Carlos Amorales

Carlos Amorales

Remix

Palazzo delle Esposizioni

9 November 2010 – 27 February 2011

www.palazzoesposizioni.it

By Emelie Ask

Carlos Amorales’ show Remix at Palazzo delle Esposizioni is one of a series of shows dedicated to Mexico that the museum is presently hosting in its various halls, and the artist’s first exhibition in Italy. Situated on the ground floor, the exhibition consists of five works, which are complemented by an occasional performance on Saturdays and Sundays. The musically influenced title of the show is indicative of Amorales’ intention and own perception of his works; they all intertwine both physically and conceptually, and this notion also has a strong link to the artist’s preferred medium of performance, as will be discussed.

Carlos Amorales was born in Mexico City in 1970 but lives in Amsterdam, where he went to study in the beginning of the 90s and still lives and works as a tutor . The Mid 90s also saw his debut as an artist, and for a long time his focal medium was performance – among his most renowned works is Amorales vs Amorales (1999-2003) - as a result of the artist’s despise of the formalization of art; the act of performance, much as the notion of letting his works fuse physically as in Remix, impede a formalization and determination of art and instead focuses on an ongoing fluidity and the passing of both time and motion. Importantly, the basis of each of the artist’s work is drawn from the digital archive Archivo Liquido, which Amorales initiated in the beginning of the 2000s and consists of photographic images from various sources that are modified to become black silhouettes. Each of his sculptures, installations, drawings, videos and other kinds of art works are then created with these silhouettes as starting points, conceptually or aesthetically.

This of course holds true for the pieces in Remix as well. In fact, each work is made up exclusively of the contrast between black silhouettes on a white background; the first piece the visitor encounters is Drifting Star (2010), an installation of more than 700 plastic pieces hovering in the largest room and amongst which the meandering visitor sees herself reflected in the glossy black pieces. On the surrounding white walls Amorales has integrated El Estudio por la Ventana (2010), a pencil drawing seemingly random but on closer examination revealing shapes of airplanes, spirals and skulls; the notion of movement, cycles and transformation is persistently present. Attached to this main hall of the show are three smaller rooms, the first of which hosting Black Cloud (2007); a three dimensional swarm of black paper butterflies – some of them escaping out on the surface of the pencil drawing and this way attractively introducing the art work – invades the room that also hosts The Skeleton Image Constellation (Liquid Archive) (2009). This latter work is composed of white cards with black silhouettes of various figures that visitors may take with them as a generous and beautiful gift. In the next room, the visitor, still accompanied by the salient butterflies, encounters the work Why Fear the Future? (2006), composed of black, flat bird silhouettes in a symmetrical covering of the walls continuing into the last room where one or two butterflies still decorates the ambience. Despite the exhibition’s rough contrast of black against white, and the simultaneously sensual, arresting and mysterious subject matters of flying creatures – coupled with the plastic reflections of the surroundings adrift in the air - the overall impression is still that of being carried away to, and at the same time included in, a harmonious and attractive world that occasionally is visited by vivid, moving colored birds through the performance Spider Galaxy (2007).

Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami
Gagosian Gallery
13 November 2010 - 15 January 2011
www.gagosian.com

By Emelie Ask

For the first time in Rome, Takashi Murakami is dedicated a solo-show at the Gagosian Gallery. The exhibition consists of only three of the Japanese artist’s works, the first of which is a painting situated in the immediate entrance to the gallery, Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, Blue and Death (2010). The other two works – Dragon in Clouds –Red Mutation (2010) and Dragon in Clouds–Indigo Blue (2010) - are situated in the main exhibition space upstairs and are the central works of the show, created site-specifically for the gallery. These monochromes, consisting of nine large canvases stretching 18 meters, each depicts an enormous dragon, whose symbolism comes into an interesting play in this show considering the strong contrasts of the artist’s Eastern background, and the site for which they were made; one of the leading modern Western galleries.

Murakami, one of the world’s most successful contemporary artists, was born in Tokyo in 1962, where he still lives and works in addition to his homes in New York and Los Angeles. His art bears influence of various movements and artists – though most evidently from pop art, and artists such as Andy Warhol - as well as other artistic fields such as the Japanese animation world of manga, in which Murakami has been an immensely important figure and one of the most successful creators throughout time. To this, many works in his oeuvre are witnesses of the profound influence on Murakami of his country’s turbulent history, such as the bombing of Hiroshima; for example, his characteristic skulls – as present in Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, Blue and Death in this show too – came out of the shapes of the massive smoke cloud as depicted by the artist in earlier works, such as Time Bokan – Blue from 2001. In addition to paintings, Murakami also works with mediums such as sculpture and computer, both of which are echoed in the show in the structures and certain formal qualities of the works.

On the visitor’s entering the main room for the first time, perhaps what is the most striking aspect – apart from the enormous size of the art works – is the presence of the loud colors of red and blue, and the profound contrast they account for. At the same time, the unavoidable immediate engagement with the subject matters signals to the viewer that the figures are one and the same, belonging together and trying to convey a message on a more profound dimension. And in fact, the monumental paintings also have a strong spiritual connotation; standing on the floor in between them, the visitor is almost literally enclosed in the world of Murakami’s creation. German thinker Arnheim’s theories on the creative process of art comes to mind, because at that same point in the midst of the paintings, the spiritual viewer participates in the moment of creation and hence in what Murakami calls ‘a prayer offering’ that he employed to ‘affirm his devotion to art’. The space itself – the circularity of the walls and the white cube atmosphere – adds to the notion of being embedded in another world, as there is no other element to disturb in this realm where the dragons are liberated from their Western symbolism, and instead transformed into a positive force. The works of art in this show is therefore a far cry from Murakami’s signature style in his typical pop art pieces with mixed palettes and flat, plastic appearances – in other words, the artist’s unusual but explicit intention with this show is fully graspable to the contemplating visitor.