Category: Works

The new website of the photographer and traveller Robert Zamparo, created by Lightbox, is online together with his first virtual exhibition Metaphyisica.
www.zamparo.net

Roberto Zamparo was born in Friuli, Italy, in the province of Pordenone in 1953. He studied engineering at the University of Padova and began travelling and taking photos in the 70s. He began practising yoga in 1985. In 2003, he met the teacher Chogyal Namkhai Norbu and went on to become part of the International Dzogchen Community, which counts more than 6000 members. Today, he continues to travel and use photography as a means of creation and expression.

His artistic path can be interpreted as a metaphor for his spiritual journey as their evolution mirror one another. He has been interested in creative and conceptual photography since 1972, producing imaginary subjects and emotions with apparent realism. He has used traditional images as references to concepts and metaphors, often collected into series and sequences, such as Tao and Windows. For the series Lux, he went into great depth into the study of light, as the very subject of vision. The subsequent series entitled Evolution is focused on the abstract image, a study of the responses of the mind to visual sensations, in pursuit of direct access to the observer’s unconscious. He is currently working on the Metaphysica series, which expresses his interpretation of the essence of phenomena, exploring the Buddhist concept of emptiness, as a response to the western need for metaphysics.

In the Gallery section of the site, there is a virtual exhibition with a selection of works chosen from Metaphysica.

 

“A Room with a View” is an editorial initiative by Lightbox which aims to illuminate the positive and creative potential of time spent in isolation. Borrowing its title from the novel “A Room with a View” by Edward Morgan Forster, the project stimulates us to undertake an imaginary journey within and outside the artists’ space, to explore their views and perspective on the future from their window. We invited both Italian and international artists to share with us their experience of isolation during Covid-19. The resulting series of letters were published every week from April 8th onward on myartguides.com  exactly as we received them. This provided the opportunity to discover artists in a more intimate dimension, away from the spotlight of art events and inside their houses. At the end of the year, we felt the need to collect these contributions into the namesake book, to leave a small trace of this historic moment, a hint of what we lived through and how we reacted. The twenty artists who joined our initiative include Giorgia Severi, Matilde Sambo, Christian Fogarolli, Stefano Cagol, Ignazio Mortellaro, Giovanni Ozzola, Masbedo, Jitish Kallat, Mathilde Rosier and many more. To purchase the book, please contact us at press@lightboxgroup.net

Art Project by Christian Fogarolli

Project supported by the Italian Council (6th Edition 2019) program to promote Italian contemporary art in the world by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism

Winner of the Italian Council project (2019), Christian Fogarolli’s Pneuma focuses on the immateriality and intangibility of mental illness by analysing various geographical and cultural contexts, questioning the stigma and categorisation created by political, corporate and state systems. Fogarolli’s work is an attempt to bring to light the entire spectrum of subjectivity behind diagnoses, which otherwise risks remaining untold.


Through travels, research residencies, collaborations in ten different countries and immersion into multiple European realities, the artist conceived a project consisting of several immersive works. He has developed an exhibition path, which encompasses multimedia, environmental installation, that interacts with glass sculptures and a video piece, created in collaboration with brain research institutes such as the CIMeC – Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, Rovereto and the King’s College in London. 

The project will be presented in different places: at STATE Studio Berlin in Berlin, at MARe Museum in Bucharest, at Schwarzescafé at Löwenbräukunst in Zürich and at MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, that will finally acquire the work within its permanent collection.

A project by the City of Moscow
Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà, Venice
November 21-26, 2019
Artists: Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov, Tatyana Akhmetgalieva, Aljoscha, Margo Trushina, Kirill Garshin, Alexandra Paperno, Vadim de Grainville (Grigoryan).
Curator: Masha Sergeeva

The exhibition Constructed Situations features works by contemporary artists from Moscow. The pieces on view explore the process of human alienation from nature and address the question of our place in the global ecosystem, only parts of which we can control.
The exhibition features video works by Alexandra Paperno, Tatyana Akhmetgalieva, and Margo Trushina. Kirill Garshin presents pieces from his latest Nocturnal Animals series ranging in media from oil on canvas and watercolours to mixed media on board. Vadim de Grainville (Grigoryan) shows the series of engravings Spice Orgy, which has been recently presented at Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov creates a living sculpture while Aljoscha works on a large-scale site-specific installation using mixed media and acrylic glass.

Six Steps Forward for One Step Back November 2019 – November 2020

Volvo Studio Milano presents Art Encounters, a new format of events dedicated to the contemporary art world under the curatorial guidance of Lightbox. This first edition addresses, in particular, the topic of sustainability and engages art professionals and the public in performances, sound interventions, exhibitions, and talks. The events, six Wednesdays in all, take place from November 2019 until November 2020 at Volvo Studio Milano, a location precisely dedicated to cultural events.

The title of the programme Six Steps Forward For One Step Back underlines the intent of Art Encounters: to move as many steps forward in order to stimulate reflection around new ways of experiencing our planet and creating opportunities for the confrontation between artists, curators and the public regarding the possible relationships between art and the environment.

The multimedia project Stato Sottile by the Venetian artist Matilde Sambo is the first event to open the Art Encounters’ programme, occurring on November 27, 2019.

On January 15, 2020, the documentary film Dusk Chorus will investigate the sound artist and researcher David Monacchi‘s project Fragments of Extinction. The project will be presented by the creative agency Threes.

On the third appointment on January 29, the artists Sunmin Park, Giorgia Severi, and Giusy Pirrotta‘s video works will present their different approaches to the issue of climate change. The event will be curated in collaboration with Andrea Lerda, from Platform Green.

On February 19, 2020, the Roman artist Giovanni Vetere will be the protagonist of the performance Talk to the Fish, revolving around the aquatic element. Immersed inside a water tank, he will interact with the surrounding audience during a talk, moderated by The Orange Garden cultural collective.

The last events of the series will take place in October and November 2020: on October 14, Armin Linke will present audio and video excerpts from his recent works Blind Sensorium and Prospecting Ocean in dialogue with Lorenzo Balbi, director of MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna. Wednesday, October 21, it will be the turn of artist Andreco and art critic Angela Vettese, who will comment on images and videos from some of his works dedicated to climate change, such as Climate 04 Sea Level Rise (Venice, 2017), The Plants are Revolutionaries (Arte Fiera, Bologna, 2018), and Climate 05 – Reclaim Air and Water, Delhi (India, 2019; 8’37’’). 

Within the 15th Italian Contemporary Art Day
10th – 12th October, 2019

The Embassy of Italy in Dhaka, supported by the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation and Edge, The Foundation, in collaboration with Lightbox Venice, organised the firstItalian Contemporary Art Daysin Dhaka, from 10th till 12th of October, 2019.

As part of the programme of the 15th Italian Contemporary Art Day, this is the very first time in which this prominent celebration involved also Bangladesh, bringing together Italian and Bangladeshi artists.

Titled “The Scent of Time”and hosted at Edge, The Foundationfrom 10th to 12th of October, the exhibition featured for the first time in Dhaka four Italian artists, David Dalla Venezia, Cosima Montavoci, Andrea Morucchio, Chiara Tubia, and the curator Caterina Corni, with the Bangladeshi artists, Dilara Begum Jolly, Dhali Al Mamoon, Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Noor Ahmed Gelal.

Among the highlights of the programme, also the intervention around contemporary art by the prominent art critic and historian Abul Monsur, an art workshop by artist David Dalla Venezia at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Dhaka, artist Cosima Montavoci’s studio visit, and an off-site intervention by artist Chiara Tubia. 

The featured artists already met and worked together in Venice on the occasion of the first Majhi International Art Residency Programme, promoted by Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation, in collaboration with Lightbox, from the 20th July to the 3rd of August 2019.

The 15th Italian Contemporary Art Day is organised yearly by the Association of the Italian Museums of Contemporary Art-AMACI, in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism to introduce the general public to contemporary art.

Foam Fotografiemuseum,
Amsterdam

18th October 2019 – 19th January 2020
Exhibition opening: 17th October 2019

The exhibition “Materia Impura” presents the body of work by Lorenzo Vitturi (1980, Italy), who investigates urban changes beyond Western cities, processes of cultural mixing and their complexities, and the movement of people and goods in a globalised world.

The survey summarise ten years of research, featuring Vitturi’s earlier projects “Dalston Anatomy”, “Droste Effect”, “Debris and Other Problems” and “Money Must Be Made”. It also anticipates the first results of his ongoing new series of works, titled “Caminantes” (“walkers” in Spanish).
Retracing his father’s history, the artist travels between Peru and Italy, performing site-specific interventions in the environment. These are ephemeral sculptures made of glass and raw materials, which carry stories of local cultures and encounters; after assembling them, Vitturi photographs the resulting objects in their natural settings.

The camera documents the makeshift sculptures and interventions in the landscape, and as such, they endure. Meanwhile, their reintroduction in the exhibition space as photographic images and physical sculptures allows visitors to reflect on constant cycles of production, destruction, and recreation.

Venice, Italy
31 August, 2019

The World Premiere of the“The Dalai Lama – Scientist” occurred in Venice on August 31, 2019, in Venice, Lido, during the 76th Venice International Film Festival as a VPB Market Screening within the Venice Production Bridge. 

The new feature-length documentary film shows the 14th Dalai Lama’s unknown journey into the world of science and technology, through extensive, rare and never before seen footage. Involving different fields, from cosmology to cognitive science and neuroscience, the film traces the Dalai Lama’s commitment towards scientific research and publication, often touching the lives  of leading scientists, in fundamental and surprising ways.

The film was produced by an international team, and it was directed and written by award- winning female filmmaker, Dawn Gifford Engle. Female editor Zabe Holloway headed up the production crew.

This is the sixth film in PeaceJam Production’s award winning “Nobel Legacy Film Series”, which began six years ago with the World Premiere of Desmond Tutu’s life story, “Children of the Light”.

Venice, Italy
20 July – 11 August, 2019

The first edition of Majhi International Art Residency Programme takes place in Venice, Italy, from July 20th – August 11th, 2019.

Organised by the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation (DBF) in collaboration with Lightbox,  the Majhi International Art Residency Programme in Venice is meant to inaugurate a series of international artistic residencies. They will be promoted year round in order to create an international platform for cultural exchange between the east and the west of the world.

The 2019 edition will feature eleven international artists: Dilara Begum Jolly, Dhali Al Mamoon, Rajaul Islam (Lovelu), Noor Ahmed Gelal, Uttam Kumar Karmaker and Kamruzzaman Shadhin from Bangladesh; the Turkish/German Umut Yasat and Chiara Tubia, Cosima Montavoci, Andrea Morucchio and David Dalla Venezia from Venice. The artists will be joined by the curator Caterina Corni and the cataloguer and recorder Laura Ammann.

The artists will live and work together, in order to produce a final collective exhibition. Through their work, they will investigate the open question ““Does life in these uncertain times of crisis and turmoil, make art more interesting?” inspired by the title of the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The result of their period of residency and collaboration, will be a diffused collective exhibition, curated by Caterina Corni and set up in the historical spaces of Combo, a former convent, located just few steps away from Venice city centre. The exhibition will be open to the public from August 4-11, from 11am – 7pm.

A comprehensive catalogue will be also published with the support of the cataloguer and recorder Laura Ammann, collecting all the artists’ contribution.

The promoter of Majhi International Art Residency Programme, Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation (DBF), was initiated as a private foundation by Durjoy Rahman in 2018. Aimed to support artistic development and art practices throughout the Global South, it holds a special focus on Diaspora artists or part of European communities of migrants, to draw attention to their work in Europe. With offices in Berlin and Dhaka, the foundation promotes projects and research programmes featuring artists from these geographical regions.