Interviews

We met Venice based artist Michele Bubacco in his studio on the island of Murano.

We met Venice based artist Matilde Sambo in her studio at the Fondazione Bevilacqua - Atelier Palazzo Carminati. 

‘Transiens Nostrum’, is a unique visual and sound installation by awarded artists Christina Nakou and Anna Pangalou which is being presented from 16 to 26 November 2023 as part of the ‘Bodies of Water’ exhibition within the Greek pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. By invitation of the exhibition’s curators, Costis Paniyiris and Andreas Nikolovgenis, the two artists are gradually deconstructing the exhibit dedicated to dams and reservoirs. By the end of the Biennale, the two works will be fused together into a new work of art to highlight the transformative, unpredictable, and ever-changing relationship between human structures and nature. We interviewed the two artists to find out more!

To launch this new series of interviews we met Venice based artist Lucia Veronesi in her studio on the island of Giudecca.

To mark Artissima in Turin, we interviewed art critic and curator Jacopo Crivelli Visconti. Visconti is a curatorial advisor for the fair, as well as curator of "the human condition", a project of films and videos by artists formulated and produced in dialogue with Gallerie d’Italia – Torino, the host location.

Visconti was born in Naples, Italy and is now based in São Paulo, Brazil. His book Novas Derivas (New Drifts) was published in Portuguese by WMF Martins Fontes and in Spanish by Ediciones Metales Pesados. He ha curated many exhibitions and institutional projects, including: Com o coração saindo pela boca, Brazilian Pavilion at the 59ª Biennale di Venezia, Italy (2022) and Faz escuro mas eu canto, 34ª Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2020-2021).

Back in Basel, and now in its last week, Vitrine presents the first exhibition in Switzerland of emerging artist Ebun Sodipo, who works across performance, film, sculpture and collage, and narrates constructions of a black transfeminine self after slavery and colonialism through visual assemblages. ‘On the Edge of a Sheen Cut’ presents a new body of wall-based sculptural works in resin and mylar showing images from the artist’s visual archive. The archive is an exploration into what she describes as her own formation of personal narrative, self-possession and the aestheticisation of compositional materials that reflect ideas around transformation, desire and sexuality.

Laurent Grasso (born in 1972 in Mulhouse, France) lives and works between Paris, France and New York, New York, USA. Located at the intersection of heterogeneous temporalities, geographies, and realities, Grasso’s films, sculptures, paintings, and photographs immerse the viewer in an uncanny world of uncertainty. The artist creates mysterious atmospheres that challenge the boundaries of what we perceive and know. Anachronism and hybridity play an active role in his strategy, which entails diffracting reality in order to recompose it according to his own rules. Fascinated by the way in which various powers can affect human conscience, Grasso seeks to grasp, reveal, and materialise the invisible, from collective fears to politics to electromagnetic or paranormal phenomena. His work reveals what lies behind common perception and offers us a new perspectiveon history and reality.

On the occasion of the third edition of Panorama Aquila 2023, we met Jacopo Benassi and asked him to tell us about “Rivoluzione 2023” and his recent works.

On the occasion of Brussels Gallery Weekend and the 50th anniversary of Baronian, the oldest gallery in Brussels, we interviewed artist Yann Bronder. Born in 1990 in Belgium, she studied at KASK in Ghent and holds a master’s degree in Fine Arts from LUCA in Brussels. Bronder does not work in series, she works in time slots and works on several works simultaneously. Each work is an occasion for something new, for something unprecedented. As a result, Bronder’s works are not limited to one theme or one context.

On the occasion of the eighth ‘Vetrina‘, Vino Vero presents a site-specific work by Giorgia Severi, an Italian artist working on environmental and landscape issues. Her multimedia artistic research is based on archiving endangered landscapes, including natural spaces and cultural practices. “Climax #5 Venice” poses the question whether the climax, which is the condition of maximum equilibrium and growth of an ecosystem, is not perhaps at the point of involution.

In just three years, Uzbekistan has cemented its place in the Venice Biennale, with each presentation more intriguing than the last. From the initial debut in 2021 with "Mahalla — Urban Rural Living" curated by Christ&Gantenbein, the country has maintained its presence at the Arsenale, next to the Italian Pavilion. Last year's "Dixit Algorizmi — The Garden of Knowledge" was looking at the origins of algorithms and computation, curated by Space Caviar and Sheida Ghomashchi. And this year, the pavilion promises to delve deep into archives and the future of sustainable architecture with "Unbuild Together: Archaism vs. Modernity". We sat down with Gayane Umerova, the commissioner of the Uzbekistan National Pavilion in Venice, to get a behind-the-scenes look at this year's enthralling presentation.

Luna Cenere is the young choreographer who won the 2022-2023 call for new choreographies aimed at artists under 35 by La Biennale Danza with her project "Vanishing Place." The piece made its world premiere at Teatro Piccolo Arsenale during the 17th International Festival of Contemporary Dance, "Altered States," under the artistic direction of Wayne McGregor.

The mark the beginning of The Venice Glass Week and the exhibition Bohemian Glass: The Great Masters at Le Stanze Del Vetro, on the Island of San Giorgio in Venice, we interviewed curators Caterina Tognon and Sylva Petrová. The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague and is dedicated to Bohemian glass after the Second World War, featuring the works by six major artists of contemporary glass sculpture: Václav Cigler, Vladimír Kopecký, Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, René Roubíček and Miluše Roubíčková.

Whilst in Basel, we had a chat with British artist P. Staff about the show In Ekstase at Kunsthalle Basel, which incorporates all new works in video, sculpture and installation.

As the art world descends upon Basel this week, we interviewed Elena Filipovic, director and curator of Kunsthalle Basel to find out more about the current shows on there, what's new in town and her ideal day in Basel.

To mark the beginning of Zurich Art Weekend we had a conversation with artist Shirana Shahbazi - living and working in Zurich. Her exhibition at Galerie Peter Kilchmann features all new works.

On the occasion of the opening of the exhibition of Evaporating Suns we met with the curators Munira Al Sayegh and Verena Formanek. The preface to the exhibition catalogue edited by KBH.G, poses some key questions to underline the importance of this exhibition: “does the function of myth in the Arab world differ from that in the West or the global South? Is there a common denominator, are there core stories that are generally valid and accessible beyond cultural differences?” The answer relies upon the audience, viewers are invited to suspend preconceptions and stereotypes and open themselves up to a journey through the region’s artistic production.

As exceptionally heavy rainfall in northern Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region led to a series of floods and landslides, forcing more than 40,000 from their homes and leaving museums submerged and ancient frescoes damaged, we had a conversation with Dieter Roelstraete, curator of Fondazione Prada’s latest exhibition in Venice, “Everybody Talks About the Weather”. The exhibition explores the semantics of “weather” in visual art, taking atmospheric conditions as a point of departure to investigate the emergency of climate crisis.

For the seventh edition of "Vetrina", Vino Vero presents the site-specific work “Landscape" by Fabio Roncato, we interviewed the Italian artist who currently lives and works between Milan and The Hague. In the creation of "Landscape", a mass of mud is entirely painted with enamel and then placed on a plane covered with polyurethane resin; the "movements of the earth" as they are placed on the plane are thus recorded by the breaking of the colour, which, like the earth's surface, moves and brings out tensions, trajectories and landscapes.

To mark the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, we interviewed Fosbury Architecture, the collective behind the Italian Pavilion this year. We spoke to all five members about “Spaziale - Everyone Belongs to Everyone Else”. In its breadth, the project is founded on Fosbury Architecture's vision that Architecture is a research practice beyond the construction of buildings, “space” is understood as a physical and symbolic place, a geographical area and abstract dimension, a system of known references and territory of possibilities.

"Fulgur" the second solo exhibition of the artist Matilde Sambo presented in the spaces of the AA29 art project gallery after "Falsità in buona coscienza" in 2019, represents the second chapter of the trilogy "Dormiveglia". With this project in which the artist wants to explore the relationship between art, necessity and imagination in the dimension in which they merge.

To mark the opening of IN'EI, a new gallery in Venice for the art and design of China, Japan and Korea, we interviewed the artist Gao Bo, interpreter of contemporary photography and performance. The new space seeks to create new connections between Eastern Asia and Europe.

September 2021 saw the launch of "Vetrina", a cycle of contemporary art exhibitions hosted by Vino Vero Venezia in collaboration with Lightbox and curated by Mara Sartore. The curator interviewed the artist Lupo Borgonovo to talk about his artistic practice and the site-specific work "Yelloween".

To mark the 15th edition and 30th anniversary of the Sharjah Biennial, we have interviewed its curator Hoor Al Qasimi. The Emirati royal has elevated and transformed the third-largest UAE Emirate into an International Art Capital. Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present conceived by the late Okwui Enwezor, reflects upon his visionary work, which transformed contemporary art and has influenced the evolution of institutions and biennials around the world, including the Sharjah Biennial.