infiltrates the images of Joselito Verschaeve. In his works, the fog clothes the rock formations, a hand soaks in the color of the coals, the sea laps over the grainy shore, the crescent-shaped sun ray filters through the cracks, and Joselito grips the camera in his hands. In every image, the unspoken longing to form a bond with nature, or perhaps become Mother Nature herself, tugs a wandering soul to embark on a pilgrimage with the Belgian photographer.

As one skims through the works Joselito has captured so far, they may deduce them as a meditative perception of the environment, a narrative-infested series that touches on a myriad of undefined themes with nature at the heart of his philosophy. Joselito may have just commenced his journey, but he has already left an imprint in those who gaze at his images, and now, in NR Magazine.

I would love to learn your background in photography. How did you end up taking photographs? Has this always been your first choice of medium, and why? Did you try other artistic mediums before this?

Before studying photography, I had studied 3D animation where we had to create a series of environments that were often dystopian-themed. We had to go out and create images out of worn-out objects to source our aimed textures. After a while, I realized I enjoyed image-making more and the world-building you could imply with sequencing.

Let us get into your philosophy in photography. Your work leans on day-to-day encounters. Why do you draw your photographic influences from this well? What encounters do you remark as the most significant to you, and why?

It leans on day-to-day encounters because it is the most honest way through which I can show my work. These are the moments that tend to take place in my life, but I happen to have my camera with me during these times. After these moments, the ball keeps rolling, and I can reminisce the places that I have discovered through these events, or be happy with what I got from that day. The most significant encounters I recall are the images that I captured.

You also turn to narratively driven images. Could you elaborate more on this? What kind of stories do you want to narrate through your images?

Part of my practice is the day-to-day encounters; another part is just my general fascination for dystopia, nature, history, and future events. The influences of the photographs I capture from this mindset: How can I make this newfound scene fit in these themes? I think this also forms part of my practice, just seeing if I can transform these set scenes into different ones. That is where the narration and sequencing of images come into place to tie the story together.

You have shared that you are building an archive that can fit different themes. Other than the ones already mentioned above, what other themes are you exploring? Do you have certain topics that you want to dive into soon? Why?

I would like to stay dedicated to these themes. What I do want is to narrow it down to certain topics. Now, I’m leaning towards places that see repetitions in natural events, or man-made places that withstand the test of time and nature. For me, these places come closest to my idea of dystopia where nature has the upper hand.

I want us to talk about If I Call Stones Blue, It Is Because Blue Is The Precise Word (2020 – 2021). First, how did you come up with the title? What is your relationship with it? Did you plan it, or did it pop up after the series finished?

It is from a Raymond Carver book, which echoes ‘day-to-day encounters’ in the best way. I think it categorizes under ‘honest fiction’ which sounds amazing on its own. Anyway, he uses it to write a poem, but the line is originally from Flaubert. My relationship with it is that sometimes you do not have the vocabulary to pinpoint your feelings towards a project, a place, an object, or a person. However, this does not stop you from understanding the significance of your emotions, so you compare them to the closest feeling that you do know. This is what I feel and do.

All images are black and white. Do you feel a deeper connection with this style rather than the colored ones? Is it more of a personal choice or a conscious one to tap into your audience’s emotions? 

There are a few reasons for this. Of course, the images I make share common thoughts, but the black and white style helps my images grow on each other. They may be at completely different times and places, but this variety causes interesting dialogues. To simply put it: the monochromatic style causes timelessness.

I see a lot of images deriving from nature: the uneven formations of rock, the silhouettes of forest trees, the gentle laps of the sea’s waves, and a bird trapped between the branches of trees. Does nature have a healing effect on you? Do you find it meditative? What do you think and feel whenever you place yourself in nature?

I think it is more on the idea of nature that piques my interest. It is in itself timeless and independent, which is how I would like my images to appear and be like. The balance between being comforting and intimidating is something that I admire. It is why I am so fascinated by the dynamic between nature and man-made: having the power to tear down sound and established structures versus life designs that have adapted foundations to withstand this former’s power.

What is next for Joselito?

I have an upcoming book with VOID, a publisher based in Athens. I am looking forward to this. Other than that, I will keep doing what I do and work on other projects. I have always worked on the “we will see what happens next” philosophy, so let us see what will happen next.

Tina Modotti

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NR · WORLD
Published · Online

Feature · Tina Modotti
Words · Matthew Burgos

Women, Mexico and Freedom

Held at Museo delle Culture in Milan, Tina Modotti: Women, Mexico, and Freedom showcased the photographs of the Italian photographer, activist, and actress, the testament to the indelible mark she left on the history of contemporary photography. Biba Giacchetti, the exhibition’s curator, remembered Tina as an icon of photography and civil commitment. “During her short lifetime, Tina Modotti fought on the front line for freer and fairer humanity, and to bring aid to the civilian victims of conflicts like the Spanish Civil War. This exhibition illustrates the artistic phase of Tina Modotti’s life, a period that lasted barely a decade, and coincided with a historical era of extraordinary cultural, political, and social ferment. Tina succeeded in measuring up to the greatest artists of her day, and the technical and experimental research she undertook is of great interest. Tina’s activity was closely linked to the currents of Surrealism, whose boundaries it transcended, however, allowing her to steer her art towards new forms of communication. The originality in the way Tina executed her work will forever remain unsurpassed.”

Born in Udine on 16 August 1896, Tina attended the early years of elementary school but dropped out at the age of twelve to work in a spinning mill and help support her family. When her father emigrated to the United States, she joined him in 1913. She sojourned between San Francisco and Los Angeles, came into contact with the vibrant cultures of the cities, and experienced a key moment in her education: she acted in theater and cinema, modeled, painted fabric, became involved with the poet and painter Robo Richey, and met the photographer Edward Weston.

One photograph displayed a scene from a film where Tina’s acted. She was sitting on a low stool perched on hay- and dirt-covered floor and rested her chin over her right fist as she gazed far from the camera’s lens. Her sorrowful eyes and frazzled hair, which only added to her beauty, reflected the distress she felt for the character she was in. Titled The Tiger’s Coat (1920), the scene preluded the dissatisfaction Tina felt in playing roles that were solely based on her Mediterranean beauty, a reason she abandoned her acting career. “We had a good laugh over the villainous character she portrayed. The brains and imaginations of our movie directors cannot picture an Italian girl except with a knife in her teeth and blood in her eye,” from Edward Weston’s Daybooks on March 12, 1924.

Walking through the exhibit, I found a photograph of Tina and Robo de l’Abrie Richey, her then-partner, during their stay in Los Angeles. The years Tina spent with Robo gravitated her towards a group of bohemian intellectuals who discussed philosophy, psychoanalysis, art, and photography – signals of Robo’s influences over her. Tina would stay in touch with “Vocio,” Robo’s mother, even after her partner’s untimely death. When Walter Frederick Seely captured the couple in 1921, the sense and essence of home permeated the frame: Tina kneeled on a cushioned stool as she attended to a garment while Robo fixated his gaze on his painting, his paintbrush deepening its puncture over the canvas. When Robo passed away, Tina sat by the window of her home in Tacubaya. She leaned an arm on the railing, angled her face sideway, and let the sun caress her skin. Her somber look may not have only been due to grief, but also nostalgia as one may feel from her letter to Edward Weston, the person who took the photograph, in 1922: “Oh! The beauty of it all! Wine – books – pictures – music – candlelight – eyes to look into – and then darkness, kisses.”

Tina and Edward’s relationship deepened. Tina on the Azotea, a series of nude pictures taken by Edward, explored the commonalities they shared. He photographed Tina sunbathing on the floor while her eyes closed, her serene expression oblivious to Edward’s lingering gaze. In his description of Tina during the shoot: “My eyes and thoughts were heavenward indeed — until, glancing down, I saw Tina lying naked on the Azotea taking a sun-bath. My cloud ‘sitting’ was ended, my camera turned toward a more earthly theme, and a series of interesting negatives were obtained. Having just examined them again I am enthusiastic and feel that this is the best series of nudes I have done of Tina,” from Edward Weston’s Daybooks on July 9, 1924.

In 1923, Tina moved to Mexico with Edward and was acquainted with the artists of the Mexican Renaissance including Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. For seven years she devoted herself to photography, developing her own personal process, and becoming one of the avant-garde exponents of “social photography”. Tina’s political engagement focused on supporting the freedom of the oppressed against oligarchies and the opposition to the United States’ major influence in Central America. On another front, she worked to oppose international fascism. In 1927, she joined the Mexican Communist Party, where she came into contact and became involved with Xavier Guerrero. During her time in Mexico, Tina collaborated with the magazine El Machete, which brought together artists who shared the same views and ushered Tina to introduce Frida Kahlo to Diego. In a photograph taken in 1929, Tina, Diego, and Frida were seen participating in the 1929 May Day Parade, the revolutionary spirit of Tina blossoming.

From 1926 onwards, Tina stayed in Mexico, earning her living from photography and becoming more entangled in politics. While her photography took a propagandistic turn, Tina’s lens never wavered in highlighting people, disseminating emotions, philosophies, and messages to her viewers regardless of their social class. In two photographs, In the Streets of Mexico City (1929) and Elegance and Poverty (1928), Tina’s empathetic gaze towards mankind unraveled. She found an elderly man on the street in freezing weather and spent the night trying to find a place for him to stay, leaving his side only when someone offered a home for him to stay and sleep in. Her experience fueled her political voice to take a stance for the weak through photography and social engagement.

All her life, Tina missed her family, whom she often could not visit because of the political persecution she suffered. In 1936, Tina learned that her mother, Assunta Mondini Modotti, had died after returning to Italy with one of her sisters. In a letter she wrote to her sister Mercedes, she expressed: “Having you close by would have made my immense sorrow more bearable, it would have filled the great and horrible void that our blessed mother has left behind…”

She turned her attention to photography with her still life images and portraits helming her modernist aesthetics and her political creed. In Hands of a Washerwoman (1928), the way she spotlighted the frailty of the hands insinuated the dignity of the work, a contrast to Hands of a Puppeteer (1929) where it personified power. She also captured sombrero, hammer, sickle, corn cob, guitar, and cartridge belt, symbols of life she lived while in Mexico. She exhibited them with pride and determination in her last show in Mexico City, before being forced to leave the country.

In the show’s narration: “In 1930, accused of an unsubstantiated ‘plot’, Tina was expelled from the country, and after a short period of time spent in Berlin, she joined Vittorio Vidali in Moscow, where she worked for international Red Aid. She then moved to Paris, and in 1934 and 1935, she conducted clandestine missions to Austria and Spain. During the Spanish Civil War, Tina was involved in the organization of military health, assistance for orphaned children, and bringing aid to the civilian population. She met artists, writers, and poets like Pablo Neruda and Antonio Machado, intellectuals and photographers who had gone to Spain to offer their support to the Republic, including Robert Cape and Gerda Taro. Severely affected by the defeat of the Republic, Tina Modotti returned to Mexico in 1939, where she died of a heart attack on 6 January 194Z after having dinner at the home of the former director of the Bauhaus, Hennes Meyer. Straight after her death, the violent attacks of the right-wing Mexican press ceased only following the publication of Pablo Neruda’s poem Tina Modotti ha muerto.”

As I walked towards the exit, I looked to my left and found a red wall with the poem Pablo Neruda dedicated to Tina Modotti. Reading it under the glare of the spotlight, the stanzas reminisce the Tina visitors would never meet in this lifetime:

Tina Modotti, o sister of mine, you do not sleep, no, you do not sleep,
perhaps your heart can hear yesterday’s rose grow, 
yesterday’s last rose, the new rose.
Rest gently. o sister of mine.
Yours is the new rose, yours is the new land:
you wear a new dress made of deeply sown seeds
and your gracious silence is covered in roots.
You will never sleep in vain, o sister of mine. 
Pure is your name, pure is your fragile life
bee, shadow, fire, snow, silence, foam;
steel, line, pollen make up your
slender, iron frame.

…

One day they will come by your small tomb,
before yesterday’s roses wilt,
those from the past will come to see, tomorrow, 
where your silence burms.

…

They are yours, o sister of mine: those who today speak your name:
we who from every place, from the waters end from the land,
stay in silence and say other names with your name.
For the fire dies not.

Yoko Ono

Posted on by nr

NR · WORLD
Published · Online

Feature · Yoko Ono
Words · Nicola Barrett

Mend Piece for London at The Whitechapel Gallery

It’s that time of year when, regardless of what you are wearing, you will always end up a little bit sweaty with cold fingers. Arriving thus at the Whitechapel Gallery, I made my way upstairs to Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE, shedding hand sanitiser and various masks stuffed into pockets that have yet to be transferred to the laundry basket.

Upon entering the gallery in which this particular exhibition is held I find myself instantly transported back to childhood visits to the only museum and gallery in my hometown. Back then one would often be plonked down at tables handed a pair of scissors and told to ‘get making.’ Back in the present, I can see piles of white pottery littering to two waist-high tables (also white) and scattered alongside them are scissors, string and sellotape.

I know an arts and crafts situation when I see one! Although here the emphasis is on art, more specifically fine art. Yoko Ono first created this piece in the sixties and it has been shown around the world many times since. Mending Piece 1, from which this current work originates, first appeared in 1966 at the artists first solo show at Indica Gallery in St James’s. Legend has it this was where she first met her husband, John Lennon.

On the wall is the simple instruction, “Mend carefully. / Think of mending the world at the same time.” Well, perhaps simple is the wrong word here, the last line certainly requires some deep thought. Evidence of other visitors ‘ careful mending’ is already crammed onto the white shelves which line the white walls.

In the sixties, Ono’s aim was to create art that wasn’t designed to be bought and sold but instead to create works that required “concepts, ideas and instructions.” Kintsugi, the Japanese technique of mending broken pottery with gold lacquer, also played a major role in a large number of her works. The process was designed to highlight the broken parts, thus celebrating its imperfections and has been in use for centuries.

Nothing so ornate or beautiful is going to be created today, certainly not by me that’s for sure. I reach for my tools, sellotape seems like a good option, and then I carefully select my bits of broken pottery. Fingers are still cold so there’s a lot of fumbling. Did I mend it carefully? Perhaps not by Ono’s standard, I’ve always had a habit of going a bit wild when sellotape is involved (no one can ever get into presents if I’m wrapping them), however when I’m done I feel rather proud of my humble creation. I pop it on the top shelf where there’s still some space left. Has the world been mended? Well, that remains to be seen.

Credits

Yoko Ono: MEND PIECE for London at the Whitechapel Gallery is open from the 25th of August 2021 to the 2nd of January 2022. For more information visit www.whitechapelgallery.org

Designers

  1. Yoko Ono Mend Piece 1966/2018 You and I, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa Photo by: Kyle Morland
  2. Indica Gallery, 6 Mason’s Yard (off Duke Street), St James’s, London, England – Yoko Ono setting up for her first European show. November 1966 Graham Keen / TopFoto
  3. Indica Gallery, 6 Mason’s Yard (off Duke Street), St James’s, London, England – Yoko Ono setting up for her first European show. November 1966 Graham Keen / TopFoto

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